Let Go

Every week, The Happiness Lab explores one science-backed idea that can make everyday life a little happier. Read it. Try it. Experience it.

Think of something that's been circling in your mind.

A conversation you keep replaying.

Something you wish you'd done differently.

A worry that keeps coming back.

A mistake you can't quite stop revisiting.

Sometimes we hold on because we're trying to find an answer.

Sometimes because we want to understand.

Sometimes because we'd simply rather not feel what we're feeling.

So we push the thought away.

Argue with it.

Try to solve it one more time.

And yet there it is again.

Which raises an interesting question:

What if letting go isn't about getting rid of a thought or feeling, but changing how tightly we hold it?

This week, we'll explore what psychology has discovered about struggling with our thoughts, getting caught in mental loops, and loosening our grip.

🔬What Science Discovered

Psychologist Steven C. Hayes and colleagues developed Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, around an idea that sounds almost upside down at first.

Difficult thoughts and feelings don't necessarily need to disappear before we can move forward.

ACT focuses instead on psychological flexibility: our ability to experience thoughts and emotions without having to avoid, suppress or obey them, while still choosing actions that matter to us.

Research across many studies has linked greater psychological flexibility with better psychological functioning.

That doesn't mean simply accepting everything that happens to us.

And it doesn't mean liking difficult feelings.

It means something subtler:

A thought can be there without having to run the whole show.

Another line of research helps explain why this matters.

Psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema spent decades studying rumination.

Rumination is what happens when our minds repeatedly return to distress, its causes and its consequences.

Why did this happen?

Why do I feel this way?

What if I'd done something differently?

Thinking about a problem can of course be useful.

But repeatedly circling the same territory isn't necessarily the same as solving it.

Research has associated persistent rumination with greater vulnerability to depression and anxiety, more negative thinking and difficulties with problem solving.

Sometimes the mind isn't finding a way out.

It's walking the same path again.

And there is another grip we can loosen.

Research on self-compassion, including work by Kristin Neff and subsequent studies, suggests that responding to ourselves with less harsh self-criticism can make a difference too.

We don't have to pretend a mistake didn't happen.

We don't have to declare everything wonderful.

But perhaps we don't need to keep punishing ourselves for it either.

Letting go may sometimes mean letting go of the fight, not the feeling.

🌍What This Means in Everyday Life

You don't need to become someone who never worries.

You don't need to stop having difficult thoughts.

And you definitely don't need to become wonderfully serene about everything. 😎

Instead, notice when you're holding something very tightly.

A thought you keep revisiting.

A conversation you're still rewriting in your head.

Something you think you should have done differently.

An uncomfortable feeling you'd really like to evict.

Then try a small shift.

Instead of:

How do I get rid of this?

try:

Can this be here without me solving it right now?

Perhaps the thought stays.

Perhaps the feeling stays.

Perhaps it comes back five minutes later.

That's useful information too.

The goal isn't to make everything disappear. It's to discover whether you need to keep holding it quite so tightly.