OK, so it may not come as a surprise that hanging out with people who whinge and complain all the time isn’t good for your spiritual or mental wellbeing. But it turns out that all that negativity has a physical effect on the brain’s ‘muscle’ – and can make you dumb!

This article in Inc, Listening to complainers is bad for your brain, quotes a book by Trevor Blake, entrepreneur and author of Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life, which looks at how neuroscientists have measured the impact of complaining on the brain. It can apparently make you negative too  – even if you listen to it on TV or radio.

Blake says: “Typically, people who are complaining don’t want a solution; they just want you to join in the indignity of the whole thing.”

Time to tell them to sort themselves out, remove yourself from the situation – or, as he suggests, imagine you’re surrounding yourself in a protective ‘bubble’ or escaping to a secluded beach. Keep practising that technique, and it’ll keep you calm and free from negative infiltration.