Science: Studies find World Surf League’s “Wall of Positive Noise” leads to depression and possible death!

"The tyranny of prescriptive joy."

I have, unfortunately, not watched one minute of this year’s Quiksilver Pro France. The time difference between California and France’s western front is unwieldy and I haven’t mustered the necessary internal fortitude. I thought this lack of professional surf watching was going to make me sad and maybe sick but, oddly, the opposite has occurred. I wake up each morning healthier and heartier than the night before. Happier. There’s an undeniable spring in my step.

I didn’t correlate the two, not watching surfing and my improved state of being, but I should have for a new series of studies declare that the “tyranny of prescriptive joy” including, but not limited to the World Surf League’s “Wall of Positive Noise™” is actually depressing and possibly killing us.

And we must turn to Forge, a publication about personal development, for more on what is being called “toxic positivity.”

But that relentless focus on positivity — what Kate Bowler, a Duke Divinity School professor and former cancer patient, described in her memoir Everything Happens for a Reason as “the tyranny of prescriptive joy” — isn’t just ineffective. Research has shown that it’s actually harmful.

One 2012 study found that encouraging people to push away their negative emotions often has the opposite effect, making them feel bad about feeling bad, in addition to whatever else they were already going through. A 2005 study found that relentlessly focusing on the positive during times of stress — what the authors call “avoidance coping” — increased the risk of depressive symptoms later on. And there are plenty of other examples out there pointing to the same conclusion: Forced positivity often leaves us worse off.

It can eat away at relationships, too. “Seeking out people who bring ‘positive vibes only’ will ensure shallow bonds,” says Cleveland-based therapist Karly Hoffman King, whose work focuses on trauma. Instead, the relationship becomes a performance of happiness. Difficult conversations, moments of vulnerability — all off the table. “People are left to deal with their feelings alone instead of seeking support,” says King. “Offering up toxic positivity like ‘look on the bright side’ or ‘it could be worse!’ often just makes the other person feel invalidated, creating a wedge between the two of you.”

In her work counseling cancer patients, Los Angeles-based health psychologist Stephanie Davidson often encounters family members who maintain a facade of positivity so extreme that the patient feels they can’t discuss their fear or the losses they’re experiencing. “Feelings that we don’t like are not the enemy, and there’s no research that says acknowledging those feelings will make medical conditions worse,” Davidson says. “However, there is research that says that those who are not able to get support from those around them tend to do worse.”

On and on and on the piece goes, detailing the horrors of life behind the Wall of Positive Noise. The pain and suffering. The illness and death and it got me thinking. Now, I know I’ve been all down on “suing” and “lawsuits” lately but what if we brought a class action against Santa Monica? I think, if forced to listen to one heat featuring Joe Turpel and the ’89 World Champ Martin Potter any judge or jury would agree that we have been poisoned.

Did you read about the billions of dollars Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, is coughing up in settlements?

I imagine we’d be looking at something like that.

So?

Are you in?