Yesterday, a coworker mentioned that I looked tired. It caught me off guard at first because physically, I felt fine. But after a few seconds, I realized that I was mentally drained, and it clearly showed.

Occasionally, I find myself spending time around a handful of negative people. Nine times out of ten, this is at work — I’m careful to avoid such situations in the real world. Unfortunately, such freedom doesn’t exist during work hours.

We’ve all been there. There will be some group of people ranting about some negative story in the news, moaning and complaining about how everything is falling apart and that our lives are going to be fucked.

I’m fairly resiliant to this background noise, I can usually shake it off. But I have my limits. And when that threshold is crossed, it’s hard to bounce back.

Those negative thoughts loop over and over in the back of the mind, and soon every minor inconvenience becomes far worse than it should be.

Even hours later, after a relaxing evening with my wife, something was still off.

As I went to sleep, remnants of this unwelcomed energy stayed with me and with it a host of strange and disturbing dreams.

The power of negative speech can have long-lasting effects, especially when such toxicity infects the mind.

Thankfully, through the restorative power of sleep, I woke up in my regular state. My energy has returned to full capacity and I feel like myself again.