A Positive Mood Enhances Creativity

People who watch funny videos on the internet at work aren't necessarily wasting time. They may be taking advantage of the latest psychological science -- putting themselves in a good mood so they can think more creatively.

"Generally, positive mood has been found to enhance creative problem solving and flexible yet careful thinking," says Ruby Nadler, a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario. She and colleagues Rahel Rabi and John Paul Minda carried out a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. For this study, Nadler and her colleagues looked at a particular kind of learning that is improved by creative thinking.

Students who took part in the study were put into different moods and then given a category learning task to do (they learned to classify sets of pictures with visually complex patterns). The researchers manipulated mood with help from music clips and video clips; first, they tried several out to find out what made people happiest and saddest. The happiest music was a peppy Mozart piece, and the happiest video was of a laughing baby. The researchers then used these in the experiment, along with sad music and video (a piece of music from Schindler's List and a news report about an earthquake) and a piece of music and a video that didn't affect mood. After listening to the music and watching the video, people had to try to learn to recognize a pattern.

Happy volunteers were better at learning a rule to classify the patterns than sad or neutral volunteers. "If you have a project where you want to think innovatively, or you have a problem to carefully consider, being in a positive mood can help you to do that," Nadler says. And music is an easy way to get into a good mood. Everyone has a different type of music that works for them—don't feel like you have to switch to Mozart, she says.

Nadler also thinks this may be a reason why people like to watch funny videos at work. "I think people are unconsciously trying to put themselves in a positive mood"—so that apparent time-wasting may actually be good news for employers.

http://phys.org/print211636245.html/

Words Can Change Your Brain

Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can change your brain.
That’s right.

According to Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman, words can literally change your brain.

In their book, Words Can Change Your Brain, they write: “a single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress.”

Positive words, such as “peace” and “love,” can alter the expression of genes, strengthening areas in our frontal lobes and promoting the brain’s cognitive functioning. They propel the motivational centers of the brain into action, according to the authors, and build resiliency.

Conversely, hostile language can disrupt specific genes that play a key part in the production of neurochemicals that protect us from stress. Humans are hardwired to worry — part of our primal brains protecting us from threats to our survival — so our thoughts naturally go here first.

However, a single negative word can increase the activity in our amygdala (the fear center of the brain). This releases dozens of stress-producing hormones and neurotransmitters, which in turn interrupts our brains’ functioning. (This is especially with regard to logic, reason, and language.) “Angry words send alarm messages through the brain, and they partially shut down the logic-and-reasoning centers located in the frontal lobes,” write Newberg and Waldman.

According to the authors, using the right words can transform our reality:

By holding a positive and optimistic [word] in your mind, you stimulate frontal lobe activity. This area includes specific language centers that connect directly to the motor cortex responsible for moving you into action. And as our research has shown, the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain. Functions in the parietal lobe start to change, which changes your perception of yourself and the people you interact with. A positive view of yourself will bias you toward seeing the good in others, whereas a negative self-image will include you toward suspicion and doubt. Over time the structure of your thalamus will also change in response to your conscious words, thoughts, and feelings, and we believe that the thalamic changes affect the way in which you perceive reality.

By THERESE J. BORCHARD

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/11/30/words-can-change-your-brain/

http://psychcentral.com/blog/

Does Positivity Lead to a Longer Life?

What's the Latest Development?

Scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have found that an individual's personality plays a strong role in determining how long he or she will live. In a study of over 500 Ashkenazi Jews over the age of 95, and 700 of their offspring, scientists paid particular attention to the group's 243 centenarians. They found that most had an outgoing, optimistic, and easygoing attitude. "They considered laughter an important part of life and had a large social network. They expressed emotions openly rather than bottling them up." Ashkenazi, or Eastern European, Jews were chosen for the study due to their genetically homogeneous makeup, allowing scientists to spot genetic differences within the study's population.

What's the Big Idea?

Previous studies have suggested that personality traits, positive and negative, have their roots in our genes, and that those genes may directly affect our health. Scientists behind the Einstein study were surprised to find positive personality characteristics associated with increased longevity, since a gristly attitude might be more suited to weathering life's bumps. "When I started working with centenarians, I thought we'd find that they survived so long in part because they were mean and ornery," said Nir Barzilai, M.D., director of the Einstein's Institute for Aging Research.  Still, personalities can change over time, leaving researchers to wonder if longevity is a cause or a result of old age.

By: Orion Jones

From: http://bigthink.com/