Fast help for the blues
by Miki Saxon
And you thought that ‘think fast’ was what you did if you got caught doing something you shouldn’t.
Turns out it’s a little mental trick you can use to change a mild case of the blues into a rainbow of colors.
If you’re in a mild holiday funk, try writing down all your gripes in 60 seconds. Or read aloud Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” [the rest of the year try Green Eggs and Ham or Cat in the Hat] as quickly as possible.
You’ll feel better, say a team of psychologists who found that fast thinking doesn’t just get you out of a jam; it actually can make you happier, more energetic, more creative, more powerful and more self-assured.
Fast thinking has been linked to mood in clinical cases of mania. So Princeton University’s Emily Pronin and Daniel Wegener of Harvard studied what might be called “mania light”: the racing thoughts that all healthy people experience at some point by doing things such as brainstorming or learning about a new and exciting concept.
Using the equivalent of a streaming news “crawl,” the text that scrolls by at the bottom of the television screen, the researchers found that people felt better when the statements were read at a faster pace, regardless of content. Even thinking sad thoughts at a rapid pace made people relatively happy, according to the article published in Psychological Science.
Thought-speed manipulations might be useful if you’re feeling tired or downcast and also might help treat depression, which is characterized by slow thinking, the researchers said.
To do it at your desk, think quickly, but pick topics that aren’t too challenging. Solve an easy crossword. List as many cities as you can think of in 60 seconds. Or brainstorm names for that restaurant you want to open.
If that fails, sprint down the hallway or drop to the floor and do 10 push-ups. Exercise is a terrific mood enhancer.
How cool is that?
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