If you follow me, you know that I love to devour the latest tidbits from psychology experts; and apply them to work and life! Here are a few I recently liked! All pertain to advice on navigating your daily life, with enhanced “place of mind”. I hope you find them helpful!
1. Bounce back from a snub.
Perhaps a friend excluded you from a get-together without explanation. Or maybe it was a workplace meeting. Why weren’t you in on it? Research says to reach out and hold someone’s hand! If appropriate, get a hug! Scientific Reports conducted a study where subjects were randomly shunned during a game, then exposed to different types of touch from strangers, ranging from a quick brush to a kind caress. Those who received affectionate touches reported less emotional distress than their counterparts, as the gesture bolstered their sense of connectedness and belonging.
2. Push through a midday slump.
It’s the middle of a busy day at work, and you’ve been multitasking what feels like a dozen things. The last thing you feel you should do is whip out your phone for a game, a chat, or review of the latest events. But according to the scientific journal, Human Factors, it may exactly what you should do. After working on a computer, subjects in their study took a five-minute break to do nothing, perform a relaxation exercise, or play a digital game. The findings showed that only the gamers had an uptick in mood and concentration, as their minds were reenergized by the activity’s stimulating content.
3. Sharpen your social smarts.
When you’re wrestling to understand how a friend or co-worker is feeling after she comes to you for support (Angry? Disappointed? Anxious?), concentrate less on her facial expressions and more on listening to her tone and word choice. When a Yale University scientist analyzed more than 1,800 conversations, he found that those who focused on what they heard (the speaker’s emotional inflection and phrasing) pinned down feelings more accurately than those who focused on what they saw (body language). Why? Our face can mask our feelings but listening attentively eliminates misleading distractions from the relevant or important issues.
4. Sometimes it’s not about collaboration.
Sometimes when you need to make a tough decision, it’s better to rely on your instincts rather than asking others. When scientists at the University of Essex in England asked people to answer a question with little data to go on, those who worked in groups made 50 percent more mistakes than people who worked alone. The investigators explain that conflicting ideas and interpretations caused people to doubt their gut, leading to second-guessing, overthinking, analysis paralysis, more inaccuracies, and overall stress.
5. Spur your creativity.
Writing about your dreams – especially those that don’t make sense – can boost your inventiveness in waking life, say researchers reporting in the Journal of Creative Behavior. They tested subjects’ creativity, then tracked them for about a month as the subjects maintained a daily log of their dreams or memorable happenings from the prior day. Follow-up scores on the creativity test revealed a rise in imaginative thinking for dream diarists but not their counterparts. Why? The researchers explain revisiting nonsensical dream imagery loosens people’s thinking, allowing them to more readily think outside the box and make new associations.
Do you have ideas to ease daily “place of mind”? I always love to hear from you. Please comment below.
