Who doesn’t feel occasionally down, particularly during these long and cold winter months?

Researchers at Harvard and Princeton University may now have found a simple method to get the spirits up again: Do a rapid thinking exercise, for example list quickly all kinds of uses for a paperclip, generate a variety of problem-solving-ideas or solve a soduko as quickly as you can.

The researchers found that research participants felt more elated and creative after experiments with a variety of quick thinking tasks.

I found particularly interesting the explanation that the researchs offered: For one, they believe the improved mood may be related to an increase in the neurotransmitter dopamine, which in consequence increases feelings of pleasure. But the researchers offer also a different explanation: they say, many people believe that good mood and fast thinking are related like “If I’m in a good mood, I can think fast.” Now, if I find myself in the course of the exercise thinking fast, then the reverse must be true ” If I’m thinking fast, I must be in a good mood”.

Read more on Harvard’s website

 Christiane is a Life & Career coach, psychologist and college teacher. Her website is http://coach4u.net