"Positive emotions serve to bring us back to our baseline by undoing our negative feelings. Just as sweating helps cool us down to our normal temperature after exercise, happiness can restore us after a negative emotional event. In fact, happiness, like sweating, has a direct effect on our physiological arousal. Fredrickson conducted a study in which she showed short scary movies to the participants. As expected, the films were arousing, and were accompanies by reactions of fear. After screening the horror films, Fredrickson showed clips from funny, neutral, or depressing movies. Participants who saw the amusing clips returned to their baseline cardiovascular levels within twenty seconds, compared with the forty to sixty seconds their counterparts who were exposed to the neutral and negative movies required." - Ed Diener
I don't know about you, but my negative emotions run highest when I'm tired - early in the morning, right after work, or late at night. As I get older I get better at catching myself in these moods. In these situations, it's super helpful for me to blot from my mind anything stressful in nature, whether a tough project at work, a difference of opinion with a teammate, or some failure of the past. Those things frequently flutter in, and if I don't expel them immediately with dreams of retirement, an upcoming date with Dena, or a favorite song then they take root and sprout like crazy. No doubt this habit of squelching bad thoughts with good ones has saved me hours of sleeplessness, tense muscles and artery-clogging plaque!
Excuse me now, we're off to see "Freedom Writers" at the Normal Theater. Ahhhhh....
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