Think fast and be happy
A new study suggests that thinking quickly can boost your mood. It's not clear precisely why this is the case, but it seems that people believe that fast thinking is a sign of a good mood. Also, thinking quickly might trigger the brain's dopamine system which is tied to pleasure. From Scientific American Mind:
Researchers at Princeton and Harvard universities made research participants think quickly by having them generate as many problem-solving ideas (even bad ones) as possible
in 10 minutes, read a series of ideas on a computer screen at a brisk pace or watch an I Love Lucy video clip on fast-forward. Other participants performed similar tasks at a relaxed speed."Rapid Thinking Makes People Happy"
Results suggested that thinking fast made participants feel more elated, creative and, to a lesser degree, energetic and powerful. Activities that promote fast thinking, then, such as whipping through an easy crossword puzzle or brain-storming quickly about an idea, can boost energy and mood, says psychologist Emily Pronin, the study’s lead author.
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It seems to me that fast thinking could just as easily spiral into depression quite quickly. Could these results stem from the kind of activities rather than the speed? How hard is it to feel good watching I Love Lucy?
isn't your brain having to work fast just a distraction from what might be depressing you? Assuming "happiness" is the "normal" brain state in the first place?
Did anyone catch any practical suggestions for thinking fast? I mean I don't have access to I Love Lucy episodes that are fast forwarded.
So... Could ADD be a subconscious defense mechanism?
Hmmm...it never made me happy when someone yelled "Think fast!" and whipped a rubber ball at me. Or doesn't this apply to junior high hazing rituals.
In an experiment with no control group and a sample size of around 80 people.
Psychologists crank out these results by the zillions. Most of them are poorly run as well as poorly constructed, and based on the results from previous crappy experiments.
TOM CRUISE WAS RIGHT! PSYCHOLOGY IS THE DEBBIL!!
I find it very hard to feel good watching I Love Lucy. It's one of the earliest examples of American Comedy Shows that aren't Funny.
Not sure I'm an advocate of fast thinking... when attacking a problem I use the Think Laterally approach, seeking out all possible solutions, evaluate them, then when I believe I have the best solution, I'll think vertically, and iron out the details.
Call me a weirdo, but I like to be hungry at work. I believe that when we're hungry, our senses are keenest and we are most alert and focused. When your belly is full, you have achieved success for the day, and your instincts and senses ease into standard mode.
I can't prove it, but it works for me.
If you have to try to be happy then your doing it wrong.
Isn’t this the premise behind “smart” drugs? The kind usually prescribed for ADD? I think O2 works well, along with caffeine.
This explains so much for me.
I now understand why all through school I procrastinated with my assignments until the last minute, pulling them out in minimum time. I was always in an incredible mood after completing a paper, but only when I did it quickly, and under pressure (weather imposed by a professor's deadline or my own imagined one).
Still at work I do the same thing. When my boss asks for something before the end of the day Friday, and it's 2 days worth of work, I don't start on it until Friday morning, burning through as hard as I can (energy drinks help). In the end, there's most often a high quality product, and I feel incredible.
I think I need to go write now...
Listen to Yakety Sax on repeat all day long and experience complete elation.
Brain Workshop tends to cheer me up, even when I do "badly". It's not particularly easy (at least at first; and in its default setting, it auto-adjusts to keep you struggling), but it does put the pressure on you: http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net/
It also (supposedly) has a permanent positive effect on "fluid intelligence" which is supposed to be more-or-less what you can't increase by rote study.
(I might have found out about this from boingboing, so my apologies if it's redundant.)
"If you want to turn tragedy into comedy, speed it up." -- Eugène Ionesco
I have it! Shackle the depressed to a wall by neck-collar and leash and fire paint balls at them at high speed. A hour or so of high speed dancing and they should be happy as hell! Or will be when you stop.
I think ADD could be a reaction to a state of understimulation. The brain is sort of overcompensating for what's missing in the environment. Kind of like when the immune system goes haywire in an allergic reaction...?
And my parents used to say that video games would rot my brain...
Oh, and I have no doubt that quick thinking releases the feel good chemicals in the brain.
On the other hand, there is a state of driven depression that involves very quick but very negative thinking that releases... I don't know what.... but I don't think its dopamine. More like adrenaline mixed with bile. Lovely, I know.
Sounds like self-induced hypomania to me. In regards to comments on ADHD, it's not so much a problem with understimulation as a problem with inhibiting behaviour, commonly believed to be because of low levels of the inhibitory neurotransmitter dopamine in frontal and possible basal ganglia brain regions. You probably would experience similar abilities for quick thinking if you did ingest the most commonly used medical treatment for ADHD - methylphenidate (Ritalin) which is an amphetamine. Ritalin works the same way in ADHD people and in non-ADHD people - increases the ability to focus attention.
It's not the quick thinking, but the fact that you have more chances to think of something good. Or maybe it's the ego strokes for being clever. Context is everything.
#9, there could be a link. I'm a naughty ephedrine user and think faster and am happier when on the drug: thoughts have speed and clarity and precision (I'll work a "hard gemlike flame" in here somewhere). Chicken and egg, somewhat.
This study does sound like it's more about distraction than fast thinking.
However, I do get depressed if it takes me forever to decide what to do in a given block of time, and I'm more likely to not make up my mind if I'm depressed.
Are they sure the test subjects are thinking?
I am faster at answering questions, solving problems, and fighting if I don't think.
Hmm, there may be a semantic problem here.
Its not the fast thinking that makes you happy. It is concentration and full disregard of the rest of the universe (i.e., Flow) that makes you happy. Increasing speed is just a way to get to that state.
egg or chicken? does mood influence thought or does thought influence mood and how do you splice the two apart from each other?
Ironically, if we want to live forever me may have to learn to think very, very slowly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson%27s_eternal_intelligence
maybe this is why i subconsciously wait for a while, then come to boingboing and binge on 10-15 stories at a time. it's like heroin!
Hmmm, bloodboiler makes a good point; fast thinking might be one step on a path.
Once things reach a certain speed, though, you must discard conscious thought in order to go any faster. Neurons are slower than arrows, yet humans can react fast enough to deflect them in the air.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBNOmcOmD1w
Look at the man's face - total concentration, but not thinking at all; complete immersion in reality.
ME THINKS YOU ARE ALL THINKING TOO MUCH, thus proving the point with your downtrodden responses
Thinking faster allows you to achieve more in the time you have left before you die forever.
Makes me happy!
@ ITO KAGEISHA: In the extras for one of the Lord of the Rings movies you can see Viggo Mortensen deflecting an arrow with his sword. Not cutting it, true, but still quite a feat.
And no, I don't think you can get to that state of situational awareness and ability to react by watching Lucy reruns at doublespeed either.
TJ S, you just said everything I was going to. I'm actually trying to break out of the last minute rush thing. I don't think it's good for my health to stay up all night and juggle two papers at once, not to mention that the novelty of "beating the night" has long ago worn off.
Still, I can't count the number of times I've literally finished a project, and am printing out the paper as I do two other morning necessities, then arrive wherever I need to be, unshaven and sleepless. I think I AM addicted to that rush despite my best efforts to start a week early. Still, if my rough draft is a finished paper (minus one or two Spellcheck induced spelling errors) that garners praise....
This is why I read BoingBoing!
@Ito Kagehisa:
>"I am faster at answering questions, solving problems, and fighting if I don't think..."
Fighting, sure, Ito, but problem solving?
If I tried to solve problems without thinking, there would be a lot more fighting.
this is why I like cocaine
@ #4, #16:
NO!
Whenever I read things like that, I can almost feel my head about to explode. These things are much more complicated that most people realise because the brain has so many different systems and they all interact with each other. I've yet to see a single, simple explanation for any disorder, and the mindset of trying to put these things down to such an explanation won't get you very far in understanding psychology or neurology.
"Also, thinking quickly might trigger the brain's dopamine system which is tied to pleasure."
Even this post is doing the same thing.
No wonder fast thinking makes you happier, because you are detaching from the reality that you had believed to be rigid and limited. Same goes with slowing everything, but that takes patience.
Being at standstill does not necessarily mean that you actually are standing till and not moving. You can live how ever you like, while being conscious of the relation between you and the reality, living in a timeless and laminar state, where everything is effortless.
Troofseeker (I love your nom de boing, by the way) it's true there are only certain classes of problem I personally can solve without conscious thought. Mostly system integration code & mechanical repair, which I have lots of experience with. Maybe all these things are stuff that I've programmed my neural net for by dint of long practice?
VIB, very interesting, I must think about that. ^^
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it's probably a little more complicated than just 'thinking fast'.
The other big trend in being sustainably happy is some form of meditation. Spinning down external demands and external stimuli and consciously and explicitly doing and thinking about less.
In my not at all expert opinion, elevating mood and finding happiness are all about riding the crest of the wave between too much and too little.
Overstimulation, overthinking and overwork are all devastating, but what we miss is that so are not ENOUGH challenges, not ENOUGH demands and not ENOUGH deadlines.
You might be 'addicted' to the 'finishing the term paper at the last minute' high, but make it 5 instead of one, and see how elated you are when you are done.
I just survived a 4 month deathclock deadline where the client broke the first one, and all the others fell like dominoes. I very nearly quit my job, and it took 3 weeks off - a few days vegetating, but then working on something else altogether to even start to unlock from that state.
Thinking fast serves the same purpose as focused meditation, to essentially break a race condition. By personality, proclivity and line of work, we all tend to end up on one end of the spectrum or the other, and whatever we do to 'feel better' probably serves to help us move - chemically, and intellectually - back to the 'crest' of that wave. Happiness is a moving target, not a static state.
As a very wise man once said, the key to happiness is everything in moderation... including excess.
OR - and it could be... just maybe - that you are high.
Taking drugs makes you think fast and be happy. Smoking pot makes me happy but that makes me think fast. Booze, I think slow when i drink booze but im a happy drunk...
Is it the thinking that's making you happy or the drugs?
\Drugs arent bad - takem if you like.
Pronin's work was also reported in 2007:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20071118-000005.html