Eat, drink Think fast and be Merry?
Okay. It’s 2:15 on the second full day of training. The trainees are antsy. Your jokes are flat-lining. People are getting Carpel Tunnel from checking their watches. You are desperate to change the mood. NO PROBLEMO!!!! Just make everybody think fast about something!
Scientific American Mind reports on six studies conducted at Harvard and Princeton that all agree: When people are required to think quickly about something, their activation level goes up and their mood becomes more positive. See how fast you can Find Waldo. Better still, see how fast you can find him with a timer ticking irritatingly in the background. Get this: Watching clips of I Love Lucy in fast forward also did the trick. Same thing with, “First one to name six dog breeds that start with the letter N wins a dollar.” Whatever. You can change the classroom dynamic in just a matter of minutes.
However, there is one big caveat. Fast and varied thinking causes elation. Fast and repetitive thinking triggers anxiety and depression and saps energy. Thinking the same thoughts over and over and over – that’s neurotic – not a good way to improve mood. And people with bi-polar disorder can become pedal-to-the-medal-manic if required to think fast. Their minds “race” (thus the pedal metaphor) and may not stop when the exercise is over.
So, to be on the safe side, get people to think fast but vary the kind of thinking involved and don’t let the exercise last more than 8-10 minutes and they’ll be fine. And, so will you.
Original references for any studies, books or articles cited by the Brain and Behavior Blogger can be obtained by contact with his very dear friend, Dr. Rob Snyder (r.snyder@tier1performance.com), an organizational psychologist with a severe neuroscience-research reading habit.
