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

Today I read an article about studies in England, France and the US, which show that your posture might have an effect on your emotions.

Straighten your spine, throw your shoulders back and hold your chin up and according to these studies, you will feel much better about yourself.

The reason could be that neurons involved in sensations, motor functions, and emotional memories are interconnected, and therefore just adopting a certain posture could activate the emotions that normally go with it. An alternate explanation is that someone with posture and facial expression associated with positive mood, optimism, and confidence evokes positive responses from people around him/her. These positive responses now could in turn improve the mood of the first person.

Whatever the reason is, demonstrate confidence and optimism at all times. Even if you are just putting on an act, you might end up believing yourself – and this wouldn’t be bad, would it?

Christiane is a Life & Career Coach in Massachusetts. In addition, she teaches psychology at a Community College.  Her email is ten.u4hcaocnull@enaitsirhc .

Children bring much joy to your life. Are you sure? Think again! According to Daniel Gilbert, Harvard university psychology professor, having children has a negative effect on marital satisfaction. It’s an illusion that children increase people’s happiness.

Gilbert , author of the book ‘Stumbling on happiness’ based his statement during a happiness conference in May in Sydney, Australia on several studies that are quoted in most developmental psychology textbooks: Many couples experience a dip in their marital satisfaction after the birth of their first child. Particularly at risk are those couples who married after a relatively short courtship, are not settled in their partnership yet and get a baby soon after marriage. If couples postpone having children until their careers are under way, work on their financial stability and further concentrate on building up a sense of “we-ness” , their marital satisfaction will be more resilient against the challenges of raising children.

The deepest point in marital satisfaction often comes when the kids enter adolescence. Having a grumpy and moody teenager at home puts a strain on parents’ happiness. Marital satisfaction returns when the kids leave for college.

What Gilbert didn’t say, or it was not reported by the media, is that later in life grown children and their kids, so the grandkids, become a main source for the mental well-being of the elderly. A study by Karen Fingerman showed that the majority of “relationships between parents and their adult children improve as parents transition to old age”….”Generally, there was a feeling on both sides that this was as good as the relationship had been, and both sides felt appreciated and nurtured.” (Karen Fingerman on Purdue University, http://www.purdue.edu/uns/x/2007b/071126FingermanAge.html )