Archive for March, 2008

Relating to our moods: labeling and monitoring

Moods colour our judgement. When our mood is bad, life seems grim and everyone is out to get us. Numerous studies show that a low mood causes us to judge others less favourably and to have an irrationally negative attitude towards life. Fortunately, studies also show that an awareness of our moods can mitigate this effect. If we know that we are in a bad mood, we can compensate for our negative thinking.

So it is good to be aware of our moods, but we must be careful of how we do it. There are two main styles of mood awareness. In the first, we cheerfully acknowledge our negative mood and realize that our dim outlook is probably a result of this. We ignore our grim thoughts and wait until we feel more positive. Thus, an awareness of our bad mood helps us to take our thoughts less seriously and stops us from making any rash decisions based upon them. The second style of mood awareness is less positive. Here, we tend to dwell on our mood and allow the thought “I’m in a bad mood” to keep us trapped in this state and to intensify our negative feelings. I’m sure we have all experienced this at times. These two styles of mood awareness are known as mood labeling and mood monitoring respectively (Swinkels and Guiliano, 1995). Mood labeling refers to the ability to identify and categorize one’s moods, whereas mood monitoring refers to a tendency to scrutinize and focus on one’s moods.

Although both styles involve self-awareness, mood labeling has positive results whereas mood monitoring has negative. The problem with mood monitoring is that we devote excessive attention to our state of mind, and have difficulty concentrating on other things. In other words, we dwell on our bad mood far too much. When we catch ourselves doing this, we can gently shift our style towards one of mood labeling. We want to be aware of our moods and the effect that they are having on our thinking, but we do not want to be caught up and absorbed by them. Awareness of one’s moods is good, absorption in one’s moods is not. Mood labeling is a useful tool to achieve this goal, giving us an awareness of how our moods are influencing our thinking, but without intensifying them or giving them power over us.

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Boredom and attention

Our natural reaction to boredom is to find something different to do. We look for something more exciting, more engaging. Although there are definitely times when this is appropriate, often this attitude makes our problems worse. Boredom is caused by a restless mind, a mind that is unable to stay with an activity. We live in a society where we are engaged in constant stimulation: while waiting in a supermarket queue we have magazines to browse and text messages to send, not to mention the constant chatter of thoughts in our head. The unfortunate result of this is that our minds have become so used to stimulation that they cannot tolerate its lack. Furthermore, the more we indulge these impulses for stimulation, the greater our need becomes. Therefore, despite the widely varied activities in which we now engage, boredom in society is prevalent.

How do we counter this state of mind that so easily facilitates boredom? The solution is not to go out and find new things to do, but rather to calm down and learn to focus on whatever we are already doing. We must encourage our minds to calm down and relax. We must forget the daydreams, drop the distractions, and just learn to pay attention. This may seem contradictory – isn’t the boredom of an activity precisely what stops us from paying attention in the first place? Actually, no. Although we often associate boredom with certain activities, boredom has more to do with our own state of mind. Rather than boredom causing inattention, it is our inability to concentrate on something that causes us to lose interest. This is demonstrated in the following Scientific American quote:

In one classic 1989 experiment, psychologists James Laird and Robin Damrad-Frye of Clark University discovered that very low level distraction such as a quiet television turned on in the next room led participants to describe a listening comprehension task as “boring.” Unaware of what was distracting them, the subjects could find no other explanation for their inattention. But when the TV was blaring, the subjects instead commented that the sound made it impossible to focus. Without any distraction, some students actually said that what they had heard in the comprehension exercise was stimulating. The results thus support the authors’ hypothesis that “the essential behavioral component of boredom is the struggle to maintain attention.”

Therefore, developing the ability to focus is more crucial than ever. After all, dealing with boredom is not just a mere convenience. Frequent boredom puts us at greater risk for anxiety and depression, and has an adverse effect on our work and our social interactions. In contrast, learning to pay attention helps the mind to relax and rest in the moment, directly counters the thought patterns that lead to boredom, and thus brings about a stress-free and contented life, imbued with inner peace.

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