What does deep sea diving and your mood have in common?
In the 1970’s an experiment was conducted whereby divers were given a set of words to remember under water and a different set of words to remember on land. Two completely different environments but the same system of learning a set of words. What the researchers found was that when divers memorized words under water, were better recalled under water and those that were learnt on land were better recalled on land. This highlights that our memory is best accessed through the context and environment we learn it in. We can recall material better in the actual room the content that it was taught in as opposed to a different environment.
Only in the last few years has this study become especially important again, due to its application towards mental health. Recently enough academics confirmed that “mood” can be seen as a context. This means that when we are happy we tend to remember happy situations, happy activities, and positive behaviours, however when we are in a bad mood our mind remembers unhappy situations, unpleasant activities and unproductive behaviours In other words, our mood can bring up the associated thinking patterns of that frame of mind. If we recall the divers again, they recalled the words learnt underwater better than words learnt on land, when they were in the sea. Equally we tend to bring up past pains, hindrances, and injustices when we are in a low mood, we recall the context from our previous bad moods. What this means is that previous bad moods are brought forward and suddenly become relevant again. Past grievances bubble up and beckon to be played out. Have you ever been in a bad mood and you notice that some things bother you, whereas before the same thing did not? This is the contextual learning coming into play, like the divers better recalling words memorised under water when they were underwater, the same thing happens with our mood we recall negative things when we are in a negative head space.
The best way to think about this research is to understand that our emotion is like a big magnet that pulls either the negative or the positive towards us depending on the emotional state. If you are in a negative place, you may very well be prone to thinking, acting, behaving in a negative way and perceiving situations negatively. If we dwell on our negative mood it creates gravitas and snowballs into a longer and worse headspace.
Better ways to manage
There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that mindfulness and focus on the present moment is the best practice to get out of this frame of mind or depressive state. Beginning the habit of not associating your thoughts with you as a person is a real benefit, a thought is something that you have is not something that you are. Therefore if we have a thought that “I am a bad person” I may tend to believe that I am a bad person. But if we observe thoughts as just figments of our imagination we may develop the skill of not associating our thoughts to our personality. This is not a sales pitch for mindfulness, it’s to help people get past this difficult phase in our lives by being present.
Be present, let any past thought processes go, allow any unhelpful thinking patterns slide away. Do not dwell on past negative events, its unhelpful to your current situation, it does not serve you well. Do not let the old unhelpful context take over.
Be safe be well.