According to brain research
4 things you should never do when you’re in a bad mood
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bad on it? Then you should avoid the following things at the moment.
Everyone is in a bad mood and most of the time we can’t even say why. Some teens are even miserable non-stop for years, even though Mom makes them breakfast, Dad does their laundry, and all they have to do is find out who they are. Nobody knows exactly how a bad mood arises and how best to get rid of it. However, what it can “do” has already been clarified to some extent by brain research – and so we can at least avoid the worst…
Bad mood interferes with “thinking”
In his book “brain whisper” Neuroscientist Prof. Dr. Martin Korte explains very clearly and understandably how our brain is structured. Very briefly summarized: The small miracle organ in our head consists of different parts with different areas of responsibility and competencies, which mostly work together impressively, but sometimes each other One of these parts is called the “prefrontal cortex” or “frontal lobe” by brain researchers and is largely responsible for what we would call conscious thinking and analyzing – e.g., putting perceptions into words, planning the future , think about consequences …
Compared to other areas of the brain, the performance of our frontal lobe is almost ridiculous, but we still owe it almost everything we need to live (internet, heating, refrigerator, electricity …). But if we are in a bad mood, our prefrontal cortex is busy “fending off” negative feelings, as Korte puts it in a simplified way. Its performance is therefore not fully available to us.
Which in turn follows: When we’re in a bad mood, we deal with challenges for which we need our prefrontal cortex to a great extent less well than in the normal state – and should therefore, if possible and if they are important for our lives, postpone them until later, where we feel better.
examples? Examples!
4 things you should never do when you’re in a bad mood
1. Quit your job
Even if your bad mood might be related to your job, you should only make the decision to quit if your prefrontal cortex is fully sane. While other areas of the brain also play a role in making decisions, the frontal lobe is responsible for incorporating the long-term consequences into decision-making. In this respect applies for every important decision with a lasting effect: Meet him well rested, well fed and in as good a mood as possible.
2. Finally tell your girlfriend how much it annoys you that you always have to follow her
Of course, smoldering conflicts in a friendship are breeding ground for bad moods – but addressing them in a bad mood is usually counterproductive. If our frontal lobe is “impaired”, we use the wrong tone more easily, are less able to assess the effect of our words and react impulsively instead of being solution-oriented and self-confident. If you want to tear yourself up and possibly jeopardize your friendship, you can of course confidently pour out your heart out to your girlfriend with a bad mood. However, if you want to get rid of a problem, you’d better sleep on it…
3. Discuss with your partner why he’s acting like a Neanderthal around his buddies
What applies to friendship also applies to relationships: if you are in a bad mood, the probability of starting a quarrel is much higher than the chance of solving the problematic conflict in the long term…
4. Start a new (challenging) project
When we’re in a bad mood, we cope with everyday challenges less energetically, but more or less with the left hand, since we don’t store action patterns and habits in the prefrontal cortex, but in other areas of our brain (e.g. in the basal ganglia). However, if we are confronted with a completely new situation, we need our forehead flap to be 100% operational in order to cope with it in the best possible way. Sure, with some projects it’s certainly not so bad not to get off to the best possible start. However, false starts breed frustration and can lead us to abandon projects that would otherwise have given us pleasure…
Admittedly, if we think further now, we will come up with many more things that we do much worse when we are in a bad mood than when we are in a good mood. That’s why it makes so much sense to take care of ourselves and make sure that we at least feel OK as often as possible. On the other hand, there are also situations for which we don’t need our prefrontal cortex sooo urgently and in which too much thinking is sometimes even more of a hindrance. Do you already know our article about sex positions …?