Category: Motivation

The common advice to ‘find your passion’ when looking for a new career, hobby or interest could be misplaced.

Passions need to be sought out rather than just stumbled upon, research suggests.

Being open to all possibilities and taking an interest in everything that comes your way could lead to a new hobby, passion or even career.

The common advice to ‘find your passion’ when looking for a new career, hobby or interest could be misplaced.

It suggests that passions are there just waiting to be discovered.

This ‘fixed mindset’ encourages people to concentrate on their existing interests.

Instead, adopting a growth mindset helps people open up to new areas of interest.

It can also make them more likely to stick at those interests despite difficulties along the way, psychologists have found.

The study’s authors write:

“A growth theory, by contrast, leads people to express greater interest in new areas, to anticipate that pursuing interests will sometimes be challenging, and to maintain greater interest when challenges arise.”

The conclusion comes from a study in which people were encouraged to read an article that either coincided with their interests or not.

People who had a fixed mindset didn’t pay much attention to the article that was outside their interests.

However, people with a growth mindset got into the article, even though it wasn’t their usual thing.

Other tests in the same study also suggested that having a growth mindset would encouraged people to push on through barriers.

Moral of the story: take an interest in everything, you might be surprised where a new passion can come from.

Dr Paul A O’Keefe, the study’s first author, said:

“Encouraging people to develop their passion can not only promote a growth theory, but also suggests that it is an active process, not passive.

A hidden positive implication of a growth theory is the expectation that pursuing one’s interests and passions will be difficult at times because people are less likely to give up on them when faced with a challenge.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (O’Keefe et al., 2018).

The key to eating healthily, reducing alcohol consumption and exercising more.

Visualisation is the psychological key to getting more exercise and improving diet, research finds.

Visualising eating healthily, reducing alcohol consumption and exercising more all help people change their behaviour.

The more people visualise the necessary behaviours, the more motivated they become to change.

Professor Martin Hagger, study co-author, said:

“There are strong links between chronic illnesses like heart disease and diabetes and behaviour, and imagery-based interventions offer an inexpensive, effective way of promoting healthy behaviours such as physical activity and healthy eating.

We found that people who simply visualised the steps necessary to do the healthy behaviour on a regular basis were more likely to be motivated, and actually do, the healthy behaviour.”

The researchers synthesised the results of 26 different studies to test the optimum circumstances for visualisation.

They revealed that imagery worked better when:

• People were given text message reminders,
• the visualisation lasted longer,
• and they had detailed instructions.

Professor Hagger said:

“Previous studies have shown that imagery interventions have been used in various contexts including enhancing athletes’ performance, flight simulation training for aircraft pilots and for symptom relief in hospital settings.

Our research shows that imagery is also effective for promoting participation in healthy behaviours.

Our findings may not only be of interest to health professionals around the world, but could be of interest and potentially implemented within other industries.”

The study was published in the journal Health Psychology (Conroy & Hagger, 2018).

Study tested how people feel 90 minutes after watching a tearjerking film.

People who watched a sad film were eventually in a better mood after watching it than they were before, a recent study found.

However, it took about 90 minutes, on average, to feel better after crying.

The research could help explain the function of crying.

Some argue that crying provides emotional relief.

And yet, when it is measured in the lab, crying makes people feel much worse.

The study showed 60 people two films known to be tearjerkers.

Their mood was measured right after watching the films, then after 20 minutes and 90 minutes.

Around half of the participants cried during the film: naturally they felt worse immediately afterwards.

The results showed, though, that after 20 minutes the criers had recovered their initial dip in mood.

It is probably this dip and then recovery that makes people feel that crying has improved their mood.

However, after another 60 minutes the criers felt even happier than they did before watching the films.

None of the mood shifts were related to how much people cried.

Asmir Gračanin, the study’s lead author, said:

“After the initial deterioration of mood following crying, it takes some time for the mood not only to recover but also to be lifted above the levels at which it had been before the emotional event.”

Talking of crying, here is another strange finding about happiness and crying:

https://www.spring.org.uk/2014/11/the-reason-overwhelming-happiness-makes-people-cry.php

The study was published in the journal Motivation and Emotion (Gračanin et al., 2016).

Watching film image from Shutterstock

The brain’s exercise motivation centre discovered and how it might help people with depression.

The area of the brain which may control the motivation to exercise — along with other rewarding activities — has been identified by a new study.

The tiny area of the brain, called the dorsal medial habenula, was found to control mice’s motivation to exercise (Turner et al., 2014).

Since the brain structure is similar in humans and mice, it is likely that the effects on motivation and the emotions are the same.

Dr. Eric Turner, the study’s lead author, suggests the research might be the first step in developing new treatments for depression:

“Changes in physical activity and the inability to enjoy rewarding or pleasurable experiences are two hallmarks of major depression.

But the brain pathways responsible for exercise motivation have not been well understood.

Now, we can seek ways to manipulate activity within this specific area of the brain without impacting the rest of the brain’s activity.”

The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, used mice whose brains were genetically engineered to block signals from the dorsal medial habenula.

When compared with regular mice, the altered mice were lethargic and even took less interest in sugary drink that normal mice would have found rewarding to drink.

Dr. Turner explained:

“Without a functioning dorsal medial habenula, the mice became couch potatoes.

They were physically capable of running but appeared unmotivated to do it.”

A second study used sophisticated laser technology to allow the mice themselves to switch on or off their dorsal medial habenula by turning a wheel.

The mice much preferred to have this small part of their brains activated, thus showing it is tied to motivation and rewarding behaviour.

While it may be a long way off, the hope is that techniques can be developed to help people who are depressed ‘switch on’ their motivation and once again find pleasure in life.

Dr. Turner, who treats people with depression, concluded:

“Working in mental health can be frustrating.

We have not made a lot of progress in developing new treatments.

I hope the more we can learn about how the brain functions the more we can help people with all kinds of mental illness.”

Image credit: Banalities