Why You Seriously Need to Stop Worrying (Like, Right Now)

Krissy Brady — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 09:00:27 +0000

If you try to stop worrying and find that you suck at it, there’s a good chance you suck at remembering things too.

You know those really calm, centered people who manage to stay that way no matter the chaos going on around them? Yeah, I’m totally not one of those people. I’m part of that super-charming subsection of the population who have more neuroses than money for therapy: high strung, wound like a top, and constantly checking for anvils. Sound familiar?

And just when you thought laid-back people already have it made, a new study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York has revealed they also have a better memory than we neurotic folk. You know, not to give you something new to freak out about or anything.

Lead study author Sophia Frangou and her team measured the brain activity of 40 participants while they took a working memory test. Participants were asked to view a sequence of letters on a computer screen and point out when a current letter matched one from earlier in the sequence. Meanwhile, participants had their personality traits evaluated by completing a NEO-PI-R, which is a well-known psychology test that measures the five major personality types: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Researchers found that participants who showed high levels of neuroticism had slower neural connections—and therefore a suckier memory—than participants who were more conscientious.

“We found that people who are more neurotic, perhaps because they have the tendency to worry, were less efficient,” Frangou told the Smithsonian. On the flipside, participants who weren’t as easily distressed completed the task more quickly and with a higher rate of accuracy. (Show offs.)

For example, say you’re a train wreck (you know, like me) and you forget your grocery list. Deep down, you know you should stop worrying and take a breath—but instead, you act as if Armageddon has befallen you. There’s no way you’ll remember everything you had written down, which means your meal plan for the entire week is going to be in shambles, which means your half-assed meals are going to leave you tired and unable to focus, which means you’ll get fired, which means you’ll be so upset about getting fired you’ll get into a terrible car wreck on the way home and end up incinerated.

A chill person, on the other hand, would take all of this energy you’ve just wasted and use it toward practical things—like remembering what’s on their shopping list, cooking delicious gourmet meals on the regs, scoring a promotion, and saving a kitten from a tree on their way home to spend time with their equally-chill family. Of course, they’re so together they probably wouldn’t forget their shopping list in the first place… excuse me while I bathe with a toaster.

Even though the study was small, the links between neuroticism, conscientiousness and working memory were uber-strong. It will be interesting to see how the methodology applies on a larger scale, and how it might help the highly neurotic stop worrying so much. I only have one question: Where do I sign up?

Related on EcoSalon

How to Stop Worrying in 6 Easy Steps

Refuse to Worry (and How to Be More Useful for Your Friends)

The Real Reason You See Faces in Things

Worried woman image via Shutterstock

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The Real Reason You See Faces in Things

Krissy Brady — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 09:00:05 +0000

If you see faces in things where no one else does, congratulations! You’re neurotic. Welcome to the club. Here, have a t-shirt.

Yep, seeing faces in inanimate objects is a thing. It’s called pareidolia, and recent research from the NNT Communication Science Laboratory in Tokyo suggests people who think their electrical socket looks alarmed, their car looks happy, and their house looks suspicious, are more likely to be neurotic. Excuse me while I add this to my scroll of emotional baggage.

For the study, 166 Japanese undergrads completed questionnaires assessing their personalities and emotional tendencies. They were then asked to look at a pattern of random dots, describe the shapes they saw in the dots and draw in those shapes with a pen.

Some participants were more likely to perceive faces and other inanimate objects in the dots than others, and researchers found the greatest likelihood of experiencing pareidolia was linked to neuroticism and positive moods. And as luck would have it, women were more likely than men to see faces in the dots.

The researchers aren’t yet sure the play-by-play behind why neurotic people are more likely to see faces in things. One possibility is that since they’re more prone to negative thoughts and feelings and are less emotionally stable (gee, thanks), it puts them on higher alert for threats in their environment, so they may see faces where there aren’t any.

That said, pareidolia is also linked to good moods, which past research has linked to enhanced creativity and creative problem-solving. So it’s also possible that positive feelings expand our awareness and attention to detail, allowing us to see every object from multiple angles and possibilities. (Or so I’m telling myself.)

Though after reading this, I’m sure your going to see faces in things no matter how hard you try not to…

1. Onion or Angry Bird?

https://twitter.com/FacesPics/status/611974368420306944/photo/1

2. Fountain or Cookie Monster?

https://twitter.com/FacesPics/status/597449807515516928/photo/1

3. Tape Measure or Mr. T?

https://twitter.com/FacesPics/status/609417818984026112/photo/1

4. Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip Yip or Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope Nope?