There’s a Bright Side to Being a ‘Debbie Downer’

Summary: A mixed set of daily activities can prompt both positive and negative activities, but that’s not a bad thing, researchers say.

Source: The Journal of Gerontology.

New research shows that keeping oneself busy with a variety of activities can instigate both positive and negative emotions, and some of the relationships depend on the individual’s age.

The researchers reviewed data collected on nearly 3,000 middle-aged participants, who were considered relatively healthy and well-educated, enrolled in the Midlife in the United States Study. They found that individuals who were regularly involved in a broad range of daily activities experienced diverse emotional experiences, both positive and negative, with those between ages 33-44 experiencing more diverse positive emotions in comparison to those between ages 68-84.

The study examined the amount of time individuals spent participating in these seven activities: paid work, family time, chores, leisure, physical activities, formal volunteering and helping someone outside of their household, such as a neighbor or any random stranger. Participants kept record of their activities for eight consecutive days, along with their experience of positive and negative emotions, which were used to calculate emodiversity scores.

Emodiversity is a term used to express rich and balanced emotions. Emodiversity has been broken into 13 positive emotions: cheerful, in good spirits, satisfied, extremely happy, calm and peaceful, attentive proud, enthusiastic, active, full of life, close to others, belonging and confident, as well as 14 negative emotions: worthlessness, nervous, restless or fidgety, afraid, lonely, jittery, irritable, ashamed, upset, angry, hopeless, frustrated, that everything is an effort and so sad that nothing could cheer you up.

In addition to emodiversity, previous studies have observed that being involved in a variety of activities is also associated with higher psychological well-being, better cognitive functioning and brain volume that governs memory and learning.