The Upside of Feeling Bad

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/smarter-living/the-upside-of-feeling-bad.html?action=click&module=Briefings&pgtype=Homepage Being in a funk isn’t always all bad. Image Feeling bad can increase our ability to communicate strategically and our likelihood to avoid errors in judgment, according to pair of studies.CreditCreditNeil Hall/EPA, via Shutterstock By Tim Herrera Nov. 5, 2018 Welcome to the Smarter Living newsletter! Every Monday, S.L. editor Tim Herrera emails readers with tips and advice for living a better, more fulfilling life. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. We all know that age-old wisdom: Trust your gut. But what if your gut is too happy to be trusted? Yes, it sounds silly. But there’s a surprisingly large body of research that extols the cognitive and social benefits of being in a bad mood. A 2006 study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology tested subjects on their ability to detect a lie. Subjects who were put in a negative mood by watching a short film about dying of cancer were far more likely to detect lies than subjects who were put in a good mood by watching a clip from a comedy show. The conclusion? Being in a bad mood “increased judges’ skepticism toward the targets and improved their accuracy in detecting deceptive communications, while judges in a positive mood were more trusting and gullible.” Please disable your ad blocker Advertising helps fund Times journalism. In other words — and, really, this is kind of a bummer — you’re a better human lie detector when you’re not happy. [Like what you’re reading? Sign up here for the Smarter Living newsletter to get stories like this (and much more!) delivered straight to your inbox every Monday morning.] You have 1 free article remaining. Subscribe to The Times It doesn’t end there. Feeling happy can decrease, and feeling bad can increase, our accuracy as eyewitnesses, our ability to communicate strategically (like when we’re trying to persuade), and our likelihood to avoid errors in judgment, according to pair of studies, one of which found that happiness can even blind us to the fact that we have these emotion-induced impairments. So why is it that feeling bad can be so good? Blame evolution. “There is a good reason that human beings evolved the ability to experience negative emotions: In measured amounts, they protect us from harm and help us to be successful,” according to Psychology Today. It added, “Ancient humans who were capable of experiencing suspicion, fear, anxiety and even anger would have been less likely to place themselves in harmful situations or would have been better able to navigate their way out of them than those not susceptible to these feelings.” The lesson here, friends, is this: The way to improve your life is always feeling bad. Kidding! But what this research does mean is that you should be aware of your emotions and feelings — and how they’re influencing you — when making big decisions or having important conversations. Keep in mind that you could be more susceptible to deception if you’re feeling happy.