Having a sunny disposition is as beneficial to your health, in terms of the number of years you clock up, as not smoking. Since so much of your life is spent working, it doesn鈥檛 take a rocket scientist to realise that being happy in your job is pretty important. Over a series of articles, New 杏吧原创 digs deep into the science of happiness to show you how to become a more satisfied, and ultimately more successful, scientist.
Streeeesssssed?!*&^%
鈥淰ery few people, especially in academia, live a stress-free existence,鈥� says Rebecca Shansky, a psychologist at Northeastern University in Boston. This may seem like a no-brainer but if you are pulling your hair out with stress, take note: it may be transforming your brain. Shansky should know 鈥� she has spent the last decade analysing how stress affects rat brains.
Shansky has found that prolonged stress causes the connection between neurons in the prefrontal cortex to change length. In humans, 鈥渢he prefrontal cortex governs higher cognitive functions like concentration and organisation鈥�, she explains, 鈥渁nd stress-related structural changes could lead to impairments in these functions.鈥� What鈥檚 more, as we endure more stress, brain regions that control emotion will begin to guide behaviour over those that govern reason.
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Then again, stress can push us to excel, and so actually increase our happiness, says Phillip Clifford of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Some people, including many scientists, enjoy intense environments where they are challenged with exciting problems that are difficult but not impossible to solve, says Stuart Sidle at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. Mental pressures can 鈥渆nergise our performance鈥�, he says, but there is always a limit to what we can take before we break. 鈥淲e like to be aroused, but not to the point where we are going to throw up [from the stress].鈥�
If you enjoy pushing yourself to the extreme, by taking on huge workloads, for example, it is important to recognise that stress will ultimately get the better of you, says Clifford. 鈥淚f it continues day-in, day-out, for years, it doesn鈥檛 produce positive adaptations.鈥�
The remedy to stress is simple. 鈥淭o stay sane, take a step back,鈥� advises Shansky. A break is important not just for our psychological health but for our physical health as well. According to her animal studies, if you can have a period of rest and recovery after periods of stress, the neuroanatomical changes will reverse.
鈥淏eing 鈥榦n鈥� all the time is not helpful for anyone, certainly not for scientists, for whom creativity is so important,鈥� says Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches psychology at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. 鈥淲e need to recharge our psychological batteries.鈥� Use downtime to 鈥渃onsciously take stock of what鈥檚 in your life besides your career鈥�, says Clifford. 鈥淥ur life is a puzzle and our career is only one piece of it.鈥�
Is There an Upside to Feeling Down?
Being happy in and outside of work makes us more productive, but is there ever a time when too much happiness is a bad thing? 鈥淭here are case studies that seem to show that paradox,鈥� says sociologist Brendan Burchell of the University of Cambridge. For instance, Joe Forgas at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, found that after giving students positive feedback, they tended to behave more selfishly than those who had received bad feedback. Being grumpy, it seems, might turn people into better team players.
In another study, Forgas found that people who were in a bad mood were more attentive and made fewer mistakes in cognitive tasks. He also found that negative people were more sceptical and less gullible than their upbeat peers, suggesting there is an upside to feeling down after all.
What about the idea that happy people might get complacent if they feel too content at work? According to Cary Cooper, professor of organisational health at Lancaster University, that鈥檚 unlikely to happen, because those who enjoy their working environment won鈥檛 want to let their colleagues down. He certainly isn鈥檛 convinced that misery is the way forward in the workplace: 鈥淒oes too much contentment mean people don鈥檛 push themselves? If that鈥檚 the case, we haven鈥檛 got there yet.鈥�