Happiness Means Never Having To Remember You're Sorry

I have been in a bad mood lately. I am generally in a bad mood, but years of living with a degree of disgruntlement have so softened my perception of depression or anger that if it actually occurs to me that I am in a bad mood, the mood must be pretty damn severe. And now I am going to be in an even worse mood, because Science had to go and tell me that I won’t forget a thing.

A new study shows that your memory doesn’t work as well when you’re in a good mood.
“Other studies have found that you have more creativity when you’re in a good mood,” says the study’s lead author, Elizabeth A. Martin, a doctoral candidate at the University of Missouri. “We may have found something that a good mood is bad for.”

Martin’s study, in which volunteers were shown either the stand up comedy of Jerry Seinfeld or a how-to video about flooring — they seem like equally torturous choices — revealed that those who saw the Seinfeld clip, and were thus somehow happier at the end of it, probably because it was over, were much better able to recall a series of numbers than the floor-watchers. But why?

Martin has a theory: “The same thing that makes us more creative at these times — our tendency to focus on many things rather than just one — may be what makes it hard to remember, she says. Put simply, we’re just a bit more scattered when we’re in a good mood.”

GREAT. If there’s something important you want to tell me, today’s probably the day. Although, the way things are going, the whole week looks full of potential. Grr.

Photo by Bob Cox Photography, from Flickr.