How Your Mood Effects Decision-making

My wife would frequently tell our daughters, "Make good decisions." Teenagers are prone to making decisions based on momentary feelings without considering future consequences of the decision.

Your mood can also interfere with making good decisions. Typically, we tend to be optimistic, believing that we are liked by others and that the future bodes well. Depression alters our tendency to be optimistic.

Depression leads to negative predictions about the future when you don't know the outcome. For instance, if someone asks you to go to a party, you may decide not to go because you believe that you won't enjoy it. In reality, you would have to go to the party to determine whether you would enjoy it, but your prediction causes you to remain at home.

Another example would be that you are invited to a party and you decide not to go because you believe that others would not like you or, worse, you would cause others at the party to become depressed if they were exposed to you.

Negative predictions can feel safe. By making a negative prediction, you are emotionally girding yourself against being disappointed. But the party example also demonstrates a risk. If you go to the party, you may find that you have a good time, you may connect with someone and become friends...magic can happen if we interact with others. By staying home you limit the risk of disappointment, but also limit your pleasure and an opportunity to improve your mood.

Going to a party is only one, perhaps minor example of how decision-making can change when you are depressed or anxious. To check your decision-making, ask yourself the following:

• Are my beliefs about this situation supported by facts or simply represent my feelings.
• Am I able to make a prediction about a future event based on the information available to me?
• Am I making assumptions about others' thoughts about me without knowing what they are thinking?
• Am I limiting the possible outcomes this situation could produce?
• Am I accurately assessing my ability to tolerate a negative outcome?

Our lives will be more pleasurable if we take risks, connect with others and move forward toward goals for self-improvement. Don't let negative predictions diminish you future.

Things not the Source of Happiness

Happiness Study: Imagine No Possessions

United Press International 2009-02-09

Using money to achieve life experiences -- like eating out -- rather than material possessions leads to greater happiness, U.S. researchers found.

Ryan Howell of San Francisco State University said the study demonstrates experiential purchases result in increased well-being because they satisfy higher order needs, specifically the need for social connectedness and vitality -- a feeling of being alive. "Purchased experiences provide memory capital -- we don't tend to get bored of happy memories like we do with a material object."

Howell said study participants were asked to write reflections and answer questions about their recent purchases. Participants indicated that experiential purchases represented money better spent and greater happiness for both themselves and others.

The results also indicate that experiences produce more happiness regardless of the amount spent or the income of the consumer, Howell said.

The findings were presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual meeting in Tampa, Fla.

This study reminds us that we can foster happiness through a variety of experiences that do not require financial expense. Think of some activities that you could do that might benefit your mood.

Battling Depression and Anxiety

The title I have chosen for this first entry is important. It captures the two focuses of this blog. First, the focus will be on delivering information on mood disorders. More importantly, I plan to assist you in battling your mood when your mood undermines the type of life you deserve.

It is a battle, maybe it would be better to say it is a war, since it is really a series of battles. And there are many fronts to this war. You must battle your negative thinking, your lack of energy, your fears, self-forgiveness, negative predictions of the future, and the list goes on and on.

Drug company's advertisements suggest this battle can be won by taking a pill. For most, this is a vast overstatement. Instead, drug therapy is just one weapon one can use in this battle. Don't become discouraged if one weapon fails to deliver the results you want! There are many tools you can use to improve your mood.

Research suggests (and common sense confirms) that the more weapons you have in this battle, the more likely you will be to have an improved mood.