Nature MadeSAM-e Complete™**

• SAM-e basics
• good mood blog
• explore SAM-e
• try SAM-e

Most Recent Posts

• Central Coast Photoblog
• Quotation Tuesday 7!
• Dance Videos for Normal People
• All Posts
  • Nature Made Lisa
  • Brigitte

Why a Good Mood is Good for Productivity

I've always felt like I get more done when I'm in a good mood. I guess it goes back to the fact that thinking positively begets more positivity. I don’t know about you, but often it feels like when I am cranky or otherwise "bent out of shape" (as my mom might say), that everything else seems to go wrong, too. Luckily, those days are pretty far between, and for the most part, my good mood days are the ones when I can get the most done. I did some research, and I found a few reasons why being in a good mood can actually help keep you more productive.

A Good Mood Helps you See the Big Picture - According to an article on WebMD, Happy People Get the Big Picture, a bad mood can keep you concentrated on the immediate task at hand, whereas a good mood can help you see the bigger picture. This comes from a series of psychological experiments designed to test subjects' ability to perform tasks while being in a good or bad mood. The good mood subjects were able to see how one task was crucial to the greater picture, and as researchers Apama Labroo, PhD and Vanessa Patrick, PhD noted:

"In contrast, a negative mood, by signaling not only danger but its imminence, might focus attention on immediate and proximal concerns and reduce the adoption of abstract future goals."

Productivity is All in Your Mind – PicktheBrain.com is a great site designed to help keep people productive by giving pointers and tips of ways you can be your most productive. In a recent article, Why Your Mood is Killing your Productivity (& What to do About it), Marelisa Fabrega explores a few ways you can maintain a positive mood in order to keep up your productivity. A few of these tips might sound familiar, but you can also check out some things you might not have heard of, like the Emotional Freedom Technique. (EFT is like acupuncture, but without the needles.)

Fabrega also recommends laughing, breathing, massage, and of course exercise to bolster a good mood. And as far as a good mood is concerned, it can equal a great frame of mind in order to GTD (get-things-done). As Marelisa puts it:

...a calm mood will put you in the ideal state of mind to be able to function in an efficient and productive manner so that you’re free to create and get through the items on your to-do list.

How does being in a good mood affect your productivity? I feel like I can get tons of work done and have time to myself if I’m in a good mood. How about you?