In honor of Monday being over, here's news that might make you happy (but hopefully won't?):
Melancholy might just help you hit peak performance, reports Joseph Forgas, a professor of psychology at the University of New South Wales, in the journal Australasian Science. Forgas reviewed several of his studies in which researchers induced either a good or bad mood in volunteers. Each study found that people in a bad mood performed tasks better than those in a good mood. Grumpy people paid closer attention to details, showed less gullibility, were less prone to errors of judgment and formed higher-quality, persuasive arguments than their happy counterparts.
Many of us probably can recall instances negative of emotions boosting mental performance. But what about the other factors that allow you to work well, such as motivation and focus. For example, if you're feeling negative about work, you're probably not going to be motivated to do it. And if you're feeling negative about something other than work, you're probably going to be distracted. And chronic negative feelings about work are apparently deadly too.
So, on balance, it's surely better to remain a Jedi and avoid the dark side.