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New research shows that staying busy with a variety of activities can elicit both positive and negative emotions, and part of the relationship can depend on your age. A new study published in the “Journal of Gerontology” finds that participation in a variety of daily activities is associated with a diverse set of emotions.
“Experiencing a wide range of emotions is adaptive and beneficial for health because it means having a more balanced and nuanced assessment of daily life,” said Soomi Lee, assistant professor of aging studies at USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences. “For example, even for negative emotions, feeling intense anger across situations may mean that the individual has a narrow assessment of situations, while feeling a mixture of anger, sadness and shame may indicate a broader assessment. and more nuanced. ”
Lee reviewed data collected on nearly 3,000 middle-aged participants enrolled in the Midlife in the United States study who are considered relatively healthy and well-educated. She found that people who regularly participated in a wide range of daily activities had a variety of emotional experiences – both positive and negative – with those aged 33 to 44 experiencing more diverse positive emotions than those aged 68 to 84. years.
The study looked at the time people spent participating in seven activities: paid work, time spent with children, household chores, hobbies, physical activities, formal volunteering, and helping someone outside their home, such as a neighbor. . Participants recorded their activities for eight consecutive days, along with their positive and negative emotions, which were used to calculate emodiversity scores.
Emodiversity is a term used to describe rich and balanced emotions. Emodiversity has been broken down into 13 positive emotions: joyful, in a good mood, extremely happy, calm and peaceful, satisfied, full of life, enthusiastic, attentive, proud, active, close to others, belonging and confident, as well as 14 negative emotions: worthless, nervous, restless or agitated, desperate, scared, nervous, irritable, ashamed, upset, lonely, angry, frustrated, that everything is an effort and so sad that nothing could cheer you up.
Lee says younger people can have stronger emotions than older adults because their activities are more diverse. Many spend more time at work and with children, which tends to decrease with age. Additionally, older people may have more dull or monotonous emotions due to their wisdom or strategy to reduce the range of new social interactions in order to avoid potentially negative situations. Interestingly, total time spent participating in activities was not associated with any positive or negative emodiversity, suggesting that total activity time is not what matters, but rather an equal amount of time. is devoted to participating in a wide range of activities.
In addition to emodiversity, previous studies have shown that a greater diversity of activities is also associated with superior psychological well-being, better Cognitive functioning and brain volume that governs memory and learning.
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