How not to catch a bad mood

GOOD HEALTH & WELLBEING MAGAZINE

Just like a cold or virus, you can ‘catch’ someone’s ill temper. Trudie McConnochie tells how it happens – and how to protect yourself.

You felt okay when you left for work this morning, but by the time you got home you felt completely drained – and it’s not just the usual tiredness. It feels like you’ve been totally depleted of life force. You’re grumpy as hell, too – snapping at your kids, picking a fight with your partner for no reason... and now they’ve all become stroppy in turn. Ugh! Everything was going fine today until your workmate cornered you to whinge about her ex-husband and did the usual rant about demanding clients. And then there was that late-afternoon meeting where your manager painted a grim outlook for the next quarter, leaving you feeling on edge...

If this scenario sounds familiar, you’ve likely experienced what scientists call ‘mood contagion’ – a phenomena where emotions are transferred between people. The idea that emotions can spread had already been proven in multiple studies, but in the past few years researchers from the University of Tennessee in the US have shown that mood contagion is intensified in a group setting – which is why one negative or challenging person at work can lower the mood of the entire team.

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