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Studies have shown that people who think of break time as a “waste of time” are more associated with depression, anxiety, and stress.
Different people have different ways to relax. Some people spend intellectual time reading, and others prefer to do physical activities like hiking. Also, some people spend a relaxing time watching movies or playing games.
Although each of these ways of relaxing is different, the common important part is the attitude toward relaxation. According to previous studies, the better you spend your break time, the better your mental and physical health, the better your happiness, and the power to return to society.
Conversely, according to a new study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, those who think of relaxation as a “waste of time” or believe that it is an “unproductive time” did not fully enjoy the break and even showed a deeper connection with various emotional disorders.
The research team recently recruited 302 people who enjoyed Halloween. And five questions were asked to determine how much fun activities such as parties, eating out, and visiting haunted houses were, and whether they thought this time was a waste of time.
As a result of the answer analysis, the more people who answered that time such as participation in parties was wasteful and unproductive, the more they did not enjoy this time properly.
In the second experiment, the study was conducted based on more routine breaks. The same questions as the first experiment were asked about the break time spent in daily life, such as spending time with friends, watching TV, and meditation, and the participants’ happiness, depression, anxiety, and stress levels were measured.
As a result, as in the previous experiment, those who believed that their break time was a waste of time did not enjoy leisure properly. In addition, happiness, depression, anxiety, and stress were more severe, which could cause emotional and physical well-being to decrease, the research team explained.
In the last experiment, the research team conducted an experiment showing participants an article published in the New York Times. This is not actually an article in the New York Times, but fake news created by a research team. Participants in the experiment were divided into four teams, each reading an article saying that rest is a waste of time, rest is an unproductive time, rest is a productive time, and a coffee machine unrelated to this. The research team then showed interesting cat videos and evaluated how much fun it was to watch the videos.
As a result, people who read articles that rest was wasteful or unproductive time were less pleased to watch cat videos than those in other groups. In other words, it means that when the research team induced the participants to think that resting was a waste of time, they did not actually enjoy their leisure time properly.
The research team explained that the more negative the evaluation of rest, the more important it is to spend the rest, but what perspective it sees as rest also affects the quality of rest. In addition, he explained that it is important to rest properly when resting in that you can spend other days well.