Prepping for Job Interviews? Killer Meetings? Scream Over Horror Movies and Laugh at Funny Flicks
By: Bean Jones
Laughter is the best speech improvement tool? If experts have it right, even funny clips such as this one are enough to enhance your verbal skills. Take a few minutes to view this wonderfully hilarious Youtube video wherein an amateur crooner sings her own version of a Mariah Carey song. See if it turns you into a verbal vituoso. If it works, imagine what a full-length funny movie could do!
If you're feeling jittery over a very important job interview or office meeting, you can make sure that you're sharp enough to cut through the killer questions by watching a horror movie. Then, move on to a laugh-a-minute flick to make sure that you'll say all the right things.
Sound bogus? I thought so, too. But now I stand corrected.
Mental Mood
As it turns out, movies featuring bogeymen and films that make you laugh are probably just as effective as a pep talk from your friends. They help get your brain in the mood for challenges.
Moods, in turn, help regulate specific tasks performed by the lateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is critical to reasoning and intelligence. "The brain is organized to process emotions along with logic," explains Dr. Richard Restak, a neuropsychiatrist and author of The Secret Life of the Brain.
Thus, it follows that the kind of mood you're in has a direct impact on your mental aptitude.
Reel Study
Restak's assertion is supported by a study done at Washington University in St. Louis.
"It's not simply that emotion 'hijacks' cognition. Emotions can either enhance or impair cognitive function. To understand how a particular emotion influences performance, you have to take into account the type of task in question," says Dr. Jeremy Gray, a co-author of the study.
Indeed, the study's results suggest that emotional states such as enjoyment and anticipation affect tasks done by the left prefrontal cortex. These tasks involve the processing of verbal cues and the regulation of positive emotions. Thus, if this part of the brain is activated then you're able to quickly and efficiently respond to any verbal inquiries. Ideally, you should also be able to digest all the concepts being presented to you.
On the other hand, negative emotions, including fear and anxiety, enhance tasks processed by the right prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for the retrieval of episodic memories of events which you consider significant like dates and details about the people you know.
In order to create situations that would put the subjects in the proper frame of mind for the study, Gray and his team asked them to view a gamut of video clips--from feel-good to anxiety-inducing ones. The subjects were then asked to do specific cognitive tasks while their brain activity was monitored through magnetic resonance imaging or MRI.
Real Life
Gray and company were surprised to find that subjects who viewed a clip from the horror flick Halloween scored 25 percent better on tests of face recognition--which is regulated by the brain's right hemisphere--than those who watched comedies. Viewing comedies, however, led to a 25 percent improvement in verbal performance.
Nevertheless, Restak advises that people must practice "mental hygiene." "Don't pay too much attention to your feelings," he says, "Don't let it get in the way of your performance."
That makes sense, right? After all, we can't just skip job interviews or ditch meetings when we don't feel like it. If anything, that should be our cue that it's time to scream over some fake bogeymen and laugh at onscreen clowns. As a popular Hollywood catchphrase goes: "The show must go on."
