New Cure For Travelers With A Bad Attitude

Some travelers are just not happy no matter what. They can be flying to a fabulous destination they may have dreamed of for years but restricted legroom sours their mood. On a road trip planned for months, the traffic in a big city, while expected, is annoying. Now, a new study says that people can literally throw away negative thoughts.

Apparently, getting rid of negative thoughts is as easy as writing them down on a piece of paper then throwing that paper away. In kind, those who write thoughts down and save that piece of paper are more likely to use their thoughts when making judgments, a recent study shows.

“However you tag your thoughts – as trash or as worthy of protection – seems to make a difference in how you use those thoughts,” says Richard Petty, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State University in a Laboratory Equipment report.The trick to making it work either way, indicates the study, is the physical act of discarding or saving those thoughts, good or bad.

“The more convinced the person is that the thoughts are really gone, the better,” Petty says. “Just imagining that you throw them away doesn’t seem to work.”

So will writing “No legroom” on a piece of paper then throwing it away make flying coach more enjoyable? Maybe so. Another way to get rid of a bad attitude when traveling can be to laugh, on purpose, out loud. That and creating something seem to have a similar positive effect as we see in this video:




[Photo Credit- Flickr user claytonjayscott.com]