From Cara Murez
HealthDay reporter
THURSDAY, Aug 26, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Having trouble deciding whether to spend an hour in the office or go for a late afternoon stroll?
Put on your walking shoes.
Making leisure time a priority is good for your mental health. For many, however, especially those who value productivity above all else, it’s a tough sell, a new study shows.
“There is a lot of research to suggest that recreation has mental health benefits and that it can make us more productive and less stressed,” said Selin Malkoc, co-author of the study. She is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Ohio State University in Columbus.
“But we find that people who start to believe that free time is wasteful end up becoming more depressed and stressed,” Malkoc said in a university press release.
For the study, researchers from Ohio State, Harvard, and Rutgers conducted a series of experiments to find out what happens when people go through life and view productivity as the ultimate goal and having fun as a waste of time.
In one, investigators asked 199 college students to rate how much they enjoyed various leisure activities, and then had them rate how happy, depressed, anxious, and stressed they were. Students were also asked how much they agree with five statements, such as “Time spent on leisure activities is often time wasted”.
The more they viewed leisure time as a waste, the less they liked leisure activities – be it something active (sport), passive (watching TV), lonely (meditating) or socializing (hanging out with friends). The researchers found that those who viewed leisure time as wasteful were less happy and depressed, more anxious and stressed out.
In another experiment, 302 volunteers were asked how they celebrated Halloween and how much they liked it. Again, those who viewed free time as a waste of time reported less enjoyment of parties and other vacation activities that they viewed as just fun.
“But those who participated in fun activities that fulfilled their responsibilities, like trick or treating with your kids, didn’t see such a drop in how much they enjoyed their Halloween,” said Gabriela Tonietto, study co-author, assistant professor of marketing at Rutgers Business School in Newark, NJ
And the negative views about leisure time influenced the enjoyment of everything that was fun – regardless of the situation or how short the leisure activity was, the results showed.
In a third study, college students were asked to watch a short, funny cat video amid other parts of an experiment. Although they were in the lab doing mostly “boring” surveys and some had read that leisure can help manage stress and increase energy, some still haven’t enjoyed the videos, the researchers said.
The experiments show that changing people’s beliefs about the value of leisure time isn’t easy, the team found.
If you view leisure as wasteful, think about how individual leisure activities can serve your long-term goals, suggested Tonietto. In other words, associate each leisure activity with something that you want to achieve.
Another co-author on the study, Rebecca Reczek, is a professor of marketing at Ohio State. She said, “If leisure can be called a productive goal, it will help people who think leisure is wasteful achieve some of the same benefits.”
And negative attitudes towards leisure time is not an exclusively American phenomenon.
“We live in a global society and there are people everywhere who are hearing the same messages about the importance of being busy and productive,” said Reczek. “And once you believe in it and internalize the message that free time is a waste, our results suggest that no matter where you live, you will be more depressed and less happy.”
The report was published online in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology on August 21.
More information
Harvard Medical School offers more about recreational activities.
SOURCE: Ohio State University, news release, Aug 23, 2021
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