It looks like maybe our parents were on to something with all those vactaion slides. According to a new study from England's Open University, looking through your personal photo album is one of the most effective ways to relax and boost your mood and overall happiness and sens of well being. The press release claims that The tests demonstrate that looking through personal photo albums produces an improvement across all measurements including a person's sense of relaxation, brightness, calmness and alertness and even their sense of being valued and popular - resulting in a higher happiness score overall.
In contrast, the pick-me-ups people commonly rely on were only successful in helping them relax: Wine by 14%, chocolate by 8%. Photo albums were proven to be a far more effective way of unwinding, with subjects recording an average relaxation score of 22% - substantially higher. So before reaching for the bottle after a hard day consider that apart from relaxation, wine and chocolate offer little additional benefits. In fact, the wine drinkers actually rated themselves as feeling 6% less satisfied after their drink.
I think maybe the wine drinkers were reaching for the wrong vintage, but even so, the results are impressive. And what about digital albums? Is part of the experience the physical piece of photo paper? The answer is no. The study was commissioned by Europen cellular provider Orange, and cameraphone pictures, it seems, are as effective as anything else. Of course, we may want to question the neutraility of the findings, but even taking the report with a generous grain of salt, I offer this advice: if you're feeling blue, think RGB.
1. What is that on top of the wall in the July 12th photo of the day?
Posted at 3:43PM on Jul 13th 2006 by George Collins