Mood Congruent Memory: Examples, Definition And Everything You Need To Know

The brain is a mystery, that keeps on giving us new dimensions to explore each day. Mood Congruent memory is one of those dimensions; let’s look more into it.

What is Mood Congruent Memory?

What is mood-congruent memory?

You have two memories, bad and good. When you think about good memories, your mood is good; for example, you think about one of your memorable birthdays. Your mood will lighten up and the aura will be positive. Now imagine a terrible memory of a breakup that comes into your mind and how you were manipulated into it. What would your mood be? Of course, it will be negative and a negative aura will surround you. So basically this is what mood congruent memory is.

Can You Control Your Congruent Memory?

Controlling memory

The answer for the majority of the people is a no. There are people in this world who have mastered it but it takes a lot of effort to do it. There are these things that remind you of good or bad memories. we as humans have this tendency to link the past with the things we do or see in the present. For example, I have this book and I absolutely love it but whenever I see it, it reminds me of the person in my life who couldn’t be mine and we were madly in love. Then my whole mood changes but can I stop doing that and do you think I never tried forgetting that this book is associated with her. Yes, I did but, I failed. It is not easy training your brain because the majority of humans are so busy using their brains for other things that they have lost the ability to tame it.

Occurrence of memories

Occurring memories

Memories occur at random but there are certain memories that occur more often than others. A memory of extreme happiness or extreme sadness will remain with us forever. Dread it, run from it but they will return in your life. That is how life the human brain of the majority is. Congruent memory links these memories of the extreme level with your mood. You must have seen people who are doing okay but suddenly gloom surrounds them and they are lost in another world, unknown to us. This pattern with some people occur again and again after that memory is fresh in their mind but with time this memory is dug deep inside your brain but resurrects after a certain trigger.

How to stop memories from controlling your emotions?

Make them stop!

The answer is simple, identify the triggers. In my earlier example, the book is the trigger that reminds me of her as it was very sacred to us both. I have put that book away from myself, in the basement of my house and I don’t see it very often but as it is a popular book thus it pops up on the internet and the atmosphere around me turn depressing when this happens but you have to hide these triggers from yourself as I did.

How Can Mood Congruent Memory be used to your advantage?

Advantage!

Mood congruent memory can be used to your advantage by putting positive triggers in front of you. For example, you have an exam tomorrow and you are losing your shit, dig deep into your memory and find a trigger that can be placed to motivate you. I have this keyboard that I always use for my assignments for University because it gives me a positive trigger as it is my companion since day one of my content writing journeys. It makes the air positive around me.

The Rosey Retrospect

An interesting phenomenon

It is one of the most remarkable phenomena which tells us how we distort our own past and based on cognition or lack of data we automatically assume what we have today is not as good as what we had in the past. This runs parallel with the congruent memory, it just makes us sad even if we have a fond memory of something. For example, you had the PlayStation 2 with you in the past but now you own a PlayStation 5, even though the latest version of the video gaming console is far better but your brain prefers the latter than the former. This causes an aura of dissatisfaction to build up around you.

Mood Congruent Memory: 5 Ways To Improve Your Mood

5 ways to improve your mood

We have taught you about why you have sudden gloom now it is time to introduce you to ways of improving your mood.

1. Consume more coffee

Coffee is seen by many people as a mood lifter. Around the globe, a lot of people depend on it as their morning drug but did you likely didn’t know that coffee has the ability to improve your mood by blocking the chemicals in the brain that make your mood worse.

2. Chewing gum

A task as simple as chewing gum can improve your mood, as it reduces anxiety, regulates your salivary cholesterol levels, and make you more alert. You can also chew gum while doing things that make you happy and when you are going into a bad phase, take the gum and start chewing it. This will trick your brain into thinking you are doing your favorite hobby.

3. Scent of fresh grass

The smell of fresh grass is scientifically proven to improve your mood as it releases a chemical tricking your mind to become happy.

4. Talk to someone

There are many people around us whom we don’t like to talk to but if we come out of this shell and try to understand everyone around us and see their perspective on life we might learn a lot. I always believed that talking to the people whom you call friends was important but since I started talking to strangers and tried seeing their perspective on life, I saw that I am being ungrateful and I have suffered very little then they have undergone in life.

5. Sad songs

Sometimes we are numb and we are not sure how we are feeling. Our emotions are not in our control and this phase is what I call, caged emotions. Listening to sad songs can make these emotions come out and release a burden.

Conclusion

Life is tough and memories cage us but once you learn how to control them, then your interpretation of life changes. Learning the importance of mood congruent memory and how to act in the right manner after this, can change your whole life.

Article Updated with More Memory Congrunet Related Information!

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