Curiosity is the secret to a happy life | Sunday Observer

Curiosity is the secret to a happy life

7 March, 2021

Anyone who has spent time around children knows that their young minds are powered by curiosity. The average child probably asks more questions in 10 minutes than the average adult does in 10 days. Children are curiosity personified.

But as people age, their reservoirs of curiosity tend to dry up. Studies have found that, on average, a person’s openness to new experiences and new sensations declines steadily with age. At the same time, apathy increases. While plenty of older adults buck these trends, there’s some truth to the cliché of the narrow-minded, novelty-averse fogey who rigidly adheres to his time-worn routines and opinions.

Curiosity and cognitive processes

For years, mental health researchers have noted this age-related dip in curiosity. They have also noticed that high levels of curiosity often correlate with many different measures of mental health and vigour. One 2018 paper from the journal Neuroscience and Bio behavioural Reviews found evidence that maintaining curiosity in old age is protective against cognitive and physical decline.

Compared to the incurious, older adults who score high in curiosity tend to perform better on tests of memory and general cognitive functioning. The authors of that study sated that curiosity activates brain areas that are involved in other high-level cognitive processes and over time, this increased activation could help explain some of curiosity’s brain benefits.

In people young and old, research has found that high and consistent levels of curiosity correlate with mental well-being and life satisfaction. Curious people also seem protected from depression.

The more that experts examine curiosity, the more they find evidence to suggest that it’s the secret sauce in a happy, fulfilling life. “If you take the fundamental things that people tend to want out of life — strong social relationships and happiness and accomplishing things — all of these are highly linked to curiosity,” professor of Psychology at George Mason University and author of Curious Todd Kashdan said

New knowledge or experiences

What exactly does it mean to be curious? “If you go by the typical dictionary definition, curiosity is simply a desire to seek out new knowledge or experiences,” Kashdan said. While this definition is a useful starting point, he said curiosity also involves a willingness to engage with complex, unfamiliar and challenging concepts or endeavours.

Kashdan has helped develop two widely used scientific models for measuring curiosity. The newer of these models breaks curiosity down into five different categories or “dimensions.” He terms the first of these “joyous exploration”. It hews closely to the dictionary definition of curiosity. The second and third dimensions have to do with a person’s level of focus and commitment when confronted with the uncertainties that newness breeds. “When you explore new terrain” — whether it’s an exercise class you’ve never attended or a dinner date with a new friend — “you’ll probably be exposed to feelings of stress and anxiety,” he said. While these states tend to be thought of as negative, he said curious people are not easily deterred by them. In other words, they display resilience or “grit” (to use the buzzword du jour) when exploring new concepts or scenarios.

“The fourth dimension is thrill-seeking, which is a willingness to take financial or social or personal risks in pursuit of new experiences,” he said. He said thrill-seeking could take the form of extreme sports, experimenting with psychedelics, or starting a new business venture. The fifth and final dimension is “social curiosity,” he said, which is taking an interest in other people’s views and opinions.

Happiness or fulfillment

People who score high on some or all of these five measures of curiosity almost transcend questions of happiness or fulfillment. “When you lose yourself in the exploration of things that are new and that you find interesting, you’re not stopping to ask yourself if you’re happy or depressed,” Kashdan said.

There is evidence that the relationship between curiosity and happiness is bidirectional, meaning one fuels the other. A 2019 study in the Journal of Personality found that on days when people experience positive emotions, such as happiness, they also tend to display more curiosity than on days when they aren’t happy. These sorts of findings have led some researchers to hypothesise that positive emotions may exist in part to help encourage curiosity and the fruitful exploration it encourages.

“There’s the ‘broaden and build’ theory that says positive emotions have a lot of function. One of them is to get us to engage in things we wouldn’t normally do,” said David Lydon-Staley, first author of that study and a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Curiosity can lead to new relationships, new skills, or new areas of knowledge that enrich a person’s life at many levels, he said.

Is it possible to pump up one’s levels of curiosity? Lydon-Staley’s research found that exercise seems to promote curiosity — perhaps by improving a person’s mood. The mood-elevating effects of exercise are well established.

Kashdan said having strong personal relationships also seems to feed curiosity. “Having secure attachments is like having a home base in a game of tag,” he said. “They allow people the freedom to be less inhibited and to explore.”

Aversion to the unfamiliar

But by far the best way to feed curiosity is to engage with new people, new places and new points of view. Kashdan said an aversion to the unfamiliar — or what he calls “premature closure” — stifles curiosity. But novelty, even if uncomfortable or scary at first, acts like curiosity fertiliser. “The more you interact with new experiences or information, the more you realise you don’t know, which makes further exploration more attractive,” he said.

At the same time, engaging with something new tends to drain it of its power to cause anxiety. “The highest level of anxiety you feel is always during the anticipation of something new,” he said. “Stick it out and you see that the anxiety is manageable and can even be enjoyable.”

There may be safety and security in the familiar. But there’s evidence that curiosity and the novel experiences that nourish it may pave the way toward a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

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