Bizarrely, it seems unlikely but chatting shit with your mate could be the new health kick to get into in the new year…
Apparently, new research has shown that having a bit of a bitch about your mates, colleagues, neighbour or someone you follow on Facebook, is actually really good for your health, according to uproxx
Prior to this, we were all labouring under the popular belief that we should leave ‘small-minded’ gossip to those who aren’t as intelligent as us and instead engage in high brow and ‘meaningful’ conversations.
Well, that may be the case, but judging by this new research, discussing quantum physics or modern art is not the way forward for a happy and healthier lifestyle.
Instead, the study champions the good old fashioned bitch, which strangely has a whole array of health benefits.
New data revealed by the University of Pavia has shown that when we have ‘proper’ conversations with people and start sharing our private thoughts and feelings about others – more often than not, in a negative way – our happiness hormones start to climb.
So this means that having a bit of a dig at your mate’s new haircut, girlfriend or ugly baby will actually send your oxytocin levels into overdrive, which is why we continue to do so, because it feels just so damn good.
Lead author of the research Dr Natascia Brondino explained how their unusual research came about.
She said:
I work as a psychiatrist and I noticed that every time my colleagues and I gossiped, we felt closer together. I started to wonder whether there was a biochemical cause for this feeling of closeness.
So, to find out the reasons for these strange increased levels of happiness, Natascia collected 22 female students and split them into two groups.
She then sent actors into each group to tell a different story, with one gossiping about an unplanned pregnancy on campus and another about an emotional account of a sports injury.
Interestingly, the results showed that while the stress levels were reduced in both groups, the ones that got stuck into chatting about the pregnancy, experienced a definite increase in oxytocin.
Apparently, the scientist derived two very important purposes of gossip from her study.
The first being it allows friends to talk about things they’re actually interested in and not just skim along the superficial surface, despite what the content of conversation might be…
And the second is that it supposedly helps a person figure out who they can and can’t trust. Interesting.
It certainly makes me feel a whole lot less guilty about having a good old chin wag about Facebook friends’ failings in life…
