Gloat on your health! Doctors recommend

We all periodically encounter such a phenomenon as schadenfreude. The joy of someone feeling bad has always been considered a destructive emotion for the human personality. But, as it turned out, the pleasure derived from schadenfreude is beneficial and even able to get rid of depression!

Why do we get satisfaction from other people's failure? Psychologists have found that people begin to feel better from the fact that they are convinced that no one is perfect. In addition, sometimes we ourselves encourage others to gloat over ourselves in order to please someone.

For example, you can tell the company about your work, mentioning its negative aspects — an irregular schedule, a boss-a tyrant or poor labor organization. By doing this, you are reinsuring yourself from someone else's envy, and your listeners, who are in the worst conditions, will not consider you lucky, and themselves losers.

There is a case when one employee was very afraid of his boss. He couldn't help himself until one day he saw the boss speaking at a meeting with his fly unbuttoned. It was ridiculous, and besides, the situation "landed" the boss in the eyes of subordinates. They saw that he was the same person as them and could be ridiculous. "Every joke is a little revolution," Orwell once said. In fact, a trifle is enough to change your point of view on this or that event.

What does official science say about schadenfreude? It turns out that this issue has been studied for a long time, and all the necessary conclusions have been made. Schadenfreude is not a sign of depravity, but a completely normal reaction of the human psyche in certain situations.

People feel a little happier when they see that someone, even secretly, got what they deserved. Great inner satisfaction can be brought by the sight of a waiter furtively spitting into the soup of a boorish client. There have even been studies that have proven the benefits of schadenfreude.

In one of the experiments, it was noticed that children 5-6 years old were ready to part with sweets, just to see how the guilty dolls are punished. At the same time, the "disassembly" with obedient dolls was not interesting to them or caused a protest. It may seem funny to someone, but everything is serious here - adults are practically no different from children, except that they are better at controlling their emotions and are able to deceive, pretending sympathy and rejoicing inside.

It is also known that schadenfreude also benefited our distant ancestors. Schadenfreude was accompanied by laughter, which stimulated the abdominal muscles and generally helped to develop the functions of the nervous system. It cannot be ruled out that laughing at the failures of others helped ancient people to survive in very difficult conditions and at the same time progress.