Up all night worrying instead of getting lucky? Don’t worry, you might just be smart. Or keep worrying, you might be smart. Whichever.
A study published in Personality and Individual Differences has found that people who worry a lot may have high levels of verbal intelligence. 126 students took a series of surveys and questionnaires that measured their intelligence and how often they worried about things in their lives. After crunching the numbers, researchers found a correlation between verbal intelligence and the tendency to worry about things.
According to researchers:
“It is possible that more verbally intelligent individuals are able to consider past and future events in greater detail, leading to more intense rumination and worry. Individuals with higher non-verbal intelligence may be stronger at processing the non-verbal signals from individuals they interact with in the moment, leading to a decreased need to re-process past social encounters.”
Translation: people with high verbal intelligence spend a lot of time rehashing memories, looking for detail. People better at picking up non-verbal cues (we think this means women) just do it in the moment.
And if you happen to be one of those people who spend a lot of time worrying, try some mindfulness meditation. Hey, can’t hurt, right?
Photo courtesy of flickr.
