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Checking Email as Soon as You Wake up Could be Ruining Your Day (cnbc.com) 111

Posted by msmash from the pro-tip dept.
From a CNBC report: If you're like most people, you wake up to an alarm ringing on your smartphone. Then you probably roll over and check your work email. That's a dangerous way to start the day, according to a woman who studies happiness for a living. Reading just one negative email could lead you to report having a bad day hours later, says Michelle Gielan, former national CBS News anchor. [...] Before you check your email or the news, put yourself in the right frame of mind by taking two minutes to draft a positive email to someone in your social support network. Thank a friend or family member for their support, or praise a colleague on their recent work, she suggests. After you send your upbeat email, move on to your regular routine of checking your work email or the news. That two-minute message primes your brain to see everything in a more positive light.
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Checking Email as Soon as You Wake up Could be Ruining Your Day More

Checking Email as Soon as You Wake up Could be Ruining Your Day

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  • I'm not like most people. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "If you're like most people, you wake up to an alarm ringing on your smartphone."

    1. I don't even have a "smart" phone or any phone to begin with.
    2. If I did, I would never let it wake me. I'd fucking smash it. Fuck waking up from some alarm. I wasn't put on this shitty planet to be tortured like that every day. When I wake up, I wake up.

    • Must be nice to be independently wealthy and not have to have a job you have to report to in the morning.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tsqr ( 808554 )

        I'm neither independently wealthy nor unemployed. Each night when I go to bed, I set my alarm. Each morning, I wake up 15 minutes before the alarm goes off. This has been going on for years; I can't remember the last time I was awakened by an alarm. I set the alarm "just in case", but the case never arises.

        • Similar here. I have a good job, but am not independently wealthy or any of that horse pucky (though saving like mad to get there). I rarely set an alarm, and mostly wake up before it goes off when I do.

          I prioritize going to bed at a reasonable time, and avoid alcohol and especially sugar for at least 2-3 hours before bedtime. We do a crossword before lights out to give a guaranteed 15-30 minutes of non-screen time before lights out and tend to sleep much better than when I did ipad time up to lights out

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by cyn1c77 ( 928549 )

            Similar here. I have a good job, but am not independently wealthy or any of that horse pucky (though saving like mad to get there). I rarely set an alarm, and mostly wake up before it goes off when I do.

            I prioritize going to bed at a reasonable time, and avoid alcohol and especially sugar for at least 2-3 hours before bedtime. We do a crossword before lights out to give a guaranteed 15-30 minutes of non-screen time before lights out and tend to sleep much better than when I did ipad time up to lights out.

            I have a smart phone, but choose to avoid getting hooked on it. My work would let me get email on it but they then have the right to wipe it at will if I get terminated, which is a deal breaker for me. If I REALLY am expecting something important I have a work laptop I can fire up. Mainly I use to to double check our German colleagues have not canceled a 7AM meeting before I ride my bike in.

            The 2nd level parent comment is a complainy pants and needs to start taking control of his effing life. Get a better job, go to bed earlier, or similar adjustments.

            At the risk of breaking the smarmy-fest, I find that my life experience is completely different.

            I have young children and a busy workload. I do not have time to ride a bike into work, to avoid eating 2-3 hours before bed, or to sleep more than 6 hours a night. Really, it's more like 4-5.

            So I use my phone as an alarm clock. Then, immediately after it wakes me up, I use it to deal with any timely emails while I am sitting on the toilet and waiting for the shower to warm up. I do this because I am aware th

        • I have 3 alarms set on my phone (which is one advantage over alarm clocks) - at 6, 7 and 8am. When the 6am alarm sounds, I hit the snooze button, when the 7am sounds, I wake up. The 8am alarm is there as a backup, just in case. During the summer, I don't need it much, but as it gets colder, I do

        • Once in a while I'm woken by my alarm - actually my wife's alarm - but it's not a damn smartphone. It's one of those Philips daylight-simulating alarm clocks that comes on very dim about twenty minutes before the set time, and gradually brightens. Then the alarm sound (she has it set to birdsong, which is fine by me; I don't need some ghastly shrill electronic beeping waking me, thanks) starts at the set time, and again starts off quiet and gradually gets louder.

          The alarm rarely wakes us in the summer month

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 )

        or the balls to refuse to do work until you arrive at work.
        My work cellphone is off until I arrive at the office and it is turned off the second I leave the parking lot.
        they keep wanting my personal phone number and I refuse to give it to them, they can have the Voip number for home that always goes straight to voicemail.
        Worked great for the past 5 years and is working great after my last promotion this past september with the new executives I report to.

        • Person I replied to said they wake up whenever they wake up, implying they dont HAVE to arrive at the office at any particular time at all, not just that they wait until they get there to start work. You're talking about different things.

        • or the balls to refuse to do work until you arrive at work. My work cellphone is off until I arrive at the office and it is turned off the second I leave the parking lot. they keep wanting my personal phone number and I refuse to give it to them, they can have the Voip number for home that always goes straight to voicemail. Worked great for the past 5 years and is working great after my last promotion this past september with the new executives I report to.

          People work differently according to their needs. It has nothing to do with balls.

          For me, I typically wake up between 3:30AM and 4AM. First functional thing I to VPN to work, check my e-mail and my calendar, and set up a to-do list. Anything of urgency that I did not reply on the day before, I reply there. 30 minutes to an hour and I've already knocked the shit out of some things that need doing.

          ** BTW, I don't buy what this lady is saying, that bad news early in the morning can ruin my day. Or, actuall

          • Re: I'm not like most people. (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Americans and their idea of a work day... Weird. Sure 9-5 doesn't always work because shit happens. But if shit happens so often that you have a routine to make sure you work more than 9 to 5 every day then something is wrong. Getting up at 4 to do at least an hour of work and being in the office before 8 should mean you leave work way before 5 not 5 to 5:20 on average.

    • Do you not own a television [theonion.com] as well?

    • I use my Lumia for the alarm. It has a pretty good alarm ringtone. Incidentally, the iPhone has a bedtime feature in its clock app - wonder whether anyone uses that to tell them when to hit the sack?

  • Starting a day with a first post really helps.

  • And if I did have time for it (and to maintain a 'social support network', whatever the fuck that is, in the first place) a few work emails first thing in the morning wouldn't be enough to bring me down.

    I check work email first thing when I wake up hoping to see confirmation that I am not already half a day's work behind schedule. If I just didn't check it, I would instead just be constantly worried that I probably was until I got to my desk and THEN maybe found out I wasn't.

    • For what it is worth, this has been widely reported for years. I decided to try to put myself in a positive frame of mind before checking email-- not the social support network BS, but some kind of happy thought. Once you get in the mode of being overwhelmed for the day, it is hard to recover.

      However, since early morning is one of my most productive times usually, I do need to get moving quickly. (And sadly, I do often turn to /. to give me something other than news to wake me up.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by djinn6 ( 1868030 )
        I usually spend my morning organizing my thoughts, reading email and noting down what I need to do for the day. It makes it easier to prioritize my work and punt on things that aren't important. Once I see the list of what I need to do for the day, I feel like I'm back in control.
        • Look into the impacts of long-term scheduled overtime to see where that will end. The first time I heard this discourse it was in front of a few hundred hourly employees telling them not to do it because it will cause burnout. I know exactly what the feeling of getting in control of your day feels like, and if you can control more than 75% of your outcomes, it might end up working. Otherwise, it will just end up causing undue stress.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Easy there tough guy... All they are saying is have your coffee before checking your email and it will improve your quality of life.

      From your tone it sounds like you could use it.

      • Yes i could certainly use the time to get coffee before work in the morning unfortunately I don't have it so straight to email it is.

    • "Social support network" = "friends"

      • who has time for friends i don't even have time to spend on myself by the time work is through i'm not wasting my precious time on anyone else

    • Re:Ain't nobody got time for that (Score:4, Insightful)

      by lgw ( 121541 ) on Friday December 30, 2016 @03:00PM (#53580255) Journal

      I don't have work email on my phone. Never will.

      I usually don't check work email in any way if I'm not in the office - the major exception being when I'm oncall. But even when I'm oncall, no work email on my phone, that way madness lies.

      It can wait.

      • I fully agree w/ this. If my employer wants to call me outside regular hours, they need to provide me a cellphone. I'll use it exclusively for work, and IT can decide what apps are on there.

      • I usually don't check work email in any way if I'm not in the office - the major exception being when I'm oncall. But even when I'm oncall, no work email on my phone, that way madness lies. It can wait.

        It can, at least for most people. But while I've happily gone a week or so at a time not reading my work email, even on vacation I often like to check it every day or two, just to see if anything interesting is happening.

        But then most of my work boils down to interesting intellectual problems, so checking email is more like playing a game than suffering through a meeting. (Though come to think of it, most of my meetings are pretty productive too.)

    • I check work email first thing when I wake up hoping to see confirmation that I am not already half a day's work behind schedule.

      Offhand, I'd say that 'not already half a day's work behind schedule' would count as happy news. I usually check my subject lines and if I read anything it's either important or something I think I'll enjoy reading while getting ready for the day.

      • Yeah, IF ther isn't already a pile of work queued up overnight or before I even got to my desk in the morning that's good new, but it's the panicked thought that there likely is all that which drives me to check my email first thing I wake up in the desperate hope that it might not be and I can stop freaking out about it.

  • If you don't do exactly as I say, you will have 7 years of bad luck. To avoid this bad luck you must do the following: Spend 2 minutes every morning writing a positive email to one of your contacts before checking your email. Then send that email along with a copy of this email to your contacts. This is the only way you can avoid the bad luck.

  • Why limit to just after waking up? "Reading just one negative email could lead you to report having a bad day hours later" says the article. But why would that be different in the morning compared to any time of the day? If the reaction is "those fucking incompetent bastards!" on a regular basis then it doesn't matter if it's in the morning or not. You still want to rent a chainsaw from the tool hire shop and go pay them a visit.

    One bad email once in a while is OK. I find that once in a blue moon early morn

  • I guess I'm weird (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I don't have my work email account on my cell phone. I don't check it until I get to work.
    Oh, and I don't use an alarm on my phone. I still have the same clock radio I used in high school in the '80s. With an onion on my belt, or something.

  • correction.. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    reading work-related emails while NOT AT WORK, could be ruining your day.

    • F'ing A!!!!!

      I was asked yesterday if I wanted to telework today. My answer was a resounding "No!" I'd rather take the time to come in to the office than contaminate my home with work BS. And I sure as hell am not going to even so much as think about work while I am not on the clock. I'm not checking email, voice mail, messaging apps, or even answering the phone if the number recognizably comes from my office.

      When I wake up in the morning to an alarm I start getting ready for work and my main thought pattern

  • When the alarm goes off on my iPad 2 at 4:30AM, it's an WW2 air raid siren that I turn off immediately. When the clock alarm goes off at 5:00AM, it's an annoying beeping that I turn off immediately and roll out of bed. I'm checking email and reading The Wall Street Journal after I get on the express bus at 6:00AM. I start work at 7:00AM.

  • If you're like most people....... (Score:5, Funny)

    by julian67 ( 1022593 ) on Friday December 30, 2016 @01:35PM (#53579629)

    "If you're like most people, you wake up to an alarm ringing on your smartphone. "

    If you're like most people over 45 you wake up because of the horribly urgent pressure on your bladder. Several times a night. The you wake up in a cold fearful sweat two minutes before your alarm is due because you're thinking about utility bills or the joy of family life. So you never actually hear an alarm, despite waking up feeling desperate and alarmed multiple times every morning.

    At least that's what they tell me.

    • If you're like most people over 45 you wake up because of the horribly urgent pressure on your bladder. Several times a night. The you wake up in a cold fearful sweat two minutes before your alarm is due because you're thinking about utility bills or the joy of family life. So you never actually hear an alarm, despite waking up feeling desperate and alarmed multiple times every morning.

      At least that's what they tell me.

      I find your comment to be disturbingly accurate.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by arth1 ( 260657 )

        If you're like most people over 45 you wake up because of the horribly urgent pressure on your bladder. Several times a night.

        Really? I'm way past that age, but can't say that has ever happened to me. I may wake up hungry or thirsty sometimes, but never due to my bladder.

        • So what you're saying is that the Depends work better than the rubber sheets did. Thanks for the feedback, but I think I'll stick to walking to the bathroom and letting the dog outside instead.

        • Whether you do or not Depends.

          • Great minds think alike. Maybe he's one of those old farts who takes a half viagra before going to the bathroom to keep from pissing on his shoes :-) Bada-BOOM!

            Seriously though, I don't see why people who crap in bed don't just get a colostomy instead of a diaper. Cheaper, you won't have to wait for someone to change you in a residence (you can wait up to two hours or more at night, so while the load in your pants might keep you warm, it's still gross), much easier to clean up, much less accident prone, no

        • I may wake up hungry or thirsty sometimes, but never due to my bladder.

          Interestingly (at least to me), I've found that since my mid-40s I do go to the bathroom more often during the night, but (based on volume expressed) I really didn't need to. I think I just wake part of the way up, then start thinking that maybe I need to go, and finally get up so I'll stop thinking about it.

          I suspect it's mostly social conditioning, in other words. I've been told so many times that older people need to urinate more often, and when I'm half-awake my critical faculties are diminished, and so

    • today is my day off, in theory. woke up when i'm supposed to for work anyway and panicked checked work email to make sure they actually are giving me a day off and not just backlogging a day's work for me while i'm already off.

      • Oh and fwiw it is a special holiday day off not my regular weekend schedule, and they were in fact queueing up work for me to do anyway.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      It's true and it started before I turned 40! :(

    • "If you're like most people, you wake up to an alarm ringing on your smartphone. "

      If you're like most people over 45 you wake up because of the horribly urgent pressure on your bladder. Several times a night.

      That's not most people over 45, just people who don't manage their late night fluid intake, and guys with prostate problems. Better get that checked.

  • Have we reached peak participation trophy yet? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TuballoyThunder ( 534063 ) on Friday December 30, 2016 @01:39PM (#53579663)
    The stupid factor in the article is so high, that I feel like I wasted gravity just reading it.

    The same goes with reading stressful or negative news, according to a study Gielan conducted with Arianna Huffington and her husband, happiness researcher and author Shawn Achor.

    Society pays for a "happiness researcher"?

    • Re:Have we reached peak participation trophy yet? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday December 30, 2016 @03:11PM (#53580341)

      Society pays for a "happiness researcher"?

      Of course, and really why wouldn't it? Happiness is a positive contributor to many positive aspects of society, efficiency, spending (GDP by extension), throw in that happy people tend to put up with more bullshit. It is one of the things that is well worth studying as it has a major cost on society if the people aren't happy.

    • Society pays for a "happiness researcher"?

      They have special reservations on the B Arc.

    • The stupid factor in the article is so high, that I feel like I wasted gravity just reading it.

      The same goes with reading stressful or negative news, according to a study Gielan conducted with Arianna Huffington and her husband, happiness researcher and author Shawn Achor.

      Society pays for a "happiness researcher"?

      I was thinking the same. Bad news will be bad news regardless when one reads an e-mail or not. I rather get a grasp of whatever shit needs grasping early on instead of postponing it.

      This lady is suggesting some sort of procrastination as a means to happiness.

  • I was given a smallish book years ago entitled, "365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life". Basically, the book is a memoir of a guy who after two divorces and a failing business received a thank you letter. He then realized how rarely in his entire life he ever had been thanked. So he choose to start writing a thank you letter to someone else every day, and it transformed his internal worldview for the better, as well as his external life and interactions with people.

    Basical

    • Actually, that reminds me of the opposite.

      What do many of us do every morning? We check Reddit or some other news aggregator. We want to feel "informed" about the world. But the news is almost universally bad. "Good news" doesn't make it and even many uplifting stories start as horrifically sad ones that turned out "okay."

      Think about the elections. It's been proven that people get sadder during the elections (regardless of what side). It's full of negativity.

      Well, this study would suggest it's a very bad th

    • Being happy (or in generally in a good mood) is a conscious decision--coming across bad news should not change that decision. If I made a decision to not eat chocolate and I see a tray of chocolates, I should not change my mind just because I saw the tray.

      The reason why I argue the article is stupid is that it encourages a superficial state of happiness. Her solution is akin to a quick weight-loss diet being the solution for a healthy lifestyle. It may help for a little bit, but it will not last. Decide

  • I try very hard not to look at email, Facebook or the news until I've had a chance to wake up, get the kids out of bed and get ready for the day. Working for a global company in systems integration, most of the first emails in the morning are from India or other countries far ahead of us timezone-wise, and they're almost never good news. My first few morning messages from the last week have been similar to:
    - Yet another broken code release failed in production and they're throwing it back over the wall to t

  • "you are welcome to my lawn"
  • Washing down a 5 hour energy with a mocha, or letting the first dumb coworker or customer "motivate" you?

  • Nope. I wake sans an alarm, 05:00 near every day. Get up, turn on the coffee and feed the kats. Then sit and write about yesterday or surf a little bit. Emails can wait, Nothing is more important than a bit of serenity first thing. The kits usually want a little lovin'. No comparison between the outside world and soft, purring warmth early in the morning.

    1/2 hr, 40 minutes in, then I can face the world. Bring it on!!

  • "who studies happiness for a living"

    I mean, the existence of this field of study pretty much ruined it for me.

  • And? (Score:2)

    by Jack9 ( 11421 )

    > Checking Email as Soon as You Wake up Could be Ruining Your Day

    So what? Seriously, so what? I don't avoid crossing the street because vehicles exist. I don't live in a persistent state of fear and obsessive need to constantly be happy about everything. I am not a delicate snowflake here.

  • Who among us doesn't like to wake up and see what fresh horrors have been foisted upon us while we slumbered?

    Oh, wait, that would be me. I never check email until after coffee, a bagel, and a bowl of sweet, sweet crack.

  • If you work from home, the only reason to get up is to check your work emails.

    • Exactly this. I have an alarm to wake me enough to check work email to see if i actually need to be awake yet or can go back to sleep again.

  • Why? (Score:2)

    by hackel ( 10452 )

    Why would anyone check their work email from home? That's insane. I don't work unless I'm *at* work, outside of an emergency. Why anyone would willingly incorporate this into their routine is beyond me.

  • I'm sure this will attract lots of sarcastic comments, but: for decades (centuries, for all I know, but I'm not *that* old) many varieties of Christianity have recommended starting the day with prayer and Bible reading. Getting into a good mood isn't the purpose, but it is a common effect. Two terms often used for this are "quiet time" and "devotionals" (or "devotions"--ok, I can't count...).

  • I cant believe that something so insubstantial gets a sheen of credibility.
  • Start your day with a great piece of ass! It usually glues a smile on MY face!

    Being a guy (which you likely already guessed), I usually wake up with that classic boner.
    If mother nature didn't want me to use it, then she would have not had me aroused. (Thanks, Mom-Nature.)

    SEE! It all fits! Mother Nature (i.e. a female figure) arouses males of the species in the morning so as to satisfy those likenesses she created!
    This also makes my female partner happy as well!
    How could anyone argue with that? Who a

  • I sync neither my gmail account nor my company email on my employer-provided phone. It also helps that the phone is usually downstairs charging overnight and not on my bedside table (within easy reach, so to speak).

  • What? (Score:1)

    by ( 4621901 )

    People check Email as soon as they wake up?

    No one goes to bathroom as soon as they wake up anymore?

    No wonder their day is ruined.

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