During intuitive coaching sessions and lessons, I observe my clients’ and students’ intuition emerging more easily and making more sense when they are relaxed. Research supports this observation as well. Many scientific studies reveal that our intuition is more active and accurate when we are in a good mood, and less active and less accurate when we experience negative emotions.
Psychology researchers Annette Bolte, Thomas Goschke, and Julius Kuhl published a study titled “Emotion and Intuition: Effects of Positive and Negative Mood on Implicit Judgments of Semantic Coherence” in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2003. In this paper, they defined intuition as the ability to reach better-than-average conclusions through the unconscious processing of information. They tested how intuition functioned when participants were prepared in different ways, then presented with word association puzzles.
The research team showed that participants were able to intuitively find subtle associations between word groups that were only weakly linked when they were primed to be in a positive mood beforehand. The study also demonstrated that inducing a negative mood in participants had the opposite effect: their ability to find coherent links within the weakly linked word groups dropped significantly. This suggests that one of the best ways to prepare ourselves for intuition is to put ourselves in the best possible mood.
In a classic intuition research study from 1985, Urie Bronfenbrenner and Stephen J. Ceci, psychologists at Cornell University, studied the behavior of ten-year-old children. The team had participants sit in front of computer screens where geometric shapes periodically appeared. These shapes would suddenly jump to different locations on the screen. The children were told to predict where the shapes would jump next. There was a hidden pattern involving the type and color of the shapes, but it was too complicated for the children to consciously figure out. Initially, they were told this was part of their schoolwork. After several trials, the researchers found that the children had not learned the pattern intuitively by observing where the shapes jumped. However, when they were told they would get to play a game, they performed better.
In the game version of the experiment, the children caught animals with a net. The animal images followed the same pattern as the geometric shapes in the previous experiment and darted across the screen. When the task was presented as a game, the children relaxed and learned the pattern. They were able to predict where the images would jump. It seemed that when the children relaxed and approached the task as a game instead of schoolwork, they were better able to engage their intuition and unconsciously detect the pattern, and therefore catch the animals on the screen.
There has also been research on the impact of negative emotions on intuition. In a 2016 study, Carina Remmers and Johannes Michalak found that when people experience intense negative emotions—the kind that can occur at the extreme of clinical depression—intuition is markedly impaired.
We have all noticed how our attention becomes rigid and narrow when we are in a foul mood, and, in contrast, how novel solutions and creative ideas arise when we’re receptive and positive. This is intuition in action. Relaxation is an important factor in a good mood. When we’re relaxed, our minds are capable of switching from conscious thinking to intuition. As we relax and enter a playful state of mind—one in which we are not overthinking or analyzing the situation—our intuition can come forward. These are good reminders to begin thinking of our intuition as a fun game that all of us are capable of playing.
You can read more about how to activate intuition in my book Down to Earth: Demystify Intuition to Upgrade Your Life that is scheduled to be published on September 15th, 2025.
Sources:
Bolte, A., Goschke, T., & Kuhl, J. (2003). Emotion and intuition: Effects of positive and negative mood on implicit judgments of semantic coherence. Psychological Science, 14(5), 416–421.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.01456
Ceci, S. J., & Bronfenbrenner, U. (1985). "Don't forget to take the cupcakes out of the oven": Prospective memory, strategic time-monitoring, and context. Child Development, 56(1), 152–164.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1130182
Remmers, C., & Michalak, J. (2016). Losing your gut feelings. Intuition in depression. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 1291.
