I don't often get “technical” here, but today we're going to dive deep into some “science stuff” to get a better understanding of what emotions can do to our body. So let's get though the technical stuff, and then I'll give you some good tips on taking this information and actually using it.
The body and the mind have a direct connection and your physical health can be significantly impacted by negative emotions. Based on distinct emotions, there are varied chemicals and hormones released by the body as it reacts. When we're stressed, Cortisol and Norepinephrine are released, but when we're happy, Oxytocin, Dopamine, and Serotonin are released.
Consequentially, one can suffer immediate physical symptoms due to these distinct chemical concentrations, and it's no wonder some people experience shaky hands and headaches when they're anxious.
It's important that you understand that feelings and emotions are two different things. Although they're interconnected and share very close similarities, they have a few things that differentiate them. Physical cues like body language, facial expressions, brain activity, heart rate, and blood flow can be used to measure emotions objectively and feelings have a less strong physical grounding compared to emotions. Emotions help us give a quick response to diverse environmental threats. They're coded into our DNA, they first occur in the subcortical areas of the brain, and they're regarded as ‘lower level’ responses.
Feelings can't be measured the way emotions can be because they're so subjective. Feelings occur in the neocortical regions of the brain. They're influenced by our world's personal experiences and interpretations and they're not something specifically general with humans like that of emotions.
There are six identified initial basic emotions according to Eckman (1999) and they include:
* Surprise
* Sadness
* Happiness
* Fear
* Disgust
* Anger
There are eleven basic emotions he later expanded on:
* Shame
* Sensory Pleasure
* Satisfaction
* Relief
* Pride
* Guilt
* Excitement
* Embarrassment
* Contentment
* Contempt
* Amusement
8 Examples of Negative Emotions
Unlike what you may have ever thought or heard; negative emotions aren't that bad. They're quite valuable because they do help us to appreciate positive ones and they're completely normal. There are 8 common negative emotions and they're highlighted below.
Anger – Has there been something on your mind that you've always wanted to tell someone? Whenever you think of this, does it make you boil? Does it make you feel like you want to explode or your temperature is rising? This is a common way of describing anger. Your body is trying to rectify something it isn't cool with and it's reacting. However, you may want to consider coming up with more positive strategies if you often react by getting the feeling of throwing things around (which you're more likely to do), vehemently registering your anger on your face, or shouting at the top of your voice.
Annoyance – Annoyance is more like the weaker form of anger. There are probably some people in your life that you love a lot but they do some things that displease you and you get annoyed by these behaviors. It may be your spouse always watching the TV whenever you've got your hands full doing chores without him or her trying to assist you and it could probably be he or she snoring loudly or talking too much and even loudly. It could be annoying, right?
Fear – Fear gives us warnings about failures, unexpected obstacles, or dangerous situations, and it's an evolved response. Immensely connected with our sense of self-preservation, it's usually regarded as one of the core basic emotions. The essence of fear in our lives is to help us see through potential danger and it's actually not purposed to make us feel distressed. Nevertheless, you can proactively brace up yourself to tackle challenges when you take your time to explore why fear rises and also embrace the emotion of fear.
Anxiety – It's perceived and believed that our ability to act and judge gets impaired when we have an anxious disposition and this explains why anxiety is always seen as a negative emotion. Seeking to alert us about possible dangers and threats, anxiety is pretty much like fear.
Sadness – The behavior of someone else around us, our low achievements, or our dissatisfaction with ourselves are some of the things that can bring about sadness. You'll probably feel sad if you didn't get that job you've been hoping you would, had a bad grade, or couldn't meet up with a deadline. The good side of sadness is that it can be a great catalyst to pursue change and it can be an indication of our passion for something.
Guilt – Guilt tends to encourage us to make changes in our life and it's another strong catalyst on its own. Often referred to as a ‘moral emotion’, guilt connects with how our behavior impacts those around us and our wishes for things to have been different; compared to how we handled them in the past. Guilt is a complex emotion.
Apathy – Apathy, at times, could make us start pursuing a more passive-aggressive expression of rebellion when we lose control over a scenario or situation. Apathy is when you're no longer excited or moved by the things you used to enjoy – loss of interest, motivation, or enthusiasm. Apathy can be a complex emotion, just like guilt.
Despair – Have you been trying to get things done and it looks like you're never going to achieve that certain goal or task? Do you feel like just quitting after you've tried several methods to work something out but it's not going through? That is despair and it helps us to see reasons why we should quit on our desired goals. Despair shows up when we're finding it difficult to get the results we crave.
How Emotions Could be Affecting Your Health
Chronic stress can affect your life's longevity and you'll become more prone to an array of sicknesses when you get your immune system hampered by negative emotions. There are adverse effects of subduing your negative feelings. These effects are quite harmful even though they can be silent. It becomes pertinent for you to learn to deal with and express your negative feelings correctly because this is a great way to keep your body in the healthiest state possible.
Note: Always remember… Happy = Healthy and Healthy = Happy!
Additionally, giving your negative emotions too much freedom to reign has a downside because you have the tendency of going into a spiral of rumination when you dwell on negative emotions and the causative situations. Rumination is a driver for clinical depression, it increases your brain’s stress response circuit, and it can affect your mental and physical wellbeing because it may make you end up feeling worse about whatever the situation is.
Physical health consequences like depression, clinical anxiety, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, insomnia, and harmful coping behaviors like alcohol consumption, smoking, and overeating have been linked to rumination also. At times, some people strongly believe that they're actively solving problems without realizing that they’re stuck in a ruminating rut. Rumination can be a difficult loophole to get out of.
How to Identify Negative Emotions Right Now
We often tend to ignore our deeper feelings to suppress our emotional side. Taking to social vices, drinking alcohol, overeating, and adopting worrisome habits are ways we compensate for this. Nevertheless, for us to gain our balance, we must identify and accept our negative emotions, and these three tips can go a long way in helping to achieve that.
1. Listen to Your Subconscious Mind — Now is the time to start listening to yourself. That pattern of thinking you developed that made you neglect the voice of your inner consciousness coupled with your hectic schedules that aren't helping things must be worked on. Listen to your subconscious mind.
Delve into your inner self. Break the cycle. All the negative emotions hidden inside you and your thought process can be analyzed when you start practicing the act of writing down your thoughts. And, in the process, you'll get to learn more about the things you love, your relationships, subdued emotions, your weaknesses, and yourself in particular.
Get a journal and start writing all this stuff down. A simple little notebook you carry with you everywhere will soon become one of your “healing tools” and the best friend that never judges you. 😉
2. Prepare a List of Moments You Were Hurt — There are times that we get hurt and we tell ourselves that we'll get over it. We often say “it's just a small thing, it's fine” while the opposite is the truth. For all the hurts that keep on coming back, no matter how little or unimportant you may think they are, prepare a list for them. With this, you stand a good chance of gaining a greater understanding of who you are and you'll be able to confront these emotions, instead of just avoiding and burying them.
3. Record Your Emotions for 8 Weeks — Jot down whatever makes you feel negative or positive as you keep watching how you felt and the significant emotional events that happen in the space of that 8 weeks. Identify things that made you angry and do well to analyze your emotions. Again… Get a journal!
You'll be able to work on your emotions, raise your awareness about them, and even feel stronger when you write them down. If you don't want to get stuck with negative emotions, unmasking your anger or other emotional issues is something you must do.
Tips to Release Negative Emotions
What you need to do next is to learn to release your negative emotions once you've been able to identify them. To keep your body in a healthy, balanced state, you can make use of these simple tips to release negative emotions.
Physically Release your Negative Emotions — Releasing your negative emotions is one of the major ways to get rid of them physically. For some people to vent their negative emotions, they need to scream till it feels better.
They release their negative emotions by shouting or screaming at a secluded place. Not everyone does this as we have a few other people who tend to vent their rage by using controlled physical exertion. It's the biggest reason I spend time in the gym almost every day. It's my biggest release tool!
Transmute Your Emotions — This is pretty easy. Get your eyes closed as you sit in a chair and make sure you're in a comfortable position. Now, try to get yourself relaxed by taking some deep breaths. Then, you see those emotions that haven't been good to your well-being, begin to search for them.
The midriff area is where sadness often rests and the belly button is where anger is usually found. There are different places around the body where subdued emotions are located. Once you've been able to locate your emotion, hold it and be with it. To reduce the size of the cloud of this emotion, continue to hold them, by repeatedly going through this process.
Use Meditation to Release Your Negative Emotions — A session of meditation will make you feel things differently and it can as well alter your perception about things strongly. Close your eyes as you get seated in a relaxed position. Relax your body by taking deep breaths at least ten times. Confront and get rid of your negative emotion by identifying it and tracking where it's stemming from.
Now of course there are many other ways that you can release your negative emotions and I'll be giving you more tips here on the blog. For now, I hope that this deep dive into what negative emotions can do to you has opened your eyes, and you'll start putting the work in to release them. This will bring you to a much happier state, and as I said… happy = healthy, and we've got to be BOTH to get 110% out of this life!
