How to learn to control your emotions

Physiologically, emotions are the body's response to external stimuli, interpreted in the brain as acceptable or unacceptable to humans. Emotions are present in creatures capable of higher nervous activity (primates, chickens, cats, dogs). They are positive or negative. But in humans, unlike animals, emotions are subjective, i.e. perceived as acceptance or rejection.

How emotions depend on brain function

Emotions are inextricably linked with feelings. And here the role is played by the subjective assessment of the person of the incident. A negative emotion of hatred will give rise to envy in one person and a sense of fear in another. Because everyone has their own beacons in their subconscious. This is akin to a conditioned reflex or irritant: I see - I feel emotions - I feel. The other person may not feel jealousy in the same situation, because he would not want to have the same acquisitions, but the irritant person is associated with a sense of danger, also unconscious. He understands that the enemy can make meanness, substitute without a twinge of conscience, and conscience will not torment him. Subconsciously, the feeling of hatred will turn into fear for one’s life (not physically, but psychically).

The emotion that arose in the head does not go away on its own. It either goes outside or gets stuck inside, accumulating and causing psychosomatic diseases. Depending on the type of temperament and the significance of the emotions for a given person, different in life expectancy in the body.

• joy (winning the lottery, enrollment in a university) lasts a day and a half
• satisfaction (received an award, defended a dissertation) "lives" day
• enthusiasm (I want to help orphans, I will prepare KVN myself) is exhausted in 6 hours
• sympathy disappears in an hour
• but sadness lasts 5 days (remember yourself after breaking up with your beloved)
• You can hate 2.5 days
• we will be ashamed of the act for about 30 minutes, unless it is a question of pathology

So much time is needed for the brain and body to process the emotion, to feel and “survive”, having released it into the Universe.

Emotions themselves do not live. Man feeds on his attitude. No wonder they say about unemotional people that they stand like idols. It is unlikely that they really do not experience anything, but most likely have a strong nervous system. Indeed, emotionality depends on the functioning of the central nervous system and the brain. Positive (delight, admiration) flow in the prefrontal cortex and core of the brain. The central zone is responsible for controlling bodily sensations (a person stubbornly endures pain). These factors are due to genetics, but through training, work on yourself, neural circuits change.

With depression, the work of neurotransmitters that carry nerve impulses between neurons is disrupted. It affects the limbic zone of the brain, the hypothalamus, which produces the "homons of joy" endorphins, serotonins and dopamines. As a result of a failure (difficult life situation, head injury), the neurotransmitters cease to function normally, and a person is not able to experience joyful emotions, even if they are obvious. Depression is a prime example of how emotions affect a person.

How emotions affect our body

Psychosomatics (from the Greek. "Psycho" - the soul, "somos" - the body) is a bodily disease caused by an excess of negative emotions. Take the little children. They are taught to suppress emotions, and in fact in early childhood the baby does not hold back emotions.But this is inconvenient for parents, and they prepare him for life in a society where it is not customary to demonstrate emotions. Does the child show anger when he goes to kindergarten? Mom will immediately stop this "You will scream loudly and cry, dad will be ashamed of you." The little man is blamed for the emotions. He accumulates them, and once a therapeutically healthy child begins to constantly get sick, he will have dysbiosis, nightmares, etc. Despite the fact that he has not revealed any deviations from the norm. The fault is the accumulated emotions, because the baby is powerless.

The child is taught to suppress emotions through negative feelings. Mom tells her daughter: “The teacher scolded you for laughing at the lesson. I was ashamed". Perhaps the teacher is a despot, she likes to manipulate the souls of young creatures? Without understanding the situation, the mother tells the son or daughter that he / she is “bad”. The child perceives the words of the mother a priori, without criticism and reasoning. Feel the joy that the neighbor painted a funny face? No you can not? You need to learn to be silent, suppress emotions in yourself.

A familiar picture when a mother says to a sobbing baby, “Everything, I’ll leave you in the store. I have no strength! Here, the aunt will take you. ” For an adult who knows how to analyze what has been said, these words do not matter, and they eat the child into the subconscious. The emotion of fear that a dear person will leave him, mother, will not go anywhere. It transforms into untreatable enuresis. Or sleepwalking, nightmares in a dream, etc. Or even worse: fear generates feelings of guilt on a subconscious level.

Mum frightened a noisy child in her childhood “My grandmother has a sore heart, she will feel bad from your screams and running around, and she will die.” Grandmother once dies of a heart attack, but not because her grandson expressed his emotions too loudly. She had a sore heart. And the child will remain guilty for life that his grandmother died because of him. In adulthood, suppressed emotions can “come back” with depression and neurosis.

How will the body of a man react that does not provide for the needs of the family, whom the wife is cheating on? Yes, anything, up to oncology! The body seemed to answer: "I did not fulfill my mission, nobody needs me."

If everyone you meet asks the girl “over 30”, well, when she gives birth to a child, her body will respond with a myoma or cyst. Moreover, the hormonal background is in order. She needs to either not experience emotions (and they hit the patient), or learn to reflect from herself.

What turns a student’s fear of being worse than others? Gastritis or gastroduodenitis. What is teenage anorexia? These are suppressed emotions of the feeling that you are worse than others, expressed in refusing food.

How to learn to control emotions

Why do people experience the same emotions in different ways? One person remains calm even with insults, and the other is upset about every occasion. The third person clings to the negative, relishes, and the fourth immediately forgets all the unpleasant. This is determined by emotional styles that reflect a person’s reaction to life situations. There are six styles:

1. Emotional flexibility. By it is meant how quickly a person recovers from experienced negative emotions. This character trait is defined from birth, but is brought up in early childhood. If parents remind the baby about pranks a hundred times a day, put them in a corner, show dissatisfaction with their behavior, the reflex of immersion in the problem will be fixed in it. In adulthood, such people are prone to reflection, self-digging. They have reduced stress resistance, a tendency to depressive moods.
2. Emotional context. It determines a person’s ability to recognize which emotions can and should not be demonstrated in certain situations. What we allow at home, at work, is perceived inadequately. Or that they behave differently with dad and a loved one.
3. The attitude. This is how much we are able to capture the positive, enjoy life.
4. Self-awareness. It is understood as awareness of the body, its reactions to emotions. What do I feel during anger? Why does my stomach hurt? Why did I get acne before the exam? Recognizing body signals for emotions will enable them to be properly controlled.
5. Emotional intuition. This is the ability to recognize the emotions of other people by facial expression, eyes, by secondary non-verbal signs. Women are more than endowed with this quality, because they need to learn how to read information from the emotions of a baby who is not yet talking.
6. Sustainability. Are we easy to give in to emotions? If a person has low emotional stability, he "starts up" and spends himself. And the opponent is fueled by him, because emotions are a stream of energy.

Attitude to emotions is formed in childhood. The further attitude of a person to emotions depends on how parents react to a particular situation. The child falls and hits the asphalt with his knee. It hurts him, he cries loudly. Mom says, “It's okay, we’ll succumb to the wound, everything will heal” or “Again you are in a hurry, you go without looking at your feet.” The situation will not change from this, but the baby will learn to understand that negative emotions have a place to be, there is nothing terrible in them, and you should not keep them in yourself. In the book of American professor of psychology and psychiatry, Richard Davidson and writer Sharon Begley, “How Emotions Control the Brain” (Peter, 2012), recommendations are given on how to correct the emotional style and level out the flaws in emotional behavior.

The first step to curbing emotions is their awareness. Does it shake you when the boss appears? Surely you associate it with a negative. Think about why the boss is aggressive towards you? Yes, she is envious, although she does not admit it. Envy of your attractiveness or youth. And since she leads you, the command tone and humiliation is a way to rise above you. Yes, this is unpleasant, and the anger on your part is justified. But he has no way out, so take the emotion away from yourself. The boss also feels negative emotions towards you, but she splashes out on you.

Emotions act on the body as physical activity. Fear causes a palpitations, joy - a hormonal explosion and euphoria, sadness and sorrow turn muscles into stone, anger compresses the chest. Sport is the antidote to negative emotions. There is nothing better than walking in the fresh air or jogging in the park, skiing and skating, rollerblading and cycling. Exercise increases the brain's production of “hormones of joy” of endorphin, dopamine and oxytocin. After a heated quarrel, go to the pool. Unpleasant conversation with the boss? Dance, buy a one-time fitness membership with a dance program.

Conclusion: to control emotions is to be aware of their presence in your life. Emotion is not eternal. Soon she will be replaced by another, and a third will come after her. Get an outlet that is extremely positive. In case of trouble, go to the pool or gym. Do not jam or drink negative. Look at what is happening from the side. Is the boss yelling at you? Silence, it is difficult, but keep quiet. Imagine that the boss is sitting in a soap bubble and trying to reach you through the walls. You kick the bubble with your foot, and it flies across the river to the other side. So with emotion. She lives only because you did not throw her aside. Learn to throw off the negative and pamper yourself with positive.

Video: how to control your emotions