Emotions

 

Emotions are often confused with feelings and moods but these terms are not interchangeable.Emotions are how person deals with matters or situations they find personally significant. 

Where as feeling is outcome of emotional experience.like pain or hunger.Feelings are also influenced by memories,belief and other factors. 
Mood is short lived emotional state .It lack stimuli and have no clear starting point,such as an insult can trigger emotions of anger and sometimes it has no obvious reasons.

Structure of Emotion
Emotions are made up of 3 parts.
Subjective Experiences 
Psychological Responses 
Behavioural Responses
All the emotions get stimuli from subjective experience.All the people of the world regardless of any religion culture and upbringing share their emotions and the experiences that produce them are subjective. Emotions vary from person to person like one persons feels anger and regret on his loss in business and other is saddened quietly.
Psychological Responses are basically automatic nervous reaction to the emotions we are experiencing. 
Behavioural response is actual expression of emotion.It can be smile or laugh or cry.
Categories of Emotions 
Emotions fall in two categories :
Basic Emotions 
Basic emotions are associated with recognizable facial expressions and tend to happen automatically. Charles Darwin was the first to suggest that emotion induced facial expressions are universal. 
Emotional psychologist Paul Ekman identified six basic emotions that could be interpreted through facial expressions. They include:
Happiness
Sadness
Fear
Anger
Surprise 
Disgust
Complex Emotions
Complex emotions have differing appearances and can't be easily recognizable. Such as grief jealousy, regret and embarrassment. 
We all are experiencing a wide range of emotions.life is an emotional roller coaster now more than ever.Covid 19 has had unprecedented impact on school staff,students and families. They are having the feelings of anxiety,stress nervous confused and concerned.All these feelings are attached with the biggest event of covid.our response to these events and emotions is  body's way of helping to adapt the threats in our environment. This response has helped us to survive  for millions of years.
When we have stress over a long period of time,it can have negative impacts on our health,relationship ,our ability to present,teach and work.
Practitioners have evolved certain strategies, routines and habits that can help people to cope with negative emotions. 
Social and emotional learing is the only way out for adults and children to manage theie emotions,set and achieve their goals feel and show empathy for others,establish and maintain positive and healthy relationships and make responsible decisions. 

Why emotions matter
It varies from person to person.For some emotions are overwhelming and all important. For others they are bothersome and irrational. No matter where you fall on emotional spectrum, one thing is sure ,God designed you as emotional being.Your emotions have purpose and they are worth handling with curiosity,respect and wisdom.Emotional development is a complex process that begins in infancy and continues in to adulthood.It starts with young kids:
Learning what feelings and emotions are.
Understanding how and why they happen
Recognising their own feelings and those of others
Developing effective ways of managing them
As kids grow and are exposed to different situations their emotional life becomes more complex.Developing skills for managing a wide range of emotions is really important for their emotional wellbeing being.

Unconscious Emotions 

Sonetimes unconscious emotions cause reactions that we are unable to understand.They are  so powerful that they can influence our day to day creativity and performance. Emotions are fuel of our creative process but our emotional skill determine either we create product or not.

Emotions can be good or bad.Sometimes they motivate us to achieve our target but sometimes they derail us from achieving our goals. All depends on how we manage them and handle them.

Emotions have two qualities 
Pleasantness 
Energy 
First we can examine our thoughts.Are they pleasant or unpleasant.Suppose a beautiful cloudy weather creates pleasant emotions  and bad incidents create unpleasant emotions.
Second is energy. Just scan your body and find out how activated you are.check your heart rate.check the tension and relaxation of your muscles.

Emotions and Brain
Emotions are not consciously controlled. The part of the brain that deals with emotions is limbic system. Its thought that this part if brain evolved fairly early on in human history, making it quite primitive. This explains why an emotional response is often quite straightforward but very powerful. You want cry,run away or shout.Its because these responses are based around the need to survive.Emotions are strongly linked to the memory and experience. If something bad has previously happened to you,uour emotional response to the ame stimulus is likely to be strong.

Emotions can't be controlled but managed.There are certain actions which will help you in managing them.

Exercise:this releases pleasure chemical in the brain such as dopamine which makes you feel better. 

Be Kind to Others:it will help you to stop worrying about yourself. 

Be Open and Accept what is going on around you:learn to appreciate and stop criticizing 

Good to talk:spend time with people and enjoy their company. 

Distract youself: watching tv,reading books and surfing on Internet will probably forget you that you were feeling a bit down. 

I will wind it up with Aristotle saying.

"Anybody can become angry,that is easy,but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way,that's not within everybody's power and its not easy."

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