What are emotions, and how do we respond to different situations with strong emotions? Let’s know about emotions and the brain, and how we spend our daily life experiencing different kinds of emotional situations.
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What are emotions?
Emotions are feelings that arise because of;
- A situation that has value in your life or that impacts your lifestyle
- Something that makes you happy or sad
- Anything that competes on your ground, lagging your success
- A trigger that arouses your interest
Emotions and the Brain
Every time we hear the word “Emotion”, most of us think of love, hate, fear, or happiness. Or we think of those strong feelings we experience in our daily lives. In real, emotions are the driving force that exists behind our behaviors and can be both helpful and unhelpful.
So, where do our emotions come from our brain is wired to look for threats or rewards.
If one detects the feeling region of the brain that alerts us through the release of chemical messages in our brain. Emotions are the effect of these chemical messages traveling from our brain to the body. We feel an emotion of threat because our brain releases the relevant hormones, such as adrenalin and cortisol, which prepares us for a fight or flight response.
When we experience something good such as someone doing something nice for us, our brain releases dopamine, oxytocin, or serotonin. These are the hormones that make us feel good and motivate us to continue on the task or behavior. Therefore, the feeling region of the brain works before the thinking part.
Sometimes the reactions of the feeling brain are so strong that it takes control over our behaviors, and we are unable to make rational decisions at the moment because our emotions get full control of our brain.
Subconscious thinking can influence our emotions. Sometimes this can be unhelpful, just thinking about something threatening can trigger an emotional response this is where we can manage our emotions with conscious thinking. Our emotions have a powerful role in the way we experience the world.
Understanding and regulating our emotions through our thoughts and behaviors can help us take greater control of our brains and achieve our goals.