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THEY SHAPE US. THEY DO NOT DEFINE US.
DIRECTORY OF PAGES
Feelings and Emotions - Home
​Defining Emotions | Mapping Emotions
Spin the Wheel of Emotions
Mindfulness Self Care for Growth
Feelings You Can’t Define | Have No Words For
​Universal Happiness | Serenity & Sweetness​​
Neither Good Nor Bad - Words of Apathy ​
Negative Feelings & Deceptive Actions

RELATED GLOSSARIES
Psychology ~ Neuroscience ~ The Brain
The Mind ~ Thoughts ~ Memory ~ Motivation Attention ~ Emotion~ ​Love ~ Sex ~ Relationships
Mindfulness ~ Yoga ~ Spirit
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​RELATED DIRECTORIES OF LISTS
Darker Feelings | ​​Untranslatable Feelings
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FEATURED LISTS
Pondering the Psyche ~ ​​Pondering the Phobia​
Our Capacity for Love
​ The Story of Soulmates | The Sexy and Risqué
The Story of a Kiss | Origins of Erotic Language

MAPPING EMOTION
​in the BRAIN


​EMOTIONS IN THE BRAIN
Our thoughts have a profound impact on our feelings; our feelings affect the way we behave; and our behavior is responsible for our results.
Historically, psychologists have disagreed as to whether emotions arise before an action, occur at the same time as an action, or are a response to an automatic physiological process.

Emotion is typically defined as a response to stimuli that causes physiological changes that motivate a person to act. Changes include increased pulse rate, body temperature, activity in the glands, or an increased or decreased breathing rate.

Two brain structures appear most closely linked with emotions: the amygdala and the insula or insular cortex.
  • The amygdala integrates emotions, emotional behavior, and motivation. It interprets fear, helps distinguish friends from foes, and identifies social rewards and how to attain them.
  • The insula is the source of disgust — a strong negative reaction to an unpleasant odor, for instance.

The Limbic System - the major primordial brain network governing mood. It’s a major network of regions working together to process information. The limbic system is considered to be the 'emotional' brain because it shows high levels of neural activity during emotional experiences. Human emotion and mental state are centralized in the limbic system. Neurochemicals (dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin) either increase or decrease the brain's activity level.
  • The limbic system is under the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain, and the amygdala which attaches emotional significance like emotions, emotional behavior, and motivation.
  • The limbic system also regulates biological functions (for example an accelerated heart rate and sweating triggered by feeling anxious).

Neurotransmitters - chemical messengers that send signals across the network. The brain regions receive these signals. They process recognition of objects and situations and then assign an emotional response. That response triggers behavior.

Hypothalamus - feeds information into the amygdala. It acts as a regulator of emotion and controls levels of sexual desire, pleasure, aggression and anger.

Hippocampus - interacts with the amygdala when a person has memories with emotional ties. This area of the brain triggers strong emotions when processing traumatic memories.

Prefrontal cortex - located near the front of the head, is involved in decision making in response to emotions. It controls the decisions a person makes when faced with an emotional reaction and also regulates anxiety.

Cingulate gyrus - acts as a pathway between the thalamus and the hippocampus, and is instrumental for retaining memories of emotionally charged events. The cingulate gyrus focuses attention on the event which alerts the rest of the brain that the event is emotionally significant.

Ventral tegmental - is the area that perceives pleasure. Dopamine pathways are located in this part and triggers the release of dopamine (neurotransmitter responsible for mood and increased levels contribute to higher levels of pleasure).

BASIC EMOTION TRIGGERS
Autobiographic memory network - processes information related to ourselves like personal memories and self-reflection. Key hubs in this network include brain areas in the prefrontal cortex (sits at the front of the brain); the hippocampus; the posterior cingulate cortex, (sits at the upper part of the limbic lobe); and parietal regions (sit behind the frontal lobe and aid in mental imagery).
  • The autobiographic memory network turns on when you are thinking about yourself. This turns off the cognitive control network for action. This switch interrupts what we are doing. The autobiographic memory network is suppressed when the cognitive control network is focusing attention.
  • When the two networks are not functioning optimally then the result is a psychiatric mood disorder (bipolar, depression, etc).

Cognitive control network - links regions that coordinate attention and concentration. It utilizes a circuit of the front part of the cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (responsible for cold, unemotional, rational thought).

ORIGIN OF SPECIFIC EMOTIONS
  • Happiness is triggered by several areas of the brain (right frontal cortex, the precuneus, the left amygdala, and the left insula). This activity involves connections between awareness (frontal cortex and insula) and the “feeling center” (amygdala) of the brain.
  • Fear activates the bilateral amygdala, the hypothalamus and areas of the left frontal cortex. The process involves thinking ( occurs in the frontal cortex), a “gut” feeling (occurs in the amygdala), and a sense of urgency that is associated with survival (occurs in the hypothalamus.)
  • Sadness is associated with increased activity of the right occipital lobe, the left insula, the left thalamus the amygdala and the hippocampus. The hippocampus is strongly linked with memory, and it makes sense that awareness of certain memories is associated with feeling sad.
  • Disgust is an emotion associated with avoidance. This emotion is associated with and connects the left amygdala, the left inferior frontal cortex, and the insular cortex.
  • Anger is activated by the right hippocampus, the amygdala, both sides of the prefrontal cortex and the insular cortex.
  • Surprise activates the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus and the bilateral hippocampus. The hippocampus is associated with memory, and surprise triggers memory of something that you do not remember or do not expect.

EMOTIONS AND PHYSIOLOGY
Emotions are felt outside of the brain in the rest of the body. Certain parts of the body, especially the upper half, are heavily stimulated during emotions such as love, happiness and pride, whereas depression and sadness are linked to numbness.
  • Our health, our hormones and our brain chemicals in particular, have a huge impact on how we feel. Some of these hormones include: testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, norepinephrine, epinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, GABA, and oxytocin (the love hormone!)
  • Love has a lot more to do with chemistry than you might think. Those feelings of getting butterflies in your stomach or sweaty palms when you are attracted to someone actually have scientific explanations. Certain chemicals such as dopamine and endorphins are released and these have a big influence in the relationships that we choose.
  • REM sleep has been found to help people to recover from emotional distress, especially those related to traumatic experiences. This happens because production of stress-related hormones are significantly reduced during the REM stage of sleep.
  • Everything we smell goes straight to amygdala, which is part of brain responsible for handling our emotions. That’s why we often react emotionally when we smell something.

EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIONS
We can make over 10,000 facial expressions to express a wide variety of subtle emotions. Of all facial expressions, the smile may be the most deceptive. There are around 18 different smiles, including polite, cruel, false, self-effacing, etc. But only one reflects genuine happiness and it is known as the Duchenne smile, in honor of the French neurologist who determined this phenomenon, Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (de Boulogne).

Research has proven time and time again that people unconsciously mimic the emotional expressions of those around them. Whether being "infected" with a smile or picking up positive energy online, us humans just can't help ourselves from "catching" emotions from other people.

If you adjust your facial expression to reflect a certain emotion, you will actually begin to feel that emotion. When you are happy you smile. If you want to make yourself happy, all you have to do is force your face into a smile for around 30 seconds and you will instantly feel happier.

When a person experiences a strong emotion but tries to conceal their feelings, they let out a microexpression - a brief involuntary expression of emotion. Microexpressions occur so fast that they are often not seen in real time, but when recorded and analyzed in slow motion they can provide a fascinating insight into a person's true emotional state.

Research has shown that the expression and experience of negative emotions (e.g., depression and anxiety) show higher activation in the right frontal cortex and in the deeper brain structures, such as the amygdala, while positive emotions are accompanied by more left frontal cortex activity.

EMOTIONS EXPLAINED
Allowing ourselves to feel uncomfortable (if need be) can strengthen us emotionally. To tolerate discomfort is to let yourself experience it (if need be) and learn that you can handle it.

Emotions have a purpose. Some emotions are said to be “withdraw” emotions: They encourage us to pull back or shut down. Most withdraw emotions are negative. Fear, sadness, and shame are examples.

Colors can profoundly affect emotional responses. While not everyone experiences the same emotion in response to a particular color, most people find reds and oranges stimulating and blues and purples restful. The colors gray, brown, black, or white tend to be emotionally dulling. Studies reveal that children playing in an orange room were friendlier, alert, creative, and less irritable than children in playrooms painted white, brown, and black.

Emotions are contagious. Negative or unpleasant emotions are more contagious than neutral or positive emotions.

Negative emotions such as fear and anger is important for mental health and helps us TO evaluate our experiences in a positive way. Someone who only experiences positive emotions runs the risk of becoming complacent and ignoring the issues that really matter. Negative emotions are perfectly natural and it’s important not to suppress them. It’s all about balance.

Sarcasm Improves Creativity. Studies have revealed that sarcasm improves creativity and smartness. People who receive sarcastic comments need to process different layers of information like biasness, viewpoint, experience etc. This improves problem solving ability and creativity. Thus, regular exposure to sarcasm is good.
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THEY SHAPE US. THEY DO NOT DEFINE US.

MINDFULNESS CENTERED SELF CARE
​Learn to care for your emotions