The Best and Honest Truth about Your Emotions?
They may not just be in your head or your heart. Think hormones, glucose, microwaves, and more….
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Q. Lewis, how much of what you feel emotionally is in your mind, and how much is caused by physical factors?
A. What is happening in your body, chemically, can have a major influence on your emotional awareness.
You may know what emotions are and yet if asked you might even find them difficult to define. I’m sure you experience them and recognize them in others every single day. At times, you might even feel controlled by your emotions – sadness, fear, anger, etc. Some of us claim that it is best to rise above emotions and live by reason alone. Sadly, this is not an effective plan for living a happy life.
So, what does it mean for a person to be happy?
It’s not an easy question to answer, and one that philosophers, theologians, and scientists have been wrestling with for millennia. To begin with, we need to ask the question, what are emotions?
A working definition for emotion is any natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.
Of all the emotions, the one that most likely gives you the greatest sense and experience of contentment in life is happiness.
Most people want to be happy but they don’t really know how to create long-term and sustainable happiness.
That is why I write this newsletter.
Part of my vision here is to introduce you to many of the earliest written musings on the subject of emotion and happiness, including those of:
Lao Tzu: This ancient Chinese Sage mapped out the path to sustainable happiness in the 81 paragraphs of his profound masterpiece, the Tao te Ching, a free complete meta-analysis which is in my translation of the Tao te Ching.
https://www.amazon.ca/Tao-Ching-Meta-Analysis-Tzus-Classic/dp/1530288096
Aristotle. The Greek philosopher offered some of the first systematic analysis of emotion in the 4th century BCE. In his book Rhetoric, he wrote that emotions depend upon what we believe and our judgments of events in the world.
Charles Darwin. In his 1870 book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, biologist Charles Darwin argued that emotional expressions came from habits that were useful in our evolutionary past.
William James. The work of 19th century American philosopher and psychologist William James led to the idea that our experience of many emotions involves changes in the autonomic nervous system.
Martin Seligman: This approach to psychotherapy is a reaction against past practices, which have tended to focus on mental illness and emphasized maladaptive behavior and negative thinking. It builds on the humanistic movement which encourages an emphasis on happiness, well-being, and positivity.
In the second half of the 20th century, the scientific study of emotions came into its own in many social sciences (sociology and anthropology), psychology, and the brain sciences. Recent research has shown us that emotion especially happiness functions from an evolutionary perspective as solutions to recurrent problems faced by our ancestors over the course of history and by us today.
The Takeaway
When we speak of emotions, we generally think in terms of the mind. This is a big mistake. The truth is that emotions are superordinate programs coordinating a variety of subprograms to motivate adaptive behavior, what are these subprograms and how do they help us? The answer to this question is multi-layered and complex. On a simple level, we can say there are many bodily functions that are affected by and affect emotions, Including:
Glucose. The release of cortisol into the bloodstream activates glucose production, which is needed for metabolically expensive actions such as running or fighting.
Blood flow. Blood flows freely to the hands when we're angry, in order to prepare us for combat, but it remains in the chest when we’re afraid, to support flight.
Hunger. No matter how hungry you are, that feeling will evaporate at the sight or smell of food that could be contaminated or harmful, thanks to the protective emotion of disgust.
Breathing and Laughter. The unique breathing patterns that come from laughter can decrease stress hormones and increase immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease. Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body's natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote happiness and an overall sense of well-being that can even temporarily relieve pain.
Hormones. These are your body's chemical messengers. They travel in your bloodstream to tissues or organs. They work slowly, over time, and affect many different processes, including:
Growth and development.
Metabolism - how your body gets energy from the foods you eat.
Whether you are happy, sad, fearful, loving, hateful, joyous, etc.
To seriously explore your emotions you need to explore all of these factors.
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Author: Lewis Harrison is a practical philosopher, an Independent Scholar, and a Results-Oriented Success Coach. He has a passion for knowledge, personal development, applied game theory, self-improvement, creativity, innovation, problem-solving, and story-telling. He is a practitioner of Transmoderm Zen. Lewis Harrison is also a speaker, best-selling author, and the creator of the Best Course to Happiness…at Last.
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This newsletter is an excerpt from the Best Course to Happiness, at Last
Click on the Smiley face just below to learn more about the course …