in a day? Emotions play a fascinating role in how
we work as humans. In this emotion guide I will
give you a list of the most common emotions and
tips on how to control your emotions.
What are emotions?
An emotion is a mental state brought on by
chemical changes in our body, outside stimulus or
feelings associated with thoughts, behaviors and
pleasures.
Our emotions are essential for keeping us safe.
Our species evolved to have emotions from the
moment we are born – a combination of clever
mechanisms involving cells and chemicals inside
our central nervous system (the brain and spinal
cord) that are designed to keep us safe .
Despite the millennia we have spent side by side
with our emotions as we evolved, it can be difficult
to really identify, understand, and control those
feelings .
How we manage our emotions is called emotional
intelligence.
So what’s actually going on in your body when
you are feeling sad, or happy, or angry, or
disgusted?
What causes emotions to change?
Emotions are basically a movement of chemicals,
called neurotransmitters, which relay information
across the brain from neuron to neuron.
You feel different emotions when you have varying
levels of neurotransmitters and the activation of
different areas of the brain in response to a
stimulus. Let’s look at an example…
You’ve been promoted!
How did you feel when you read that? When your
brain receives happy news, it signals the release of
two neurotransmitters into the central nervous
system. These neurotransmitters are dopamine
and serotonin, and when they flood your brain you
feel the emotion happiness.
Conversely, a lack of these neurotransmitters
causes a feeling of sadness. Other emotions are
caused by a combination of these
neurotransmitters, and others, in various
proportions.
The variety of emotions we experience have all
evolved to keep us safe, whether it is fear holding
us back from a potentially dangerous mountain
path, or sadness encouraging us to reconnect with
a friend after a fight.
Emotions keep our social species close to the
people who protect us and provide us with
resources, as well as physically safe from the
dangers of the world.
How to Control Emotions
Identifying emotions can usually be done by taking
some time to reflect on yourself and your
experiences, but controlling emotions is a lifetime’s
learning process.
If you find that your emotions are running away
with you, here are the steps you need to follow to
get yourself back to a calm and logical state where
you can make decisions that really are the best for
you, or react in such a way that doesn’t leave you
with regrets.
Step #1: Take a moment to identify the
emotion
Take a moment to dig deep into your mind, and
take a moment of stillness to listen to your body.
You might feel your palms sweating, and your
heart racing fast.
Emotions have a physical effect on the body,
and this can give you some clues about what
is going on in your mind.
These symptoms could be due to anxiety, but
equally, it could be excitement. Try to understand
what you are feeling, and what might be the cause
behind it. Is it a big presentation you have next
week that has set you on edge? Or are you excited
for a new opportunity at work tomorrow? Once
you’ve worked that out, the process of controlling
your emotions or understanding how they are
influencing your behaviour will be a lot easier.
Step #2: Consider other factors
Just like a toddler, adults are susceptible to losing
their ability to regulate their emotions if they’re
hungry (seriously, ‘hangry’ is a real thing, there’s
an entire scientific paper on it and everything) or if
they’re tired – or both. Treat yourself like a kid,
just for a minute. Are you too hot? Wearing
something uncomfortable? Getting annoyed by
someone tapping their pen?
All of these things can reduce our ability to control
our emotions, and it’s worth taking a moment to
fix them before going any further. You might find
the situation resolves itself here. If you don’t, it’s
onto the next step.
Step #3: Investigate the emotion and its
context
Often, there is much more to your emotions than
you can see on the surface. Ask yourself
questions about your emotion to see if you can
find these deeper issues.
For example, maybe you have seen a post on
Instagram of your two best friends hanging out at
the gym. Your immediate feeling is anger. Why
would you feel angry that your friends are having a
great time together? When you investigate further,
you find that your anger is masking jealousy and
you realise you are jealous because they didn’t
invite you. You feel hurt because, deep down, you
feel that you might have lost your friends.
When you’ve unpacked the emotion this far, you
can start to contradict your irrational brain. Does
this mean they don’t like you anymore? Or is it
actually because they know you’re always busy on
Friday afternoons? Wasn’t it just the other day
they invited you for lunch, and you cancelled to
spend time with family?
The more you work through these feelings, the
more you will calm down.
Doing this stops you leaving a passive-aggressive
comment on their social media, or uninviting them
to your birthday (if these sound silly and childish,
it’s because when we’re emotional, adults do act
silly and childish – this is why it’s important to be
able to regulate our emotions) and instead means
you can take a logical approach to the next steps,
which might be as simple as writing a message
saying, “Hey, can we all meet up for dinner
tonight? I’m feeling a bit left out.”
Step #4: Take some time to chill
Finally, whether it’s scrolling through Twitter for
five minutes, or picking up your book for a bit, do
something to take your mind away from whatever
emotion your brain has lifted up and blown out of
proportion.
If you find emotional regulation tough – don’t
worry.
Controlling your emotions is hard. We evolved to
act on them, not logically work through them. But,
controlling your emotions will get easier each time
you follow these steps . I promise! And you will see
the fruits of your labour.
Being able to control your emotions means you are
more likely to make better choices, rather than
rash decisions in the heat of the moment that you
might regret when your brain chemistry settles
back down.
Emotion in the brain
Every time you experience an emotion, your body
starts a cascade of responses – first a
physiological change, then a chemical release, and
a behavioural response. Sounds complicated,
right? It is. Emotions involve multiple processes
working together from your major organs to your
limbic system.
Your limbic system is the oldest part of your brain
and is a system thought to have evolved with the
first mammals over 200 million years ago . These
are ancient neural pathways that define our
responses to emotions, as well as the controls for
our fight or flight response .
When a signal is passed across your brain (for
example, the nerves in your hand, telling your brain
that you have just touched a hot plate, prompting
you to react and pull your hand away) the signal is
transmitted as electricity. However, the electricity
can not jump from brain cell to brain cell. Instead,
it converts into a chemical known as a
neurotransmitter to bridge the gap (or ‘synapse’)
between cells.
When it crosses the synapse, it converts back to
electricity and so the message is carried like that
across the brain. These chemical neurotransmitters
have a big impact on our mood, and depending
which are most present in our bodies and brain
depends on which emotion we will experience (and
to some degree, how intensely).
Here are the most common neurotransmitters
involved in emotions:
Dopamine
This neurotransmitter is addictive – it is the
chemical your brain really craves. Dopamine is
associated with happiness and helps us to seek
out the things we need to survive. It is released in
the body when we’re experiencing positive feelings
such as eating the food we enjoy or having sex.
Oxytocin
Oxytocin is nicknamed ‘ the cuddle hormone ’. It’s
released when you’re close with other people,
whether it’s your baby, your best friend, or your
Mum. It’s an essential part of making strong social
bonds in our relationships and is key to feeling
trust for other people.
GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid)
This is the neurotransmitter you need when you
are trying to control your fear or anxiety . It helps
to slow down the rate at which our neurons are
firing, which is hugely helpful when you’ve started
to panic.
GABA is associated with the feeling of being
calm.
Acetylcholine
Acetylcholine has a big effect on the body when it
is released and dilates blood vessels , slows our
heart rate, and contracts smooth muscle .
Motivation, arousal, and attention are all increased
with the release of this neurotransmitter.
Serotonin
This is the neurotransmitter that is most
responsible for our wellbeing and happiness. You
can increase the levels of serotonin in your body
by exercising, meditating , and spending time in the
sunshine.
Serotonin helps our moods feel more balanced,
and improve our sleep and digestion.
List of Emotions
How many emotions are there? Different
psychologists and scientists will give you different
answers, but the most comprehensive and most
accepted studies on emotion seem to support
Robert Plutchik’s theory. Plutchik suggests there
are eight basic emotions. These emotions could
be expressed overtly, through body language, or
more subtly through microexpressions .
Each emotion can be felt in varying intensities (for
example, annoyance – anger – rage, or
acceptance – trust – admiration).
Each of the basic emotions in Plutchik’s theory
has an opposite, corresponding emotion.
Joy is the opposite of sadness
Anticipation is the opposite of surprise
Fear is the opposite of anger
Disgust is the opposite of trust
Here are Plutchik’s eight emotions:
Anger
Psychological studies have identified three causes
of anger: when our desires, goals or expectations
are not met, when we feel threatened, and/or
when we are using anger to mask other emotions.
Are you familiar with that feeling as if your
blood is boiling? That is your body releasing
adrenaline in response to stress.
One of the first things that happens when you feel
angry is that you go into the fight or flight
response. If you’re a non-confrontational person or
in a position, such as being at work, where you
don’t feel comfortable showing anger, your instinct
will tell you to get away from the source of your
problem.
Otherwise, your body picks the fight response,
which is how we typically see anger. You raise your
voice, make accusations, become defensive and
show negative body language. These behaviors are
harmful and irrational, yet we do them anyways
because when we’re angry our perception of risk
and danger is lowered.
While anger, or rather the stress it causes, is
known to be bad for us, there are actually
some benefits of experiencing this ancient
emotion.
Anger Makes Us Focus More on Rewards. We
get angry when something isn’t going the way
we wanted it to and the feeling reinforces our
desire for whatever it is we’re struggling to get
whether it’s a job promotion we feel like we
deserve or the satisfaction of winning an
argument. Psychologist Simon Laham says this
is why anger is a critical part of overcoming
adversity. When you’re upset because nothing is
going right and you feel like the world is against
you, anger is the fuel that drives you to prove
everyone wrong. It’s why people feel so
motivated to prove their haters wrong.
When We’re Angry, We’re More Optimistic. It
sounds contradictory, but being angry makes us
think more positively about the future. This is
because when we’re angry, we feel like we’re in
control . Researchers put people in fearful and
angry moods, and then asked them questions
about accomplishing goals. The angry
participants took up the challenge because they
focused on how to achieve the reward, while
the fearful participants were held back by the
possibility of failure.
Anger Boosts Creativity. Next time you’re angry,
invest your energy in working on a difficult task.
Studies show that when you’re angry, you
experience heightened energy levels and your
thought process becomes more flexible,
allowing you to come up with more and more
original ideas than you can in your neutral state.
Anticipation
Anticipation is an emotion involving pleasure,
excitement, or anxiety in considering or awaiting
an expected event. Physiologically, it can feel
similar to fear – an increased heart rate, sweaty
palms – though we get our signals about what
emotions we are feeling through the context of the
situation.
If you are about to buy your dream car, it will be
excitement , if you’re about to step onto a stage
with a big audience, it might be anxiety, and if you
are waiting to meet your date for the first time, it
might be a mixture of both.
Each person will react differently to experiencing
anticipation. Stage fright is a good example of how
much this emotion can change our physiology –
unable to speak, rooted to the spot, and suddenly
blank on everything you needed to say.
Robin Skynner, a British psychiatrist in the mid
1900’s, suggests that the reason we experience
anticipation when we are expecting less
pleasurable events is because it is one of the
mature ways of dealing with stress. Using
anticipation to prepare for how you are going to
deal with the situation can reduce some of the
challenges, though – as the example of stage
fright suggests – can make you perform badly in
the process.
If you find your anticipation anxiety too much, you
might benefit from some of the following activities
to control this emotion:
Deep breathing
Progressive muscle relaxation
Counting objects around the room
Disgust
If I asked you to list some things that are
disgusting, what would you say? My list (and I
imagine yours too) would include:
Vomit
Rotting food
Feces
And lots of other stereotypically disgusting
things.
Did those make you say “ewwww?” Me too!
We’re disgusted by things we think are bad,
whether it is rotting food or cockroaches in the
bathroom. In pre-modern civilizations, this was a
great trait because it prevented people from eating
poisonous food and doing things that could make
them sick.
Everyone has a different threshold for what
triggers their disgust.
The more disgustable you are, the more
judgmental you are. Using these findings,
psychologist David Pizarro discovered that
people’s threshold for disgust directly correlates
with where they stand on the political spectrum .
Extreme conservatives are easily disgusted while it
is challenging to gross out a fierce liberal.
Fear
We become afraid when we encounter things and
situations that we don’t understand, we can’t
control, and/or we suspect will cause harm to us.
In our modern world, many of our fears don’t
seem logical. Is there any sense in fearing a money
spider curled up in the corner of our bedroom? Or
the social anxiety you may feel when you enter a
party?
These days, probably not, but like all of your
emotions fear has developed to keep you safe.
Your tiny arachnid roommate won’t pose much
threat here, but that would have been very
different if you were hunting in a tropical forest
with venomous spiders.
What’s your greatest fear?
According to a study by Chapman University, the
top 5 fears in America are:
1. Public speaking (we can help with your Public
Speaking! )
2. Heights
3. Bugs, snakes, and other animals
4. Drowning
5. Blood/needles
With the exception of drowning, these are all
minimally threatening things that most people have
to deal with yet, we react to them as if they’re
going to kill us.
How to Be Less Fearful
Just because fear is a natural response doesn’t
mean you can’t limit its power. Here’s how to be
less fearful:
Preparation: If you’re scared of activities that
you know roughly what to expect such as job
interviews, going to the dentist and confronting
people, the best way to overcome it is to
prepare. Practicing or thinking through what is
going to happen prior to the event itself
removes much of the uncertainty that causes
fear.
Take Action: Fear stems from a lack of control
so focusing on things that you can control can
help reduce your feelings. If you’re fearful of
something major that you don’t have much
control over, find one small thing that you can
take action on and focus your attention on that
so fear doesn’t overwhelm you.
Relax: Research shows that it is easier to let go
of your fear by engaging in a self-soothing
behavior that relaxes you than it is to try to talk
yourself out of being afraid. Find the self-
soothing behavior that distracts you from your
fear whether it’s prayer, meditation, yoga, a
hobby etc. and put more time into this practice
when you’re afraid.
Joy
Joy, or happiness, is our brain’s way of telling us
that something – be it the feeling of sun on the
face, or the company of a loved one – is good for
us, encouraging us to seek it out, just as sadness
and disgust encourage us to avoid the unhealthy
or dangerous. We might experience joy as a result
of events such as being reunited with an old
friend, or finding a sentimental letter we thought
was long gone.
When we feel joy when the neurotransmitters
dopamine and serotonin are released into our
body.
The health benefits of experiencing joy include:
Boosting the immune system
Reducing stress
Managing pain
Sadness
Humans depend on each other to survive. Sadness
is the emotion that makes us remember that fact.
Young children feel sad when they are separated
from their parents. It’s that sadness that prompts
them to cry and/or find their parents, potentially
saving their lives. As people grow older, or if we
drift from our loved ones, the sadness that
accompanies separation is what drives people to
continuously invest in relationships.
As painful as sadness is, it’s not all bad.
Psychologists have discovered some surprising
benefits of sadness that can help us make light of
the emotion and its circumstances.
According to Joseph Paul Forgas, Ph.D ., sadness
reduces two key judgement biases that affect how
we view people.
The Fundamental Attribution Error: This is the
tendency to believe that people are intentional
when they make mistakes or say something
wrong. When you’re sad, you’re less likely to
think the worst of people.
The Halo Effect: On the opposite end of the
spectrum, people also believe that certain
people–whether it’s because they’re attractive,
successful, or family members–can do no
wrong. Sadness gives you a less biased view of
people so you also don’t exaggerate their
goodness.
Studies show sadness can be a powerful
motivational tool. When you’re happy you tend to
want to stay where you are, and may not feel as
driven to improve because you don’t feel the need
to. That’s not the case with sadness.
While you shouldn’t go out of your way to make
yourself sad if you are lacking motivation , allowing
yourself to embrace the sadness of not being
where you want to be in life, whether it’s with your
relationships, career, physical health, etc. can
motivate you to put in the effort to get to a
happier place.
How to Be Less Sad
Despite its short-term benefits, frequently feeling
sad lowers your quality of life. Luckily, how you
deal with sadness has a huge effect on how
powerful it is. According to Deepak Chopra , the
best way to cope is to be proactive.
Here are some of his tips:
Instead of focusing on your sadness, take
actions to be happier.
Share your feelings with a friend/loved one
Focus on improving your well-being. Plenty of
research has shown that exercise and eating
healthy boosts your mood
Recognize what’s making you sad and don’t
obsess over the feeling. Everyone experiences
sadness and throwing yourself a pity-party isn’t
going to help.
Surprise
Surprise is our instant reaction whenever we face
something unexpected, whether that’s a piece of
good news like your first grandchild, or the shock
of your car suddenly skidding on the ice. It begins
with being frozen or stunned, followed by an
attempt to understand the new experience, then a
reaction to it – all of which can take as little time
as a few seconds, or as long as a week – followed
by a need to share that experience with others.
Neurologists have discovered that surprise
stimulates the hippocampus, the part of the brain
that stores and processes memories, which is why
we can often remember pivotal moments from our
childhoods in incredible detail. Psychologists
believe that this is most likely a survival instinct
that helps us to learn from new events and pass
that learning on.
According to Tania Luna and Leeann Renninger,
authors of the book Surprise: Embrace the
Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected ,
surprise unravels in four stages.
1. Freeze: We’re stunned by the unexpected. This
often comes with a gasp.
2. Find: We try to figure it out.
3. Shift: The surprise begins to change our
perspective because it introduces us to something
new.
4. Share: We often feel compelled to tell others about
our novel experiences.
The Shocking Benefits of Surprise
Given how typically short-lived the feeling of
surprise is, you might not expect it to have much
of an effect. However, researchers have discovered
some key ways pleasant surprise boosts our well-
being.
#1: It boosts memory
You’re more likely to remember a surprising
experience than an expected one. Researchers at
the University of Madgeburg in Germany
discovered that the hippocampus, a part of the
brain that helps process and store information,
becomes more active when people are faced with
shocking information or stimuli compared to the
familiar. As a result, your brain remembers more
details about things that elicit surprise compared
things you expect.
This is why you can recall vivid details about
exciting childhood experiences, but sometimes
struggle to remember things you did last week.
#2 Pleasant Surprises Make Us Happier
Researchers at Emory University and Baylor College
of Medicine discovered that the pleasure centers of
our brains are more active when we experience
surprising positive moments compared to positive
moments that we expect to happen. This is why we
tend to feel so much happier when someone gives
us a gift at random times of the year than on
Christmas or our birthday when we’re expecting
presents. It also amplifies unexpected pleasures
like compliments from people who rarely give them
and sunny weather after weeks of fog and rain.
#3 It Adds Spark to Your Relationships
Studies show that doing novel activities with your
partner improves your level of satisfaction in your
relationship. When you’ve been with someone for
years, it’s easy to fall into daily habits that leave
you feeling bored with your relationship. Taking
time to surprise your partner by doing new
activities together brings back the excitement you
felt in the early days of your relationship when
everything was new and fun.
Emotions Build Trust
Humans are instinctively social, loyal to family
groups, friendship groups, clubs and even their
workplaces. Trust allows us to be vulnerable to
others with the expectation that in return they will
share your burden, whether that’s caring for your
child, or lending a sympathetic ear when you want
to let off some steam.
To that end we seek out people who are
trustworthy. Trustworthiness is the characteristic
or behaviour of one person that inspire positive
expectations in another person, and trust
propensity being able to rely on people.
Emotions may simply be a case of chemistry, but
managing those emotions is far from an exact
science. It takes time, and practice, to fully
develop our emotional intelligence skills.
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