How to Understand Your Emotions: 13 Steps (with Photos) - tips

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Emotions go hand in hand with us. You will be happy to laugh with a close friend or be scared by a bad dog. However, emotions are not only subjective experiences, but also include many other things. You can also learn to better understand your feelings. In recent years, scientists have helped us to understand more about the nature of emotions - about the occurrence of different emotions, how emotions control our behavior and the effects of different types of emotions. to human body as well as mind. Understanding your feelings is a great effort to increase control over your emotions and actions.

Steps

Part 1 of 2: Understanding the nature of your emotions

Understand the origin of your emotions. Emotions are the default responses formed through evolution that allow you to control life in a way that has often been adapted in the past and perhaps still exists today.
- For example, the feeling of fear has evolved over time. When our ancestors - those who experienced fear - saw the cliff of the cliff, they showed caution when approaching the cliff.Because they were more cautious, those experiencing fear were more likely to survive than fearless people. Fearful people lived longer to maintain race and gave birth to children inherited from fear.
- Evolution happens with negative emotions like fear and positive emotions like happiness. Negative emotions prevent people from engaging in dangerous or costly actions. Positive emotions, on the other hand, encourage people to do good things.
Learn the basic emotions. Most psychologists agree that humans possess a set of "basic emotions", including: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.
- Researchers gradually added contempt, pride, shame, love, and anxiety to the emotional list. There are probably some other underlying emotions, but their popularity or specific cultural dependency is still being debated.
Understand the role of emotions. Emotions are an important part of our existence, our ability to thrive, and our ability to make the right decisions. All emotions - though negative - help us to direct our own lives.
- For example, imagine waking up in the morning and not feeling shy or embarrassed or anxious about communication. In general, you don't care about how you behave in front of other people. If this is the case, you may not have a friend if you don't care about how you behave around them. It is because emotions help us get along with others.
Recognize the effects of emotions in decision-making. Emotions play an important role in our ability to make decisions. Emotions tell us the value or persuasion of information, influencing our decisions in some way. Numerous studies have shown that damage in certain parts of the brain that is linked to emotions often impairs decision-making, and in some cases, impair the ability to perform ethical behavior. of human.
- One of the most famous related cases is Phineas Gage (PG). While at work, PG is pierced by a metal rod through the head, damaging a part of the brain involved in processing emotions. Miraculously, PG survived the accident, but he is no longer human as before. There is a big change in his personality - becoming emotionless or expressing inappropriate emotions, making bad decisions, and making others feel miserable. One of the main reasons for this behavior change is that the metal rod has damaged the part of his brain related to his emotions.
- People with personality disorder belong to a group of difficulties in society. One of the most common symptoms of a personality disorder is lack of emotion, also known as a ruthless trait - insensitivity or lack of empathy or guilt. Lack of these emotions can lead to antisocial and sometimes criminal behavior. From there, we can see that emotions are very important to people's moral standards.
Understand that emotions can be disturbed. Just as you may experience kidney or eye dysfunction, your emotions may be disturbed. If you think your emotions are disturbing, see a psychiatrist for appropriate treatment. Some of the most common emotional disorders, or psychiatric conditions, that affect emotions include:
- Depression, which is related to feeling often sad for long periods of time and losing interest.
- Anxiety disorders. General anxiety disorder refers to a state of excessive and prolonged anxiety that precedes a routine event.
- Schizophrenia is associated with lack of emotion or irritability or depression.
- Hypomania (mood swings and mood swings) due to bipolar disorder means moods that are unusually high and intense over long periods of time. Man with mania will also often feel extremely irritable.
Take notes when emotions arise. When you feel the moment when your emotions arise with your specific feelings, take notes to further study them. To learn more about the emotions you experience and what triggers them in your life, keep a record of when you felt them and what you think caused them.
- For example, perhaps you felt angry and recalled this feeling before you realized you had to queue for 15 minutes for lunch and you hate queuing.
- You can use this information to increase or decrease the feelings you want or don't want in your life. If you know what makes you angry, you can come up with solutions to avoid situations that trigger that emotion. For example, when you know you hate queuing, you will choose to buy 1-2 items from the supermarket so you can pay at the priority counter.
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Part 2 of 2: Identify your emotions

Learn how each emotion feels. It's easy to see that different emotions bring different feelings. While it is clear that negative emotions are different from positive emotions, each negative emotion also has a different feeling. Shame is different from sadness, and they will be different from fear.
Understand feelings of anger. Anger occurs when someone has done something unfair to you in some way. This emotion serves as a factor preventing them from doing the same thing in the future. In the absence of anger, others will continue to use you.
- Anger feelings sometimes form behind the back, right between the shoulder blades and progressively upward along the nape of the neck, around the jaw and head.
- When you are angry, you may feel hot and confused.
- If you find your back, neck, and jaw feeling like tension, pain, and heaviness, you're feeling angry inside.
Understand feelings of disgust. Disgust is a reaction to the agent that brings disgust, often making us physically uncomfortable. This emotion is designed to protect us from things that might cause discomfort. These are also emotions that arise when we perceive things with disgusting implications - such as behaviors that go against moral standards.
- Disgust is most commonly felt in the abdomen, chest, and head area. You may feel uncomfortable or nauseous and you just want to hold your nose and move away from the source of the disgust.
Understand feelings of fear. Fear is a response to a hazard, such as a beast, a height or a gun. This is a feeling that keeps us away from these dangers at that point in time and not coming near them in the future. Although fear is an evolved emotional response, the things that make us fear are accumulated through experience.
- Fear is usually felt from the upper body. However, in the fear of heights, a feeling of fear often occurs in the legs.
- When you feel frightened, your heart will beat faster and you will begin to breathe rapidly, your palms will sweat and feel hot because part of the nervous system is working hard. This is a reaction called fighting or running away.
Explore feelings of happiness. Happiness is a response to things commonly associated with survival, development, and genetics for the next generation. Some of the things that make us happy include sex, having children, achieving success with valuable goals, being rewarded by others, and being welcome.
- While happiness is perhaps one of the most recognizable or best known emotions, it is also one of the most difficult to define. Happiness can be a warm feeling throughout the body or it can include contentment, security, or a peaceful life.
Looking back sad feelings. Sadness is a response to a loss we care about. This is a very painful emotion, and can help us avoid future loss or appreciate what we have back after all the hardships (eg a lover).
- Sadness usually forms from the chest and progresses to the neck and eyes, causing us to cry. You may have heard someone say "She choked". Allowing yourself to cry is a way to relieve your feelings. Paying attention to the physical sensations in these regions and allowing energy to spread will help us to express our sadness after loss and empathize with the pain of others.
Feel the surprise. Surprise is a reaction that appears to something unexpected but is not a danger. This is an interesting emotion as it is neutral when compared to other types of emotions that tend to be either positive or negative. Surprise has the effect of diverting attention to new things.
- Surprise is felt mainly in the head and chest. This is to react to something unexpected and make you a little bit dizzy.
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Advice

The emotional experience is short-lived, but the mood can last. For example, if you find yourself in fear, remember that the feeling will pass away quickly.
Note, even negative emotions are a normal human response, and in many cases, emotions can be quite helpful.