Avoiding or burying your emotions can mess with your health. See, many experts believe that emotions are stored in your body, and unless you do the necessary work to release them, they can accumulate your well-being and eventually sabotage it. And every emotion has a specific purpose – even those that make us feel uncomfortable. In fact, according to Wall Street Journal bestselling author Mollie West Duffy (and co-author of the recently published, Big Feelings), some negative emotions actually have profound benefits to your health, assuming you respect them in the right way.
Below, Duffy explains what we still get wrong about some of these difficult emotions and how to use them to your advantage. You will soon discover that these “negative” feelings are not negative at all.
You probably hear it all the time: comparison is the depth of joy. And, yes, social comparison can be quite devastating to mental health, especially among younger individuals, but we are hardwired to compare ourselves with others. In fact, a 2003 study found that when researchers gave a group of monkeys slices of cucumber, the monkeys were satisfied – until they saw that the researchers gave another group of monkeys grapes (a major upgrade). “The monkeys that still got a cucumber were no longer happy,” Duffy says, pointing out how social comparisons can affect your mood – even without the existence of social media.
“Unfortunately, you are not free from comparison just by being on social media,” Duffy says. “We get text messages, we meet people at the grocery store, we see celebrities … it’s all around us.” Unless you are completely out of the grid and isolated (which has its own health implications, we should add), chances are you are running in some form or way in comparison.
But this is not necessarily always a bad thing! “Most of the time, we only engage in up-and-coming comparisons, which is against people who we see doing better than us,” Duffy says. However, you can also engage in the comparison below, which can help you cultivate a sense of gratitude. For example, let’s say you are trying to become a better runner. When you compare yourself to someone who has never done a long run before, it can make you feel better. That’s not to say you should step up to that person and tell them they are a bad runner – it’s just a way to tweak your social comparisons in your head so they don’t mess with your mood.
“The most common myth is that you should suppress your anger,” Duffy says. Early in our lives, we receive social cues that anger is gruesome and that you should never show it – but this oppression only makes it harder to deal with these feelings when anger arises.
“Many of us have no healthy relationships with anger,” Duffy notes, when it can really be a helpful tool for you to use. “Anger is actually just a sign that your body and mind are telling you to do something about something that interests you, that has been hurt.” It is mobilized, and it is an important step in dealing with inner trauma and grief.
Anger can even be a form of compassion, says Duffy – which is why people tend to cry when they get angry. “It’s like, I care a lot about this thing that got hurt. So it comes out in matters of tears,” Duffy explains. Of course, you do not want to marinate on your anger for a long time or react with violence of any kind, but it is an important tool to identify what interests you so that you can then make or act tweaks.
Allow Duffy to declare, “We can not live a #NoRegrets life. Regret is an emotion we can learn a lot from if we allow ourselves to.
Sure, regret may feel uncomfortable, like a pit in your stomach, but forgetting that regret and beating yourself up for having it is not the answer. Conversely, regrets can teach you about what decisions you should make the next time you are faced with a similar scenario. “Most of the time, you made the best decision you could at the moment,” Duffy says. “Go to a place of, OK, what can I do differently in the future?”
So instead of wrapping up in your regrets, it is important to normalize them so that you can move forward in a healthy way. Here is a three-step routine to do this if you need help organizing your thoughts.
It is important to honor your emotions, even those that you see as “negative”. Many of us are taught from a very young age to bury these feelings, but this can actually mess with your mental and physical health over time. You can learn quite a lot from those “negative” emotions – and according to Duffy, the most uncomfortable feelings are often the best teachers.
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How do you heal from past trauma?
7 Ways to Heal Your Childhood Trauma To see also : News & Events Visual & Performing Arts.
- Recognize and acknowledge the trauma for what it is. …
- Reclaim Control. …
- Seek support and do not isolate yourself. …
- Take care of your health. …
- Learn the true meaning of acceptance and let go. …
- Replace bad habits with good ones. …
- Be patient with yourself.
Can trauma ever be completely healed? Some individuals use their experiences to help others through a healing process. As you go through these stages, it is possible to fully recover from the effects of trauma and live a meaningful and rewarding life.
How long does it take to heal from past trauma?
People affected by trauma tend to feel insecure in their bodies and in their relationships with others. Recovering a sense of security can take days to weeks with acutely traumatized individuals or months to years with individuals who have experienced ongoing / chronic abuse.
Is boredom a negative emotion?
Boredom is a widespread emotion with potentially negative consequences. On the same subject : SC’s summer journey continues, despite gas prices, inflation. Previous research has shown boredom with results of both high and low levels of recovery and activation.
What emotion is boredom? Boredom is an emotion or signal that lets you know that you are doing something that does not give you satisfaction. Boredom could tell you two things: that you are not fully present and engaged in your current task or that your task does not make sense to you.
Is boredom an emotional state?
In conventional usage, boredom is an emotional and sometimes psychological state that is experienced when an individual is without anything to do, is not interested in their surroundings, or feels that a day or period is boring or boring.
Is boredom a stress response?
A new study shows that boredom is actually associated with stress rather than a specific circumstance. Boredom has more to do with stress than with our seemingly boring environment, a new study concluded.
Is boredom a basic emotion?
Boredom is an adaptive emotion in the Darwinian sense. Its purpose, that is, can be designed to help one flourish.
How do you handle negative emotions?
Accepting Your Emotions Learning to accept negative emotions is also an effective way to manage those difficult feelings. Acceptance means acknowledging that we feel scared, angry, sad or frustrated. Instead of trying to avoid or suppress these feelings, you allow them to exist without remaining on them.
Why do we need to treat negative emotions well? Negative emotions also most likely help our survival. Bad feelings can be vital signs that a health problem, relationship, or other important matter needs attention, Eagle points out. The survival value of negative thoughts and emotions can help explain why suppressing them is so fruitless.
What are the 10 basic feelings?
Carroll Izard identifies ten primary emotions: fear, anger, shame, contempt, disgust, guilt, distress, interest, surprise and joy – emotions that can not be reduced to more basic emotions, but that can be combined to produce other emotions.
What are the 8 basic feelings? Robert Plutchik proposed eight primary emotions: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, expectation, confidence and joy, and arranged them in a color wheel.
What are 12 human emotions?
More recently, Carroll Izard at the University of Delaware factor analytically marked 12 discrete emotions: interest, joy, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, self-loathing, fear, shame, shyness, and guilt (as measured by his differential). Emotions scale or DES-IV).
What are the 27 types of feelings?
The 27 Emotions: Admiration, Admiration, Aesthetic Recognition, Amusement, Anger, Anxiety, Awe, Discomfort, Boredom, Tranquility, Confusion, Desire, Disgust, Empathic Pain, Entrance, Excitement, Fear, Horror, Interest, Joy, Nostalgia, Relief, Romance, sadness, contentment, sexual desire, surprise.
