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Post Disclaimer
The information on this website is designed to offer self-care tips and recommendations based on evidence-based research and literature from professionals in each field. It is not intended to diagnose or treat any specific medical condition. Please consult with your healthcare provider before making any health-related decisions.
Continuing to provide tips, techniques, and recommendations for all Service Members in the area of brain health. Conducting operator level maintenance on the brain will prepare your mind for any trial, adversity, or mountain you will face or are facing now.
Emotions, something that is felt by everyone every day. Did you know that you have the choice to determine what emotions you want to feel throughout your day? If something makes you mad or scared, it creates anxiety, stress, or a response to a traumatic event. You can choose now not to allow stimuli around you to create a painful event. Understanding what happens in the brain during emotion will empower you to stop the negative emotional responses.
Watch this video below, an animation explaining emotions and the brain.
We cannot remove most of the negative stimuli that cause stress, but we can choose how we react to them, taking control of the negative emotion. When you learn of the damage occurring to your body when you choose to allow your brain to respond negatively to stimuli, you will want to make the right choices; your quality of life and prolonged health depend on it.
What Are Emotions
Emotions can be defined as any brain activity creating any chemical reaction and/or behavior, resulting in the body maintaining its normal activity or behaving in a manner that damages the body. Emotions have also been placed into three categories—emotions as feelings, evaluations, and motivations. Emotions typically are classified into five groups, and if you have seen the recent Disney movie Inside Out, we learn that they are joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust.
Emotions are different for everyone. Everyone will react differently, triggering an emotion to stimuli. I crashed a four-wheeler with my soon to be wife in 1999, smashed my face, left orbital fracture, and a back injury for my wife. I was willing to jump back on a four-wheeler with zero fear after that event. My wife is still scared of four-wheelers today. One may cry uncontrollably when there is a death in the family as others will have a lesser emotion. Emotions have influenced the billions of stimuli that have entered our brain, both consciously and unconsciously. Traumatic events influence emotions, and all previous beliefs, desires, and teachings influence emotions.
Buea Lotto, in his book Deviate, The Science of Seeing Differently, explains that emotions “reveal one’s emotions to oneself.” We enter a situation with the assumption of what right is. When we see the opposite from our perceived assumption, we feel a negative emotion. But when what we see matches our assumption of reality, we are rewarded with Dopamine. This aspect of emotion is key to understanding the negative impacts of social media on the brain. When we see a post that contradicts our political belief, this fires a negative emotion, as it goes against what our mind perceives as right, our assumed perception of reality. Do you think social media interaction would be less hateful if others understood the damage to their body? (watch this video to learn about the impact of Social Media on emotions) All these emotions can be controlled. YOuc a take control of your life and choose the healthier way of life. First, let’s explain what happens inside the brain during an emotional event; then, you will be ready to take power back.
Emotions and Key Areas in the Brain
The Amygdala, Thalamus, Hypothalamus, and Hippocampus make up the Limbic System. The Pre-Frontal Cortex plays a key role as it attempts to regulate the emotional response.
The amygdala is responsible for the fight or flight response. It influences anger, fear, hate, and violence. It plays a few other roles, but this is as far as we will discuss for emotions.
The thalamus is the entry point for all senses minus smell. It is the reception and relay stations. It receives all stimuli, does a quick assessment, and then sends the stimuli to the brain’s correct areas.
The hypothalamus is responsible for homeostasis or keeping the body operation functioning as it’s supposed to. It communicates to multiple glands within the body, triggering the release of hormones. This is what causes the benefits or damage to parts of the body when emotions influence chronic stress.
The hippocampus is responsible for converting short-term memory into long-term memory. It analyzes the data received to look for linkages between the new data and the older data stored in the brain’s library. If damaged, the brain will no longer store new memories but can retrieve older memories.
The Prefrontal Cortex is responsible for making decisions, making sense of the stimuli, ensuring that the most accurate emotional responses occur. Critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and problem-solving occur in this portion of the brain.
Emotional Activity in the Brain
As stimuli enter the thalamus, the thalamus quickly evaluates the information and sends it either to the prefrontal cortex for evaluation and decision making or sends information to the hypothalamus to signal the release of hormones and the amygdala when there is either an immediate response of fight or flight or if there is an emotion resulting in the normal activity of how the body functions. Many times, while the prefrontal cortex attempts to analyze all data to make accurately informed decisions, the amygdala and hypothalamus will take charge, bypass the prefrontal cortex, and influence hate, anger, or fear. This often happens when trauma has occurred or any phobias, dislikes, or other stimuli that require immediate fight or flight response. Watch the video in this article for a metaphorical explanation and visual demonstration of what occurs in the brain as we respond emotionally.
[…] The Brain and Emotions: Learn to Take Control of Your Response […]