18 ms·

A simple way to feel happier, according to the new science of emotion

93 points by ca98am79 5y ago

mrosett 5y ago
On one hand, this article seems fine as far as it goes. Sure, I can imagine there's some benefit to cultivating a positive emotion for 5 minutes per day. On the other hand, any article that uses the phrase "the new science of <anything>" is highly suspect, especially when it claims to have a secret that will let you "rewire" your brain.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Everybody wants the respect that science gets today. Therefore everybody describes what they're doing as "science". It's just debasing the word "science" to make their ideas seem more respectable. But this isn't new. Marx called his thinking "scientific socialism" back in 1845, as if socialism - or any political theory - would ever actually be scientific in any real sense.
ggm 5y ago
Is this just another take on "mindfullness" ?
- loopz 5y ago
  Practitioners of meditation and breathing exercises may find recognition in some of it. But, meditation/mindfulness is more about observing thought and feelings come and go, as you breathe. With practice you may gain some mind control, and trying to channel fear and feelings into constructiveness is part of knowledge (jnana). However, many people will confuse also this, and mastering it, depending on so much or so little. Nothing to accomplish.
  - lanstin 5y ago
    And really common if you meditate, you are more likely to sleep when tired and eat when hungry and eliminate things from your life that crank you up and and displease you, so in the context of this slightly simpler more healthy life, you brain predictions may be more positive.
ajmadesc 5y ago
TLDR: * Write three things you're greatfull for daily. Bonus points if you share the task with friends * Take walks and pay attention to what's happening * Listen to soft nature sounds
- jhgb 5y ago
  > Write three things your greatfull for But preferably write them better than this?
  - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
    Cruel arithmetic thwarts this would-be haikuist. Everyone's a critic.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Jeff_Brown 5y ago
  This more general advice, which the article makes outside of its bullet points, could have be bulleted too: * notice and seek out raw pleasure (sunsets, birdsong) * revisit pleasant memories * step outside yourself (charity, flow)
Barrin92 5y ago
honestly I'm getting very weary of this trend of people being into their emotions or making their emotional life the center-stage of their being. It seems like a very narcissistic hedonism. I've always felt that there's a simple answer to being 'unhappy'. Just do something that helps others, take some responsibility in the real world, even if it's small but at least you're doing something real, and worst case you're still miserable but at least you've done something meaningful. I've started to appreciate the religious outlook more that has a mature attitude to suffering rather than this honestly pretty childish avoidance of negative emotions.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  "The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead." ― Mr.Peanutbutter (Bojack Horseman)
  - iancmceachern 5y ago
    From Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it," and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day."
- loopz 5y ago
  Maybe people have different needs?
- polishdude20 5y ago
  It's as if there's a separate higher state of being one can be in that's not happiness, sadness or anger. It's something akin to being content. But more like, a thing inside you saying "I am ok with being happy when it happens, I am ok with being sad when it happens and I am ok with getting a grey sometimes." It's the acknowledgment that you will feel different emotions throughout your life and you are ready to take them on and grow from them. Sadness or anger aren't bad. They serve a purpose.
sammalloy 5y ago
One thing I've run into, over and over again, is the palliative effects of laughter. I realize that sounds odd, on the face of it, but it's something I keep coming back to in my life. To illustrate, about a year or so ago, I accidentally smashed my fingers in my car door as I was closing it. To distract myself from the pain, my brain focused on how funny this was, and I started giggling like a madman. It worked! I could barely feel any discomfort as my mind switched over from pain and anger to finding the comedy in my predicament. Perhaps the answer is simply in switching our awareness of what is happening from negative to positive emotions over time, and building good memories to support our newfound freedom. We can control our emotions, we don't need to be controlled by them.
- alexktz 5y ago
  I will remember this if ever my leg gets chopped off by a chainsaw!
  - CGamesPlay 5y ago
    Just remember that the laughing only helps your mental state. You’ll probably still want to laugh your way into a tourniquet.
    - sammalloy 5y ago
      All true, but didn't those Buddhist monks who famously self-immolated themselves as a protest during the Vietnam War, do so under a self-induced hypnotic trance, indicating that it's entirely possible to override our pain system?
      - perfmode 5y ago
        you can override the pain, but it won’t stop the bleeding. if you wish to survive the dismemberment, you best recognize.
amriksohata 5y ago
I'll stick to the Hindu sages meditation rather than this mindfulness rebrand thank you very much Oh and yoga and equanimity
magneticnorth 5y ago
To summarize, because the introduction ends clickbait-style with "'I had to expand my consciousness,' she says. And she did it by intentionally cultivating a particular emotion." followed by 3 long sections of exposition before they elaborate on the "particular emotion": Cultivate awe - meaning "reconnect[ing] with the vast natural world, with the universe beyond my professional and personal responsibilities, and beyond this moment in time". In particular, they recommend an "awe walk" where you focus on things around you and small details and look for things that are unexpected and delightful. Kind of sounds to me like "get out of your own head", which I think is advice I could use more often.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  Awe is an interesting one to me. I think it could possibly be broken down into types of awe for more leverage. Similar to the way others have attempted to enumerate additional human sense capabilities. It'd be cool to generate some "awe practices" which would be more like frameworks with which to generate awe. I imagine the more subjectively-open, the better. One person's Carl Sagan Cosmos-style Awe, for example, is probably another person's nightmare (I can share from personal experience in relating my own awe to others).
  - Forbo 5y ago
    Awe is probably one of the biggest sensations one gets from psychedelics. I wonder if this may help to explain some of the antidepressant effects that are currently being explored.
    - themodelplumber 5y ago
      That's a really interesting thought. I also wonder if there are relational or organizational aspects that may suppress or stimulate a sense of awe. IOW, you may be able to find/design an awe-group or awe-place of your own. Or at least, it may help adjust expectations as to where and when awe can be reliably captured for therapeutic or other moderating capacity.
tus89 5y ago
Why seek happiness? What's wrong with being content and fulfilled?
themodelplumber 5y ago
I thought the Joy Generator they shared in the article was really neat. https://apps.npr.org/joy-generator/#story=intro&page=0 https://apps.npr.org/joy-generator/#story=intro&page=0 I have developed some of my own tools to create similar effects, as part of my text editor journaling process[0]. I think the JG is the exact sort of thing that could really help people make small yet substantial life changes toward a better experience.. (After using the Joy Generator, I spent a bit of time developing an anticipation-generator doc for myself as well, focused on creating happy experiences that lay waiting in the future. Pretty neat ideas they shared. Thanks NPR.) 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XehGA1fYulo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XehGA1fYulo
okareaman 5y ago
See also: Epicurus and the letter to Menoeceus https://churchofepicurus.wordpress.com/the-letter-to-menoeceus/ https://churchofepicurus.wordpress.com/the-letter-to-menoece...
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
I was surprised to see nostalgia in the list of positive emotions. I guess I don't disagree but I've never thought of it that way, and I've certainly never sought it out.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  In my experience some people experience a very strong and qualitatively impressive sentimental connection to elements of their subjective past. It's amazing to watch in some cases. The details of the connection, its frequency, amplitude / subjective potency, and accuracy seem quite different from person to person. There have been attempts in some spaces of research to group people by the various characteristics of their subjective experience with their past, and how they metabolize (so to speak) nostalgia. I was kind of in the same boat as you in the sense that it was new to me (whether one is aware of it as a practice available to them is another differentiator) and I had to cultivate it. I started by making a timeline of my life in bullet points, and then found myself naturally expanding on my favorite parts much later in the experience. This was really pleasant. Also some chemicals seem to help. Personally caffeine brings this nostalgia-awareness to me quite easily after the initial spur of executive activity has worn off.
  - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
    I wonder how easy it is to classify nostalgia as positive or negative affect. My grandmother seemed to simultaneously enjoy it and be saddened by it.
    - themodelplumber 5y ago
      Negative can sometimes be used as a marker indicating that the subject is obsessed with the "lack of" looking backward being everybody's problem including their own. They may view the suggestion of its use as a function of perceived deficit in other important things. Don't got enough (thing you want) in life? You aren't looking backward enough, or you're looking backward but bringing the "wrong" lessons forward (highly subjective variant). The positive by comparison would reflect a more flexible, demonstrative capacity with the same, including more frequent deployment of it as a problem-solving tool.
dr_dshiv 5y ago
This reminds me of work a design masters student is doing to explore how breathwork practices support spiritual wellbeing among engineering college students. After 10 good minutes of breathwork, most participants seem to have a mild spiritual experience characterized by feelings of awe and connectedness.
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
> "it can feel better to be on the giving end rather than the receiving end" I find that, disappointingly, in-person charity is a lot more satisfying than more efficient forms, because the people I have a chance to help in person are in much less need.
crazygringo 5y ago
As someone who's done a ton of academic research in emotions, I just want to point out: Lisa Feldman Barrett's theory of emotions (which this article uses) is widely considered implausible by emotions researchers, but she's gotten a surprising amount of media coverage that presents her theories as consensus or fact. In a nutshell: traditional "appraisal theory" says for example, we appraise something as dangerous (a bear), and have an emotion that consists of bodily and mental feelings (fear), and that emotions are inbuilt much like colors are. (You can't choose to see red as blue). What Barrett argues is that seeing a bear produces adrenaline -- a feeling which precedes emotion -- and then we can interpret that adrenaline feeling however we like, that emotions are essentially cultural constructions or labels we've invented that we're free to uninvent. However, this view, besides defying common sense, simply isn't consistent with data. Emotions follow regular patterns in what generates them (e.g. a dangerous situation creates fear) and what relieves them (e.g. escaping a dangerous situation allows fear to subside). There's zero evidence we can reinterpret or redefine our emotions by will, as she suggests. (Nor can she account for why infants all share the same emotional patterns, before they could have learned them culturally.) If you really want to get into current academic theories of emotion (and Ctrl+F for "Barrett" to see where she sits), you can basically start here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/
- MathYouF 5y ago
  I watched an interview with her on YouTube and she had a very argumentative tone when questioned by an audience member, rather than a conversational and educational one. Not surprised to hear from a fellow expert that her theories aren't really supported by evidence. She seemed extremely defensive during the Q&A. Here's the video: https://youtu.be/qwsft6tmvBA https://youtu.be/qwsft6tmvBA In fact the audience member I linked to basically accidentally stepped on a landmine which seems to be the main critique you've posted of her work, just by talking about facts that seem evident (that emotions are the result of chemicals flooding the brain)
- smeej 5y ago
  Do you know of any studies where this has been studied in autistic people? For me, the gap between physical reaction and identifying an emotion can sometimes be very long, like days or longer. Because I don't identify my emotions intuitively, I actually have to sit and look at the physical symptoms to figure out what the emotion was. My heart was racing and I felt queasy in my stomach. Did something about him scare me and I should be wary, or am I attracted to him? I can't always tell. Sometimes it does seem like I could choose. Like as a kid, I thought I had really bad stage fright, until someone said maybe I was actually excited. It was an easy shift. Now I love speaking in front of people, and I do it easily. But were they right and just identifying my emotions better than I was? Or was I actually afraid and, by thinking of those same physical symptoms as excitement, did I become excited? I'm fascinated to find out this has been studied and people have theories leading toward actual answers!
soul4krsna 5y ago
Here is some awe for you. God is eternally seperated but not divided and is simultaneously one and different with everything. Also God is a young person of no more than 15 y/o. We all have a particular/unique way of making God orgasm. We cant figure that out if we think we are this body. Go read the Gita by Prabhupada from '72.[0] Einstein read it daily. ... [0] https://bg-ai.github.io https://bg-ai.github.io
ericmcer 5y ago
Mindfulness, meditation, whatever. Just get perspective on your life seems like the big takeaway. My favorite instance of this in recent memory is from the show “Alone”, contestants attempt to survive in the arctic with basic tools for 100 days for a million dollars. One guy realized about 40 days in that his old self was worried about the money and his current self only cared about family, food, shelter, etc. He already had everything he wanted in life it just wasn’t apparent until he sat in a tent for 40 days living on fish haha.
Tarucho 5y ago
So, after 14 months of isolation and being in front of screens this person feels unhappy? And the cure is to be grateful and find awe in the small things because some study said such and such? When did we forget we are still social animals? The cure is to be in contact with nature and with fellow human beings (better if both are at the same time), but sadly even before the pandemic this was kind of a luxury. It is as if most people don't want to go out or interact with other people anymore. It's all about streaming services, social media and competition.
premium-komodo 5y ago
Congratulations on badly reinventing one one millionth of Buddhism 26 centuries late.
coldtea 5y ago
>Over the past decade, neuroscientists have begun to shift how they think emotions arise. Rather than being inevitable, hard-coded experiences, researchers now think emotions are malleable, and people have more influence over them than previously thought. This doesn't make sense given the deterministic nature of the universe and the absense of free will. (I believe in free will, just point this out for fun - and for those that don't but still, 24/7 act, express their feelings, and advice others as if it totally exists).
isabelc 5y ago
Fans of Charlotte Bronte may remember: “No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure.” - said Lucy Snow in the novel, Villette, by Charlotte Bronte.
RikNieu 5y ago
So metta meditation.
4b11b4 5y ago
I sort of stumbled upon this myself: I'll have negative thoughts - your hair is messed up, they're looking at you, you're doing something wrong, not cool enough, they don't like you, etc But I realized that of course these are completely ridiculous negative thoughts from my social conditioning in North America. So one day I thought to tell myself equally ridiculous positive thoughts. When I have a negative thought.. my hair is messed up --- I'll counter it with a ridiculous positive thought: my hair is the most beautiful hair on planet earth. It sounds so stupid when it's positive, but when it's negative I had been listening to it for my entire life. From this point on, it's difficult to give those negative thoughts any weight.
meristohm 5y ago
> If your past experiences with bears* come largely through news reports of attacks and maulings, then your brain will likely interpret your bodily sensations — raised heart rate, raised blood pressure, sweaty palms — as fear. Lots of fear! And this emotion will help drive you away from the bear. *or whatever else might be presented as something to fear
danielyaa5 5y ago
These articles that make it seem like there’s a way to change your emotions through thought seem so sus. Life is complicated, biology is so complicated, just study yourself and see what works for you. But I bet you are better off changing your environment than thinking your way into better emotions. If you’re rational you can find your own answers instead of looking at essentially a self help / meditation article
vintermann 5y ago
"According to the latest research", hah. Once again neuroscientists are late to the game and make "revolutionary" discoveries that social psychologists have known for decades. That physical response predates emotion, and that emotion is in large part about how you interpret internal physical cues, has been hypothesised since at least the 1890s, and arguably known since the 1960s when there were a number of influential experiments testing it. Famously, in 1962 Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer ran an experiment where they manipulated people's internal cues with epinephrine, a drug that causes flushing and increased heart rate. By varying the contextual cues, they got the subjects to interpret this as both happiness and anger, with subjects who got the drug reporting far stronger emotions than those who didn't.

93 points by ca98am79 5y ago

On one hand, this article seems fine as far as it goes. Sure, I can imagine there's some benefit to cultivating a positive emotion for 5 minutes per day. On the other hand, any article that uses the phrase "the new science of <anything>" is highly suspect, especially when it claims to have a secret that will let you "rewire" your brain.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Everybody wants the respect that science gets today. Therefore everybody describes what they're doing as "science". It's just debasing the word "science" to make their ideas seem more respectable. But this isn't new. Marx called his thinking "scientific socialism" back in 1845, as if socialism - or any political theory - would ever actually be scientific in any real sense.

ggm 5y ago

Is this just another take on "mindfullness" ?

loopz 5y ago
Practitioners of meditation and breathing exercises may find recognition in some of it. But, meditation/mindfulness is more about observing thought and feelings come and go, as you breathe. With practice you may gain some mind control, and trying to channel fear and feelings into constructiveness is part of knowledge (jnana). However, many people will confuse also this, and mastering it, depending on so much or so little. Nothing to accomplish.
- lanstin 5y ago
  And really common if you meditate, you are more likely to sleep when tired and eat when hungry and eliminate things from your life that crank you up and and displease you, so in the context of this slightly simpler more healthy life, you brain predictions may be more positive.

ajmadesc 5y ago

TLDR: * Write three things you're greatfull for daily. Bonus points if you share the task with friends * Take walks and pay attention to what's happening * Listen to soft nature sounds

jhgb 5y ago
> Write three things your greatfull for But preferably write them better than this?
- Jeff_Brown 5y ago
  Cruel arithmetic thwarts this would-be haikuist. Everyone's a critic.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Jeff_Brown 5y ago
This more general advice, which the article makes outside of its bullet points, could have be bulleted too: * notice and seek out raw pleasure (sunsets, birdsong) * revisit pleasant memories * step outside yourself (charity, flow)

Barrin92 5y ago

honestly I'm getting very weary of this trend of people being into their emotions or making their emotional life the center-stage of their being. It seems like a very narcissistic hedonism. I've always felt that there's a simple answer to being 'unhappy'. Just do something that helps others, take some responsibility in the real world, even if it's small but at least you're doing something real, and worst case you're still miserable but at least you've done something meaningful. I've started to appreciate the religious outlook more that has a mature attitude to suffering rather than this honestly pretty childish avoidance of negative emotions.

BitwiseFool 5y ago
"The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead." ― Mr.Peanutbutter (Bojack Horseman)
- iancmceachern 5y ago
  From Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it," and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day."
loopz 5y ago
Maybe people have different needs?
polishdude20 5y ago
It's as if there's a separate higher state of being one can be in that's not happiness, sadness or anger. It's something akin to being content. But more like, a thing inside you saying "I am ok with being happy when it happens, I am ok with being sad when it happens and I am ok with getting a grey sometimes." It's the acknowledgment that you will feel different emotions throughout your life and you are ready to take them on and grow from them. Sadness or anger aren't bad. They serve a purpose.

sammalloy 5y ago

One thing I've run into, over and over again, is the palliative effects of laughter. I realize that sounds odd, on the face of it, but it's something I keep coming back to in my life. To illustrate, about a year or so ago, I accidentally smashed my fingers in my car door as I was closing it. To distract myself from the pain, my brain focused on how funny this was, and I started giggling like a madman. It worked! I could barely feel any discomfort as my mind switched over from pain and anger to finding the comedy in my predicament. Perhaps the answer is simply in switching our awareness of what is happening from negative to positive emotions over time, and building good memories to support our newfound freedom. We can control our emotions, we don't need to be controlled by them.

alexktz 5y ago
I will remember this if ever my leg gets chopped off by a chainsaw!
- CGamesPlay 5y ago
  Just remember that the laughing only helps your mental state. You’ll probably still want to laugh your way into a tourniquet.
  - sammalloy 5y ago
    All true, but didn't those Buddhist monks who famously self-immolated themselves as a protest during the Vietnam War, do so under a self-induced hypnotic trance, indicating that it's entirely possible to override our pain system?
    - perfmode 5y ago
      you can override the pain, but it won’t stop the bleeding. if you wish to survive the dismemberment, you best recognize.

amriksohata 5y ago

I'll stick to the Hindu sages meditation rather than this mindfulness rebrand thank you very much Oh and yoga and equanimity

magneticnorth 5y ago

To summarize, because the introduction ends clickbait-style with "'I had to expand my consciousness,' she says. And she did it by intentionally cultivating a particular emotion." followed by 3 long sections of exposition before they elaborate on the "particular emotion": Cultivate awe - meaning "reconnect[ing] with the vast natural world, with the universe beyond my professional and personal responsibilities, and beyond this moment in time". In particular, they recommend an "awe walk" where you focus on things around you and small details and look for things that are unexpected and delightful. Kind of sounds to me like "get out of your own head", which I think is advice I could use more often.

themodelplumber 5y ago
Awe is an interesting one to me. I think it could possibly be broken down into types of awe for more leverage. Similar to the way others have attempted to enumerate additional human sense capabilities. It'd be cool to generate some "awe practices" which would be more like frameworks with which to generate awe. I imagine the more subjectively-open, the better. One person's Carl Sagan Cosmos-style Awe, for example, is probably another person's nightmare (I can share from personal experience in relating my own awe to others).
- Forbo 5y ago
  Awe is probably one of the biggest sensations one gets from psychedelics. I wonder if this may help to explain some of the antidepressant effects that are currently being explored.
  - themodelplumber 5y ago
    That's a really interesting thought. I also wonder if there are relational or organizational aspects that may suppress or stimulate a sense of awe. IOW, you may be able to find/design an awe-group or awe-place of your own. Or at least, it may help adjust expectations as to where and when awe can be reliably captured for therapeutic or other moderating capacity.

tus89 5y ago

Why seek happiness? What's wrong with being content and fulfilled?

themodelplumber 5y ago

I thought the Joy Generator they shared in the article was really neat. https://apps.npr.org/joy-generator/#story=intro&page=0 https://apps.npr.org/joy-generator/#story=intro&page=0 I have developed some of my own tools to create similar effects, as part of my text editor journaling process[0]. I think the JG is the exact sort of thing that could really help people make small yet substantial life changes toward a better experience.. (After using the Joy Generator, I spent a bit of time developing an anticipation-generator doc for myself as well, focused on creating happy experiences that lay waiting in the future. Pretty neat ideas they shared. Thanks NPR.) 0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XehGA1fYulo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XehGA1fYulo

okareaman 5y ago

See also: Epicurus and the letter to Menoeceus https://churchofepicurus.wordpress.com/the-letter-to-menoeceus/ https://churchofepicurus.wordpress.com/the-letter-to-menoece...

Jeff_Brown 5y ago

I was surprised to see nostalgia in the list of positive emotions. I guess I don't disagree but I've never thought of it that way, and I've certainly never sought it out.

themodelplumber 5y ago
In my experience some people experience a very strong and qualitatively impressive sentimental connection to elements of their subjective past. It's amazing to watch in some cases. The details of the connection, its frequency, amplitude / subjective potency, and accuracy seem quite different from person to person. There have been attempts in some spaces of research to group people by the various characteristics of their subjective experience with their past, and how they metabolize (so to speak) nostalgia. I was kind of in the same boat as you in the sense that it was new to me (whether one is aware of it as a practice available to them is another differentiator) and I had to cultivate it. I started by making a timeline of my life in bullet points, and then found myself naturally expanding on my favorite parts much later in the experience. This was really pleasant. Also some chemicals seem to help. Personally caffeine brings this nostalgia-awareness to me quite easily after the initial spur of executive activity has worn off.
- Jeff_Brown 5y ago
  I wonder how easy it is to classify nostalgia as positive or negative affect. My grandmother seemed to simultaneously enjoy it and be saddened by it.
  - themodelplumber 5y ago
    Negative can sometimes be used as a marker indicating that the subject is obsessed with the "lack of" looking backward being everybody's problem including their own. They may view the suggestion of its use as a function of perceived deficit in other important things. Don't got enough (thing you want) in life? You aren't looking backward enough, or you're looking backward but bringing the "wrong" lessons forward (highly subjective variant). The positive by comparison would reflect a more flexible, demonstrative capacity with the same, including more frequent deployment of it as a problem-solving tool.

dr_dshiv 5y ago

This reminds me of work a design masters student is doing to explore how breathwork practices support spiritual wellbeing among engineering college students. After 10 good minutes of breathwork, most participants seem to have a mild spiritual experience characterized by feelings of awe and connectedness.

Jeff_Brown 5y ago

> "it can feel better to be on the giving end rather than the receiving end" I find that, disappointingly, in-person charity is a lot more satisfying than more efficient forms, because the people I have a chance to help in person are in much less need.

crazygringo 5y ago

As someone who's done a ton of academic research in emotions, I just want to point out: Lisa Feldman Barrett's theory of emotions (which this article uses) is widely considered implausible by emotions researchers, but she's gotten a surprising amount of media coverage that presents her theories as consensus or fact. In a nutshell: traditional "appraisal theory" says for example, we appraise something as dangerous (a bear), and have an emotion that consists of bodily and mental feelings (fear), and that emotions are inbuilt much like colors are. (You can't choose to see red as blue). What Barrett argues is that seeing a bear produces adrenaline -- a feeling which precedes emotion -- and then we can interpret that adrenaline feeling however we like, that emotions are essentially cultural constructions or labels we've invented that we're free to uninvent. However, this view, besides defying common sense, simply isn't consistent with data. Emotions follow regular patterns in what generates them (e.g. a dangerous situation creates fear) and what relieves them (e.g. escaping a dangerous situation allows fear to subside). There's zero evidence we can reinterpret or redefine our emotions by will, as she suggests. (Nor can she account for why infants all share the same emotional patterns, before they could have learned them culturally.) If you really want to get into current academic theories of emotion (and Ctrl+F for "Barrett" to see where she sits), you can basically start here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/

MathYouF 5y ago
I watched an interview with her on YouTube and she had a very argumentative tone when questioned by an audience member, rather than a conversational and educational one. Not surprised to hear from a fellow expert that her theories aren't really supported by evidence. She seemed extremely defensive during the Q&A. Here's the video: https://youtu.be/qwsft6tmvBA https://youtu.be/qwsft6tmvBA In fact the audience member I linked to basically accidentally stepped on a landmine which seems to be the main critique you've posted of her work, just by talking about facts that seem evident (that emotions are the result of chemicals flooding the brain)
smeej 5y ago
Do you know of any studies where this has been studied in autistic people? For me, the gap between physical reaction and identifying an emotion can sometimes be very long, like days or longer. Because I don't identify my emotions intuitively, I actually have to sit and look at the physical symptoms to figure out what the emotion was. My heart was racing and I felt queasy in my stomach. Did something about him scare me and I should be wary, or am I attracted to him? I can't always tell. Sometimes it does seem like I could choose. Like as a kid, I thought I had really bad stage fright, until someone said maybe I was actually excited. It was an easy shift. Now I love speaking in front of people, and I do it easily. But were they right and just identifying my emotions better than I was? Or was I actually afraid and, by thinking of those same physical symptoms as excitement, did I become excited? I'm fascinated to find out this has been studied and people have theories leading toward actual answers!

soul4krsna 5y ago

Here is some awe for you. God is eternally seperated but not divided and is simultaneously one and different with everything. Also God is a young person of no more than 15 y/o. We all have a particular/unique way of making God orgasm. We cant figure that out if we think we are this body. Go read the Gita by Prabhupada from '72.[0] Einstein read it daily. ... [0] https://bg-ai.github.io https://bg-ai.github.io

ericmcer 5y ago

Mindfulness, meditation, whatever. Just get perspective on your life seems like the big takeaway. My favorite instance of this in recent memory is from the show “Alone”, contestants attempt to survive in the arctic with basic tools for 100 days for a million dollars. One guy realized about 40 days in that his old self was worried about the money and his current self only cared about family, food, shelter, etc. He already had everything he wanted in life it just wasn’t apparent until he sat in a tent for 40 days living on fish haha.

Tarucho 5y ago

So, after 14 months of isolation and being in front of screens this person feels unhappy? And the cure is to be grateful and find awe in the small things because some study said such and such? When did we forget we are still social animals? The cure is to be in contact with nature and with fellow human beings (better if both are at the same time), but sadly even before the pandemic this was kind of a luxury. It is as if most people don't want to go out or interact with other people anymore. It's all about streaming services, social media and competition.

premium-komodo 5y ago

Congratulations on badly reinventing one one millionth of Buddhism 26 centuries late.

coldtea 5y ago

>Over the past decade, neuroscientists have begun to shift how they think emotions arise. Rather than being inevitable, hard-coded experiences, researchers now think emotions are malleable, and people have more influence over them than previously thought. This doesn't make sense given the deterministic nature of the universe and the absense of free will. (I believe in free will, just point this out for fun - and for those that don't but still, 24/7 act, express their feelings, and advice others as if it totally exists).

isabelc 5y ago

Fans of Charlotte Bronte may remember: “No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure.” - said Lucy Snow in the novel, Villette, by Charlotte Bronte.

RikNieu 5y ago

So metta meditation.

4b11b4 5y ago

I sort of stumbled upon this myself: I'll have negative thoughts - your hair is messed up, they're looking at you, you're doing something wrong, not cool enough, they don't like you, etc But I realized that of course these are completely ridiculous negative thoughts from my social conditioning in North America. So one day I thought to tell myself equally ridiculous positive thoughts. When I have a negative thought.. my hair is messed up --- I'll counter it with a ridiculous positive thought: my hair is the most beautiful hair on planet earth. It sounds so stupid when it's positive, but when it's negative I had been listening to it for my entire life. From this point on, it's difficult to give those negative thoughts any weight.

meristohm 5y ago

> If your past experiences with bears* come largely through news reports of attacks and maulings, then your brain will likely interpret your bodily sensations — raised heart rate, raised blood pressure, sweaty palms — as fear. Lots of fear! And this emotion will help drive you away from the bear. *or whatever else might be presented as something to fear

danielyaa5 5y ago

These articles that make it seem like there’s a way to change your emotions through thought seem so sus. Life is complicated, biology is so complicated, just study yourself and see what works for you. But I bet you are better off changing your environment than thinking your way into better emotions. If you’re rational you can find your own answers instead of looking at essentially a self help / meditation article

vintermann 5y ago

"According to the latest research", hah. Once again neuroscientists are late to the game and make "revolutionary" discoveries that social psychologists have known for decades. That physical response predates emotion, and that emotion is in large part about how you interpret internal physical cues, has been hypothesised since at least the 1890s, and arguably known since the 1960s when there were a number of influential experiments testing it. Famously, in 1962 Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer ran an experiment where they manipulated people's internal cues with epinephrine, a drug that causes flushing and increased heart rate. By varying the contextual cues, they got the subjects to interpret this as both happiness and anger, with subjects who got the drug reporting far stronger emotions than those who didn't.