Positive emotions: How do they affect your way of thinking?

Positive emotions: How do they affect your way of thinking and feeling? The effect of positive emotions. As positive emotions tend to be ephemeral, many people consider them trivial without being aware of their enormous importance. The reality is that positive emotions are a hallmark of happiness and can even frustrate and undo negative feelings. 

In this article, you can discover the effect of positive emotions on your feelings and way of thinking. This way, you can take care of maintaining a positive attitude at all times to achieve success.

Definition of emotion

Before we jump into the world of positive emotions, let’s see what an emotion is. The definition of emotion tells us of a very intense feeling produced by an event, an idea, a memory, etc. That is something that we perceive and notice deeply in ourselves.

Positive emotions are those that produce a pleasant sensation or a positive feeling.

The first thing is to know what an emotion is and where it comes from. The word emotion derives from the Latin movere and means “to move outward.” With this meaning, emotions are a motor and from them derives the strength to do everything in our life. Each emotion predisposes us to act in a certain way. It “leads” us to a certain path of action and closes us or takes us away from another.

Feelings result from emotions. They last longer in time, and we can verbalize them and explain them in words.

Positive emotions, healthy emotions

The results show that a positive emotional style may play a more important role than previously thought in health, hence the importance that psychologists introduce variables related to positive functioning in the clinical practice.
From Positive Psychology, the leading role of positive emotions in health care, the reduction of sadness and anxiety, and the achievement of subjective states of well-being are taken into account.

Depression, stress, and anxiety often associate with poor health and an increased risk of physical illness. As good news, you should know that there is growing evidence that positive emotions can influence health and act as a modulator of anxiety and depression.

The effect of positive emotions: List of Positive Emotions

For several years now, we can find various classifications and lists of emotions, and one of them is the one that distinguishes between positive and negative emotions.

At this point, the first thing we want to emphasize is that there are no good or bad emotions and the so-called negative emotions do not have to be worse than the positive ones. All emotions are, first and foremost, necessary to survive.

We would find two types within the positive emotions The considered basic positive emotions are mainly happiness and surprise. The secondary positive emotions are many more. Examples of them can be calm, confident, kind, etc.
Joy appears after a stimulus that causes us satisfaction, well-being, pleasure, and good things and moves us to strive and persist in achieving goals and enjoying the activities we do.

Surprise. Surprise appears after an unexpected or strange stimulus and pushes us to pay attention and focus on it.

Is it necessary to work on Positive Emotions?

Currently, many psychologists are becoming more aware that working with positive emotions is of vital importance in the recovery, balance, and projection processes of the patient/consultant. Many professionals have been working on emotions clearly from a rational perspective so many times. They have not achieved the expected result.

Emotions are complex states of the organism, global responses in which different components intervene, such as:

• Physiological: involuntary processes that involve changes in the activity of the central and autonomic nervous system and neuroendocrine changes.

• Cognitive: information processing, which influences our subjective experience of events.

• Behavioral: Expressions and body movements, which determine distinctive behaviors of special communicative utility.

But we cannot forget about feelings since they result from emotions. The word feeling comes from the verb “feel” and refers to an affective state of mind, usually of long duration, that appears in the subject as a product of the emotions that make them experience something.

People who inhibit anger or rage are charged with all the negative consequences generating sadness, which in many cases leads to guilt and inhibitory behaviors that affect their cars and the possibility of providing effective solutions to their problems.

To work on the emotion, it is necessary to give it a real validation, help to understand it so that it is easier to understand it so that insight can give the acceptance of its affective-emotional situation.

It is important to be clear that when emotions work directly and from the emotional path (this is what we mean from the skill of the therapist), positive emotions must work in parallel since positive emotions fulfill an important objective in the development of the human being, since they expand the intellectual, physical and social resources, making them more durable, and increasing the reserves to which the person can resort when threats or opportunities are presented.

The positive emotions and strengths to work with patients/consultants are the fundamental key that will help them regain their balance when emotions that generate much pain in their life are worked on. For this reason, the usual experience of positive emotions is independent of the habitual experience of negative emotions and has consequences that exceed and go beyond the mere fact of having a low negative emotionality.

Positive or negative feelings are natural in humans. We use the “negative” to describe what is more difficult; this does not mean that we cannot feel them. People prefer to feel happiness rather than sadness. However, the important thing is to maintain a balance.

How does the “positive” contribute?

Positive emotions have other benefits. Instead of limiting us, they affect our brains and increase our awareness, attention, and memory. They help absorb more information, hold multiple ideas simultaneously, and understand how ideas relate to each other. It is vital to follow these points to generate more positive feelings:

• Change the ideas that disturb our actions.

• Choose an emotion and enhance it.

• Make a list of the positive and negative in your life to get to know yourself a little more.

But how to increase positive emotions?

1. Appreciate the world around you and express it with sincerity (hugging someone, saying I love you, giving thanks, singing…)

Fully enjoying everything we have in life (and even better if we share it) is a wonderful way to flourish emotionally. Learn to savor even more the positive that happens around you with phrases of gratitude such as “I deserve it,” living it from mindfulness, sharing it, or letting yourself get carried away by your feelings.

2. Choose what is important in your life and look for meaning in life. The effect of positive emotions

When we are clear about our personal “compass,” we are filled with serenity, satisfaction, illusion, personal pride… Positive emotions in their purest form.

3. Connect with nature (even going outside feels great). The effect of positive emotions

It is one of the greatest sources of positive emotions that human beings have

4. Create. The effect of positive emotions

Remember that you don’t have to be a Steven Spielberg or a Martin Scorsese creator. It has been studied that, for example, making bread (nothing is more “simple” in this way of creating) significantly improves the state of people with depression. The reason? Creating generates a multitude of positive emotions, from pride to excitement to fun. Cook, do puzzles, paint a picture, make a short movie…

5. Pay attention to the blessings surrounding you (the generosity of the people, the smell of the flowers, the beautiful street where you live, etc.).

You can start a gratitude journal where you write five good things that happened to you at the end of the day. In addition, you can also work to ritualize your gratitude with a very interesting exercise to learn to be aware of all the gifts that surround us: in a notebook, write the good things that have happened to you in life and briefly reflect on why those things have happened to you.

Other very interesting ways can be to thank before eating (God, nature, life… there is a lot to choose from) or, for example, every time something is over (summer, a job, a special moment…) you can stop to reflect (better if you write it) what was the good thing that what has already finished gave you.

6. Laugh a lot. The effect of positive emotions

The laugh is high-octane gasoline in this positive emotion.

7. Get passionate, play, have fun… flow (in your hobbies or even in your work).

Somehow the secret consists of learning to be like a child, living in the present, being amazed by everything, laughing out loud, learning, enjoying, becoming passionate…

8. Visualize and dream about your future. The effect of positive emotions

Visualizing (remember that the same areas of the brain are activated as when it happens) works very well with long-term projects (such as writing a book, running 10 kilometers, or learning a skill).

9. Know well what the psychological strengths are (and put them in motion).

Passion for learning, creativity, sense of humor, vitality, generosity… You can know and work on the 24 psychological strengths through our blog or go to Martin Seligman’s website and evaluate your strengths through his VIA test. You can also ask close 10/20 for three anecdotes or examples to show your strengths and help you describe them (By the way, one usually feels very grateful and emotionally connected with these people after doing the exercise).

10. Love. The effect of positive emotions

We include here the strengths of humanity: generosity, love in all its aspects, and interpersonal intelligence. Or put another way, learn to live, love, and relate well with others, and you will see how your positive emotions increase (spectacularly).

11. Learn

Strengths of wisdom include curiosity, creativity, a love of learning, an open mind, and perspective. For example, an open mind allows us to face new situations effectively, live fully or continuously learn from our surroundings, and closely relate to emotional positivity.

12. Transcends. The effect of positive emotions

Transcendence occurs when we move beyond our human experience or vital understanding. The strengths that accompany this virtue help us connect with what surrounds us and provide us with a sense of more profound meaning and purpose in life. They are a sense of humor, optimism, an appreciation of beauty, gratitude, and spirituality.

13. Fight

The strengths focused on achieving our goals in the face of opposition, internal and external, are strengths such as courage, persistence, vitality, and integrity.

14. Use your ethics. The effect of positive emotions

Citizenship, a sense of fairness, and leadership are the three strengths that represent the virtue of justice and help us objectively determine the ethical and moral rights and responsibilities towards others.

Conclusions

Now that you know the effect of positive emotions on our feelings and way of thinking, you can develop a better mentality to achieve success.