Emotional Response : Mental Health And Wellness

Our emotions affect us in so many ways. Emotions affect the way we behave, our views and opinions, our relationships and our decision-making; therefore, they are very relevant to our day-to-day lives. It is important that people have an understanding of these emotions and that they are able to interpret them. Emotions can both help and hinder our ability to best live our lives. It is also important to realize that even our emotions are shaped and biased by our environment and those close to us.

Emotions have many factors. One of the factors is internal physiological changes, such as increased heart rate, dilated pupils, and increase in adrenaline secretion. Another emotional factor is nonverbal reactions. Nonverbal reactions are external physical changes, such as, blushing, posture, and facial expressions. Cognitive interpretations is used to define our emotions, and Verbal expressions are used to express our emotions through words.

When talking about emotion it seems a fairly simple topic and immediately "feeling" words come to mind; sad, happy, and confused. These are basic emotions and easy to understand. What isn't so simple about emotions is their process and how they form and work. Emotions are reactions to sensory information like sight, smell, taste, touch and sound (Tracing Emotion’s Pathways 94). However, it is not that simple; an emotional reaction or response is made aware of and understood by a part of the brain called the sensory cortex. These emotional responses or reactions to sensory stimuli are processed by a part of the brain called the amygdala (What’s An Emotion). The amygdala is a huge asset to the cognitive factors of emotions because in processing emotions you become able to understand, recognize, and control them. So then how do emotions evoke a physiological reaction such as tearing up when one feels sad, laughing with joy, and trembling with fear? These physiological reactions that one may experience come from the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is, “a collection of fibers that extend throughout

Attempts to define “emotion” have proved to be rather difficult. Instead of searching for a comprehensive definition, Gross (2011) describes the three core features of emotions. First, emotions occur when an individual decides that a situation is relevant to his or her goals. Second, emotions are multi-faceted, and involve both subjective and physiological experiences, as well as behaviors. The third feature involves the authoritative nature of emotions. They have the powerful ability to interrupt ongoing processes, assert their priority over other activities, and force their way into awareness. For example, some traditions describe emotions as “disorganized interruptions of mental activity” (Salovey & Mayer, 1989). Emotions are such an

Christakis and Fowler state that emotions themselves contain several elements. Emotions contain a conscious element, meaning people are aware of what they’re feeling. They have a physical aspect; emotions are tied to an individuals’ health. They also have a neurological affect; altering activity and blood flow levels in the brain. Finally, emotions contain a visual aspect; they can be expressed in facial expressions and body language.

Emotions are used in our everyday lives help us understand and comprehend a situation. The way we feel can affect the way we think through a situation and the situation that we make. Our emotions are expressed when we play sports, when a loved one dies, or when we see our newly born baby for the first time. Emotions are a state of consciousness like joy, sorrow, fear, hate, and love. Whenever we are presented with a situation, our brain responds in feelings, and our feeling determine what will happen next.

Emotions are feelings (Alder 140). Emotions involve a variety of components. These components include physiological factors, nonverbal reactions, cognitive interpretations, and verbal expressions. Physiological factors influence a person when they experience strong emotions (Alder 141). For example, if you experience fear, your heart rate will begin to increase, stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. This results in your blood pressure to increase and an abundant amount of adrenaline to be released. To Saman, emotions are an assortment of different

Emotions are a necessary part of our whole humanity. They may be more than we have learned to be comfortable with, but they are not too much.

Emotional development is a complex task that begins in infancy and continues into adulthood. The first emotions that can be recognised in babies include joy, anger, sadness and fear. Later, as children begin to develop a sense of self, more complex emotions like shyness, surprise, elation, embarrassment, shame, guilt, pride and empathy emerge. Primary school children are still learning to identify emotions, to understand why they happen and how to manage them appropriately. As children develop, the things that provoke their emotional responses change, as do the strategies they use to manage them.

Temperament can be defined as early individual differences in how each individual person reacts to stimuli (Losonczy-Marshall, 2014). In an article by Losonczy-Marshall (2014) also states that emotional reaction are parts of how each individual reacts to stimuli and, thus, should be considered as part of temperaments. Emotional reactions are to be observed by emotional expression, which is a reaction to a particular stimulus that shows some bodily expression. This can be shown in multiple different variations such as vocally, facially, gestures, and/or posture. This communication of inner emotional states as outward expressions is often called as state emotion. Trait emotion is defined as latency in response, intensity of expression, and duration of expression. Trait emotion can

Affect is the outward expression of feelings and emotions which can be seen through facial expressions or body movements. According to Panksepp (1998) he identified four basic command emotion systems: seeking or reward, rage, fear, and panic or separation systems. Affect regulation refers to the ability to maintain these four basic command systems or increase positive homeostasis and to regulate inappropriate emotions (Applegate, 2005).

Bronfenbrenner and Evans (2000) signify that environment is a dominate factor with child development and as emotions are central to all humans; a child’s environment produces significant influence on emotion development and emotion expression. The base emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, interest and surprise) are considered universal as they appear across all cultures, are present from

Effective regulation of emotions has been viewed as a developmental achievement that serves as an essential requirement for numerous other developmental tasks. Specifically, because powerful emotions have the potential to disorganize or disrupt multiple psychological processes, modulation of their experience and expression has been considered crucial for basic state regulation, behavioural exploration, cognitive processing, and social competence (Sheppes & Gross,

When we are emotionally triggered our individual “conditioned responses” can vary widely from from person to person and depending on the situation we are dealing with.

Emotional intelligence, a term that was introduced in 1900, is defined as "the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one 's own and others ' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one 's thinking and actions,"(Salovey, Meyer. p. 19), and is a phenomenon that is prominent in the human thought process. Feelings, or emotions, are first processed in the brain and can have a physical, mental, and emotional reaction, a process Antonio R. Damasio explains as: