The Molecules Of Emotion By Dr Candace Pert

The ability to identify emotion and carry it out into one’s daily life is what defines an individual as human; if one lacks emotion, then the individual will become a robot of society. Emotion is defined as a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others

Jennifer S. Lerner, author of Emotion and Decision Making, talks about how our emotions can actively affect our actions. In Lerner’s book, it states, “We start with emotions arising from the judgement or a choice at hand, a type of emotion that strongly and routinely shapes decision making.” Our emotions cause us to make certain decisions in our everyday lives. For example a person who is feeling nervous and anxious about a specific outcome of a risky situation may choose a more safe route. A person who admires an organization may donate money. In both cases, our the way we feel about something or someone determines how we address a situation and how we treat someone or something. In some way our emotions act as our conscience in each situation we go through that requires us to choose an outcome .

He has circled back to where he began his education and has been a professor at Harvard for Mind Body Medicine. He is the co-founder of the Benson Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. This Institute has a large research program to continue to explore the mind body connection and its benefits, continually growing the understanding the field of psychoneuroimmunology and all it has to offer. (Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine,

Often, one of the most overlooked of the five senses is the ability to smell. Living things use it every day- from figuring out what the best scent is to eat the most delicious food to figuring out what perfume makes us the happiest (and potentially, the most attractive to others). However, smell is more than just the stench someone gives off. In fact, odor can trigger a variety of emotions. To begin the discussion on the relationship between odor and emotion, one must define what an odor is. More than just a sense, smell consists of molecules that recognized by olfactory receptors and must have a specific concentration (Yantis, 2014). With much research, a relationship between memory and odor has existed and has led to broader findings about odor and other components. According to a 2009 study, a relationship between odor and mood exists (Croy et al., 2011). However, research done regarding odor and emotion is a fairly recent interest and has gained more attention over the last few years. According to the American Psychological Association, an emotion is a “complex pattern of changes, including physiological arousal, feelings, cognitive processes, and behavioral reactions, made in response to a situation perceived to be personally significant” (APA, n.d.).

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

My therapeutic approach focuses on the emotions and is based on the physiological and neurological models of behavioral response rather than on the cognitive model. From this science backed biological perspective, emotions are at the heart of life's regulatory processes of all living creatures, regardless of whether we are talking about emotions that are genetically determined, or those that are somehow the result of a cognitive process.

Intro: Behavioral Neuroscience is a beginner’s course that will introduce you to the basic overarching concepts where neuroscience and psychology intersect. We will cover a broad range of topics, in the hopes of gaining some understanding and appreciation for how the processes within the brain ultimately lead to our behaviors. Everything we do, think, say, feel, dream, desire, despise, and question, is a function of the chemical and electrical balance within our brain tissue. This class is the first step down the path of learning what we

If you’re not paying attention, the mind can be a tricky labyrinth. The less you know about it, the more inexplicable and frightening it becomes. For example, why do seemingly benign elephants wreak havoc upon villages? In “An Elephant Crackup,” Charles Siebert explores the aberrant nature of these elephants and correlates them to their traumatizing upbringing, deprived of community and kinship. The biochemistry of the human mind, analyzed in Love 2.0 by Barbara Frederickson, serves as a worthy addendum to Siebert’s conjecture. Love 2.0 explains that the brain, hormones, and nerves work in unison to build emotional fortitude, stimulate oneself, and express positivity resonance. Siebert’s ideas of elephant culture and trans-species psyche

If you’re not paying attention, the mind can be a tricky labyrinth. The less you know about it, the more inexplicable and frightening it becomes. For example, why do seemingly benign elephants wreak havoc upon villages? In “An Elephant Crackup,” Charles Siebert explores the aberrant nature of these elephants and correlates them to their traumatizing upbringing, deprived of community and kinship. The biochemistry of the human mind, analyzed in “Love2.0” by Barbara Frederickson, serves as a worthy addendum to Siebert’s conjecture. “Love2.0” explains that the brain, hormones, and nerves work in unison to build emotional fortitude, stimulate oneself, and express positivity resonance. Siebert’s ideas of elephant culture and trans-species psyche can put Frederickson’s theory of emotions into practice. The absence of certain hormones within elephants, provided their fragmented community, can explain their volatile outbreaks. Alternatively, the reinstitution of human parental roles into elephant culture can help reconstruct their broken emotional states of elephants and rebuild their resilience; this healing process can also extend to humans.

Emotions run the world: many buy the “perfect dress” to feel confident, others run for fun, and others sleep as their sadness increases. Thus, in a world where emotions lead, mankind struggles to reason. Dr. Mark G. Baxter, a neuroscientist at Harvard University, and Dr. Elisabeth A. Murray, a Senior Investigator at the National Institute of Mental Health, are perfect examples of why many professionals in the science and medical field should start to investigate the amygdala, an “almond-shaped group of nuclein” associated with emotion, due to it being one of the most important parts of the brain as it is what defines what people do in their everyday basis. Nature, one of the most respected journals in the scientific community, published Dr. Baxter and Dr. Murray’s “The Amygdala and Reward” on July 2002 Nature Publishing Group arguing through ethos and logical appeals that the amygdala processes reward in the brain as well a negative emotions. Both neuroscientists prove the importance of understanding the connections between reward and emotions by analyzing their experiments performed on moneys and other primates, and including facts and statistics from other scientists and doctors. This well crafted article conscientiously analyzes how the amygdala’s role in stimulus-reward learning might be just as important as its role in processing negative fear and conditioning by providing credibility, reliability, logic, and reason to the audience.

Fayard, J. V., Roberts, B. W., Robins, R. W., & Watson, D. (2012). Uncovering the Affective

Pleasure, happiness, love, excitation, motivation, pain, anxiety, sad, anger, and all emotional feelings related to human being are linked to the chemicals and hormones that reach to the brain. The human body needs to function properly using the chemicals, hormones and fluids to be found in balance. This state of being balanced is called homeostasis. If one or more of these chemicals fall out of balance from either an increase or a decrease in their levels, this may cause the systems of the body to work less efficiently. Moreover, chemical imbalances can occur for a number of reasons and may affect the body in a variety of ways. There are many internal and external factors that cause chemical imbalance in human body as well human brain. This paper focuses on one of the chemicals secreted by brain, dopamine, and the external organic elements that affect its secretion and function throughout the brain and body.

Molecules of Emotion is about Candace Pert and her experiences with the sciences that correspond with how emotion effects and is effected by peptides throughout your body. It goes through the experiences she had and has numerous mentions of her own personal feelings on the subject.

William Somerset, a famous British playwright once quipped, ‘The only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you’. The book Molecules of Emotion authored by Candace profoundly changed the course of my life. In Molecules of Emotion, Pert highlight’s the interaction between the mind, body and the soul. It is a lucid explanation of peptides, the molecules of emotion. Techniques like meditation or visualization may also act as forces to set these peptides in action. This book made me understand my body better and connected me to my subconscious mind. My whole perspective of the human body completely changed after reading this book. Meditating regularly enabled me to concentrate better in my studies which in turn improved my grades.

Chapter 1 explains the work of a Harvard psychologist named William James. William published the article “What is an Emotion?” in a philosophical journal entitled Mind in 1884. His paper is an argument for the primacy and necessity of bodily systems in producing emotional feelings. James-Lange theory states that physiological arousal instigates the experience of emotion. A Harvard physiologist, Walter Cannon, roundly criticized James’ theory, claiming that, according to the Cannon Bard theory, physiological changes follow emotional expression.