{"id":2434,"date":"2024-03-04T22:32:22","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T22:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/?p=2434"},"modified":"2024-03-22T13:36:06","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T13:36:06","slug":"what-are-emotions-a-crash-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/what-are-emotions-a-crash-course\/","title":{"rendered":"What are emotions: A crash course"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(image credit<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This probably seems like a silly question. We all know what emotions are; We all have them. You might be experiencing one right now#up.<\/p>\n\n\n

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#down. Hopefully not boredom<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Emotions are famously hard to put into words. The words we do have are only signposts; Labels for some common feelings#up. If I say that I feel “sad” or “happy” or “jealous”, then you might remember experiencing those feelings yourself, and then you can imagine that I now feel like you did then. But it is nearly impossible to articulate precisely what ‘sadness’ or ‘jealousy’ actually feels like (despite the best efforts of many poets, other artists, and psychologists).<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. But not all of them. We have no word for feelings such as the sneaking paranoia that you have forgotten something important, even though you have already checked everything twice<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Words and emotions are created by different parts of our brain, that are structured so differently that they simply can’t understand each other directly. They can do the brain equivalent of passing each other notes, but they can’t replicate each other’s patterns. It would be like trying to use colours to describe how strawberries taste or using numbers to explain the sensation of yawning. These things just do not map one to the other#up <\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. Unless you have a rare condition called 'synesthesia<\/a>' in which your brain connects its processing from different senses. Synestheres might be able to literally taste words, or see numbers as having colours<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
A metaphor for emotions?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Even though emotions don’t operate in words a metaphor might be useful for capturing part of how they work: Emotions are like the weather in our heads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When our emotions are like a bright and sunny day they make the world seem like a fine place, and light up possibilities and challenges for us to enjoy. When they are like an overcast and gloomy day they can make us want to curl up somewhere safe and warm. When they are like a sunbeam shining onto something, that can make it hard for us to look away. Like the weather, our emotions set conditions which can shape our thoughts and actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike the weather, our emotions do respond to what is happening in our lives. Unexpected good news can blow away our mental clouds, and bad news can draw grey storms into our minds. And while we can’t control our emotions directly (i.e., you can’t just choose to be happy right this second) we can try to manipulate them a little by doing things, or thinking about things, that perhaps pull them in one direction or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once you know this you can start to see that emotions aren’t just a strange random quirk of our brains, they are part of how we regulate our behaviour. They might not be able to give us precise instructions like thoughts can (“pick up that pencil” is a thought, not a feeling), but they can react to our being in a generally good and safe place or a dangerous one, and try to facilitate thoughts that will lead to actions that fit those environments#up. Emotions, like thoughts, are for doing.<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. Anyone who's experienced clinical depression, anxiety, or mania will tell you that this system does not always function optimally well<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Emotions and the body<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Watch a sports fan at a tense point in a big game. As the excitement builds they will lean forward without quite realising it, the pupils of their eyes will widen, the hairs on their arms stand up, they might even shout or scream without words. Or watch a fashionista spotting an amazing pair of shoes on sale, or a child seeing a trampoline park, or a cat noticing a mouse – their bodies all do similar things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our emotions often don’t stay in our heads. They can send an armoury of hormones#up to prime our bodies to fight, flee, or catch something exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n
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#down. Hormones are our body's mass-broadcast system. Our brain dumps them into our bloodstream, which carries them through our whole bodies, triggering reactions in anything that has the right chemical receptors<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
Emotions and the gut<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Newer research is finding that the old cliche of ‘gut feelings’ might be a lot more literal than we thought. Our stomachs don’t just respond to emotions (for instance, rerouting blood supply from digestion to our muscles to get us ready to fight or run). It seems that our guts are full of helpful bacteria which help regulate our emotions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We won’t go into a full discussion of the ways this can happen in this CB book (see here<\/a> for a quick read if you are interested), but let us tell you about one study, just to give you a taste. Chevalier et. al. <\/span> started by making some mice slightly depressed. When they transferred gut bacteria from the depressed mice into a fresh batch of normal mice, they found that the new mice started acting depressed too. Looking closely at the mice’s gut bacteria they found one particular kind that was less common in the depressed mice, and then showed that they could make the depressed mice recover if they rebuilt levels of that kind of bacteria back up again.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How do you make a mouse depressed?<\/h5>
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In the same way that an awful boss (or toddler) might make you or me depressed: By subjecting them to mild stressors at unpredictable times over the length of a few weeks. It is depressing when you are expecting bad things to happen, but are never quite sure when the next hit will arrive.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
How do you know if a mouse is depressed or not?<\/h5>
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There are several tests:<\/p>\n\n\n\n