Shreya Baronia | Week 10: Powerful Emotions
Photo Credit: CareClinic, https://careclinic.io/emotion-tracker-app/. Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.
Although it does not seem obvious, emotions are closely tied to physical health. A person’s thoughts hold a lot of power. They can make or break their lives, relationships, and health.
In fact, some personality traits such as Neuroticism, in which people often have strong negative feelings such as those of aggression, are found to be directly related to an increase in diseases such as asthma, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. On the contrary, positive thoughts on life are found to be related to the opposite of these diseases; they can lead to lower blood pressure and healthy blood sugar levels.This correlation makes sense. Feeling negative emotions likely leads to negative thoughts, which decreases a person’s will to take positive action. As a result, their health goes down, creating a reinforcement loop that continues to worsen. On the other hand, feeling positive about something fosters feelings of productivity and taking positive actions. Completing goals, for instance, releases dopamine, which helps people feel better, which also creates a reinforcement loop.
However, it is the unfortunate truth that it is much easier to break out of the positive loop than it is to break out of a negative reinforcement loop. This is partially due to the fact that negative news is so much more popularized than positive news. It is well known that a person’s surroundings also have a large influence on their emotions and feelings. Surrounded by negative influences, people are more inclined to feel badly about themselves and their situations. Although indirectly, the type of news people consume has an effect on their physical and mental well being. It is clear that what is consumed is what is reciprocated.
The news has a lot of power over us and our emotions. It is time for us to take this power back. We need to take time off of the screen and the negative news to take back the control we have lost.
Hi Shreya! Before reading this, I knew how powerful emotions are in influencing our lives, but I didn't know that they could have physical effects on us! I really liked how you connected negative emotional cycles to the news, and how much pessimistic content we are exposed to. I honestly never thought of this link, since to me, the news seems very separated from my own life. However, I can see how it could affect people more, so thank you for providing a new perspective. I also like how you frame negative emotions as catalysts for potential spirals, instead of things that need to be overcome as quickly as possible. In our society, a lot of emphasis is placed on productivity and organization, so factors that inhibit that, such as negative emotions, are encouraged to be pushed aside. Your blog acknowledges that you can't simply ignore your negative feelings since they will lead you to spiral, instead, you need to work through them.
ReplyDeleteHello again Shreya! As a person who has been very stressed out and with an ever deteriorating mental state recently, I can empathize with how important someone’s emotions can be. I thought it was really insightful how you tied in people’s mental traits can tie into many diseases such as asthma, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Actually, for me, it makes a lot of sense that poor emotions lead to worse health, and vice versa, positive emotions can improve health, because at its core, emotions are a reflection of your physical and mental well being, and healthy people tend to be well. Thank you for your reminder to all of us that even though we are all going through stressful times, it is important to pay attention to your personal wellbeing. I look forward to reading your blog post next week!
ReplyDeleteHi Shreya! I completely agree that physical health is deeply intertwined with an individual's well-being. Similar to neuroticism, which you mentioned, causes aggression within people, high cortisol levels due to stress can also cause heartburn, high blood pressure, and even puts these individuals at a higher risk for heart diseases. Sometimes when these emotions become overwhelming, it is hard to comprehend how it can negatively impact our bodies. I also agree how these negative thoughts from these negative emotions can cause a cyclical process of feeling sad and not being motivated to be productive or take positive actions towards improving our lives. The power of emotions over our body is an underlying issue and definitely an idea that made me think about how I need to incorporate more positivity in my life, so I can improve not only my mental health but also my physical heath as well.
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