China News Service, Beijing, November 20th (Reporter Shangguan Yun) "Smile, ten years less." This widely circulated saying vividly illustrates the impact of positive emotions on a person.
In life, it is inevitable that there will be bumps and bumps, and there will often be emotions such as joy, anger, sorrow, and joy.
Recently, #研究说感孤少少比热热更紧紧素# appeared on the hot search, and some netizens lamented that when they encounter negative emotions, they often don’t know how to resolve them.
Tian Hongjie, an associate professor at the Children's Research Institute of the China Youth Research Center, believes that in the face of negative emotions such as sadness and pain, people can try to understand the information behind them and the unmet psychological needs, so as to take appropriate solutions.
In addition, she mentioned that for the vast majority of people, binge eating often does not really relieve anxiety, that is to say, "overeating" cannot really relieve stress.
Where do these emotions come from?
In psychology, sadness and loneliness are typical negative emotions.
When people's inner psychological needs are met, they will have positive emotions, otherwise, they are prone to negative emotions or negative emotions.
“Sadness occurs when we don’t get what we want or lose what we have, and we feel powerless. Grief and loss have something in common, but there’s a sense of helplessness added to grief .” Tian Hongjie introduced.
She said that loneliness often comes from the blocked needs of social interaction. People need companionship and love, and hope that someone will support each other with them. When they can't ask for it, they will feel lonely.
However, negative emotions are not worthless. People can understand what information they bring and what psychological needs are not met behind them, and then face these needs squarely and take appropriate solutions.
Tian Hongjie said that if you blindly think that negative emotions are bad and deliberately suppress them, they may not be properly dealt with. When encountering similar situations again, these potential negative emotions may be reactivated and even become more intense.
"In other words, negative emotions represent unmet needs, which will prompt us to continue to work hard to achieve the goals in our hearts. From this perspective, it has important positive meanings." She explained.
Some people like to "eat, eat, eat" when they are in a bad mood.
However, binge eating often does not really relieve anxiety.
Tian Hongjie explained that crazy eating can soothe emotions, but its mechanism is to avoid and block anxiety feelings. Through busy behaviors such as hands, mouth, and digestive tract in eating behaviors, occupying individual attention resources, the physical and mental feelings brought about by anxiety are carried out. diversion and repression.
This can make people not feel the pain caused by anxiety to a certain extent, but it does not fundamentally solve the psychological needs under anxiety.
It will also bring about two problems: one is that the cause of the anxiety is still there, and the anxiety will be expressed in other forms, such as insomnia and stomach discomfort.
The second is that anxiety is an emotion pointing to the future, which reminds individuals of possible difficulties in achieving their goals, as well as goals that need to be adjusted and problems that need to be solved.
If you turn a blind eye to this information, it will not only affect the achievement of the goal, but also easily cause delay and internal friction in the individual's behavior in the state of fear of difficulty.
Image source: Screenshot of netizens’ comments
Therefore, Tian Hongjie said, don’t relieve anxiety by overeating. If you want to relieve anxiety by eating, you can use mindful eating, find your favorite food, eat slowly in an appreciative way, feel the nourishment of food, and experience the impact on your body. love.
How important are positive emotions?
In life, many people may have had this feeling: they have different moods, and they have different feelings about the surrounding environment and trivial matters.
Tian Hongjie said that if a person is always surrounded by negative emotions, his body will secrete cortisol, which will inhibit the brain's thinking and the triggering of some positive emotions, making people in a state of depression for a long time.
The mental state is not good, which in turn will affect sleep, work efficiency and so on.
Bad physical and working conditions will react on those bad emotions. As a result, it is difficult for people to jump out of this "cycle".
Tian Hongjie said that psychologist Barbara Frederickson once put forward a theory of "expansion and construction" of emotions, which mentioned the impact of positive emotions on people's behavior: it will prompt the brain to secrete dopamine and serotonin, which can make people feel better. Neural connections are more active, allowing for more creative thoughts and solutions to problems.
She once met a mother and daughter who came for psychological counseling.
In the eyes of this mother, her daughter has been sunny and optimistic since she was a child, and she performed very well in school.
However, just this semester, it seems that I suddenly become depressed and do not want to go to school.
After questioning, Tian Hongjie discovered the crux of the problem, "Once, this girl participated in an important speech contest and failed. Instead of being sad because of the failure, she smiled positively and said that she would have another chance in the future. "
"The girl is very positive, but when negative emotions come, she covers them up too quickly and automatically. When the automatically covered emotions accumulate to a certain extent, and when there is a little difficulty, the lost emotions will be quickly activated. "Tian Hongjie said.
Later, a psychological counselor gave a solution: let the girl recall everything that may have caused emotional trauma since she was a child, and vent her bad emotions appropriately.
Slowly, the girl returned to the classroom in good condition.
How to resolve negative emotions?
From film and television dramas to social media, topics related to psychology and psychological counseling have been frequently mentioned in recent years.
Data map: Clusters of bright yellow flower discs are competing to bloom.
(Irrelevant to the picture and text) Photo by Zhang Yuanming
"Psychology points to the heart, respects the original characteristics of emotions, sees the complexity and multi-layeredness behind them, and then helps people prescribe the right medicine to solve the problems existing in the original family and parent-child relationship." Tian Hongjie explained.
For example, in the aforementioned example, the mother can use the "same-frequency resonance method" to perceive her daughter's feelings, understand the child's disappointment after failure, help the child actively accept negative emotions, and at the same time find the bright spot of the child, actively encourage, provide support and companionship.
Unavoidable things in life will inevitably appear, the key lies in how to deal with them.
Tian Hongjie said that first of all, we must accept negative emotions and allow them to exist. Don't think that this is a sign of weakness, and give yourself some time to calm your emotions.
"When you're feeling sad, sit down in a quiet place, listen to what you're feeling, talk to your emotions, and tell it 'I'm seeing you, I'm understanding you, I want to know what you're telling me information'" Tian Hongjie said.
Next, you can use the "positive method" to slow yourself down, adjust your action speed to half of the usual speed, and feel your actions with your heart.
For example, when receiving water, take your time and listen to the sound of water flowing.
"In fact, this is to give yourself some time to bravely face negative emotions, feel the positive power in your heart in a 'slow' state, and let the positive flames rise again." She explained.
At this moment, when the emotions are almost adjusted, you can do the third thing: actively inject factors that can make your mentality positive in the surrounding environment, hang your favorite paintings at home, or listen to your favorite music, etc., to inspire positive emotions.
"The environment can speak. Doing what we like in an environment we like can give us a sense of control, and make our hearts stable and powerful." Tian Hongjie reminded that we must accept negative emotions and "positive methods" on the basis of Only by actively adjusting positive emotions will there be good results.
"People often say that emotional intelligence is high. It is very important to understand emotions, and then use emotions to make our inner personality more perfect." Tian Hongjie said.
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