Recently, a study by Nan Di Nathan, a psychologist at the University of Michigan in the United States, found that the average person spends three-tenths of his life in a bad mood, so people often need to fight against those negative emotions.
Emotional changes are often manifested in some of our neurophysiological activities. For example, when you hear that you have lost a promotion opportunity that you should have got, your brain and nerves will immediately stimulate your body to produce a lot of exciting "norepinephrine". In this way, you will be angry and restless, ready to find someone to judge or "discuss".
Of course, this does not mean that you should suppress all these emotional reactions. Actually, there are two kinds of emotions: negative and positive. We can't live without emotion. It is our normal psychological reaction to the outside world. What we need is not to make us slaves of emotions, and not to let those negative emotions control our lives.
Negative emotions are very harmful to our health. Scientists have found that people who are often angry and hostile are likely to suffer from heart disease. Harvard University surveyed 1600 patients with heart disease and found that those who are often anxious, depressed and grumpy are three times higher than ordinary people.
Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that learning to control your emotions is a vital event in life. Here are some latest suggestions from experts:
find out the cause
When you are unhappy or worried, the first step you have to do is to find out the reason. Francis, a 29-year-old employee of an advertising company, has always been calm, but for a while she seems to be a different person. She is not good-looking in front of her colleagues and her husband. Later, she found that what disturbed her mood was that she was worried that she would lose her questioning position in the most important company personnel arrangement. "Although I was told that it would not be affected," she said, "I still feel uneasy about it." Once Francis realized what she was really afraid of, she seemed to feel much more relaxed. She said: "I put these inner anxieties into words and found that things were not so bad."
After finding the crux of the problem, Francis concentrated on dealing with it. I began to enrich myself and work harder. In this way, Frances not only eliminated her inner anxiety, but also was entrusted with a more important position because of her excellent work.
Respect the law
Robert Thayer, a professor of psychology at the University of California, said: "Many of us just attribute our emotional changes to external events, but ignore that they are probably related to your internal' biological rhythm'. The food we eat, the level of health and energy, and even different times of the day will affect our mood. " A study by Professor Searle found that those who sleep late are more likely to be in a bad mood. Besides, our energy tends to peak at the beginning of the day, but it drops in the afternoon. "A bad thing doesn't always bother you," said Sese. "It often affects you when your energy is at its worst."
Professor Searle also did an experiment. He observed the mood and body temperature changes of the experimenters for a period of time. He found that when people's body temperature rises within the normal range, they feel happier and have the most energy at this time. According to Professor Say's conclusion, people's emotional changes have cycles. Searle himself strictly follows the law of this "biological rhythm". He often starts very early, "The best time for me to write is in the morning", and the afternoon is usually used to meet people and deal with chores, "because my energy is often not concentrated enough at that time, which is more suitable for talking with people".
Get enough sleep
A recent survey shows that American adults sleep less than 7 hours a night on average. Professor Roland Dahl of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center found that lack of sleep has a great influence on our mood. He said, "For people who don't get enough sleep, those annoying things can affect their mood more." So, how long does an adult sleep enough? Professor Dahl did an experiment. For a month, he kept 14 subjects in the dark for 14 hours every night. On the first night, each of them almost slept 1 1 hour, as if to make up for the lack of sleep before. Since then, their sleep time has been completely stable at about 8 hours a night.
During this period, Professor Dahl also asked the subjects to record their mental state twice a day. They all said that they feel most comfortable and look at things more optimistically after getting enough sleep.
get closer to nature
Many experts believe that being close to nature helps you feel happy and happy. The famous singer F. Lacast said, "Whenever I feel depressed and depressed, I go to work in the garden, and my unhappiness disappears in contact with those flowers and trees."
If you can't go outdoors often, even if you go to the window and look at the green grass and trees, it will be good for your mood. Stephen Kepler, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, did an interesting experiment. He made two groups of people work in different environments. One group's office windows are close to the natural scenery, and the other group's office is located in a noisy parking lot. As a result, he found that the former had higher work enthusiasm, less bad emotions and much higher efficiency than the latter.
Practice regularly
Another self-help means to eliminate bad emotions is fitness exercise. Even if you just walk for ten minutes, you can get immediate results in overcoming bad emotions. Researchers have found that physical exercise can cause a series of physiological changes in your body, and its effect is similar to that of refreshing drugs. But better than medicine, exercise is good for you. However, in order to achieve obvious results, you'd better engage in aerobic exercise-running, gymnastics, cycling, swimming and other exercises with certain intensity, and it is better to take a hot bath after exercise.
Reasonable diet
All the energy of brain activity can come from the food we eat, so mood swings are often related to what we eat. Som, the author of Food and Emotion, thinks that it is not surprising that people who only drink a cup of coffee every morning are in a bad mood.
Som suggests that to ensure a good mood, you should develop some good eating habits: eat regularly (especially breakfast), limit the intake of coffee and sugar (both of which may make you too excited), and drink at least six to eight glasses of water every day (dehydration will make you tired).
According to the latest research, carbohydrates can make people feel more peaceful and comfortable. Judith Wartemann, a nutritional biochemist in Massachusetts, believes that carbohydrates can increase the content of serotonin in brain blood, which is considered as a natural sedative. All kinds of fruits, rice and miscellaneous grains are foods rich in carbohydrates.
Positive and optimistic
"Some people tend to equate their negative emotions and thoughts with reality itself," said psychologist Mitchell Hodes. "In fact, the environment around us is essentially neutral, and we add positive or negative values to them. The key question is which Jun Jeong do you like better?
Holtz did a very interesting experiment. He showed the same cartoon to two groups of subjects. One group of people was asked to bite a pen with their teeth, as if they were smiling. The other group had to hold the pen with their lips, which obviously made it difficult for them to smile. Results Professor Holtz found that the subjects in the former group thought cartoons were more ridiculous than those in the latter group. This experiment shows that our different emotions are often not caused by things themselves, but depend on the different ways we look at things.
Psychologist Randy Lawson told his story: "One day, my secretary told me,' You look unhappy', and he naturally saw this from my locked eyebrows and stiff facial expression. I also realized that it was true, so I changed my expression in the mirror. Hey, soon, those negative thoughts will be gone. " Yes, life is too short, so why bother?