Not a few people who regret after making a fatal acts, such as tantrums or destructive, sparked by anger unstoppable. He himself did not understand why he had to do something inappropriate. Anger is one emotion that needs to be aware of.
"So, people do not like emotions!" "I-have! Not good to make people emotionally! "Sentences like that not infrequently we hear. Emotion words are often used in sentences like that so it has a negative connotation, namely anger.
Actually there are many different types of emotions: some negative, some positive. Anger is only one type of negative emotion.
In addition to anger, which include negative emotions, among other things, alert, hate, disgust, sadness, and horror. As for that, including positive emotions such as joy, receive, surprised, and amazed.
In social interactions, emotional role is very important. Imagine what if interpersonal relationships take place without emotion: we communicate with a flat expression, without a surge of feelings.
However, the explosive emotional expression can not be accepted by society. That is why the necessary emotional control, not only to reduce the expression of emotions that are not expected, but also to control some forms of emotion that is often difficult for ourselves, such as anger, anxiety, guilt, and also romantic love.
How to control your emotions? To answer these questions, we need to understand what it is emotion and how emotions work processes.
Understanding emotions
Eastwood Atwater, author of Psychology of Adjustment, defines emotion as a complex state of consciousness, including the sensation of inner and outward expression of who has the power to motivate to action.
When we experience certain emotions, like joy, of course there is cause: meet with loved ones, get a bonus, and so forth. Likewise, when experiencing emotional upset, it's certainly no cause: failing an exam, broken relationships with loved ones, and so forth.
The events that we face will result in a reflex muscle contraction due to experiencing a kind of electric shock stimulation. Furthermore, with that we recognize and interpret that we are happy or sad, then the interpretation that determines how we act.
Under these circumstances, we can find that emotions consist of three components, namely the existence of physiological changes (sensations on the body), consciousness and meaningful interpretation due to the subjective sensation, and the possibility to express this awareness into action.
Here we try to understand more about each component based on the explanation of Atwater. This is important because, by understanding the components, we will find ways to control emotions through the component.
- Sensation body
Explanation as above, namely that the perception (interpretation) we have to external stimuli automatically induced by a change in the body, is an old theory in psychology. More recent findings indicate, there was the location of the source of emotions in the central nervous system, namely the brain.
Emotions involve a network of fairly complex physiological changes, which affect the soul and the body simultaneously. When a stimulus perceived by the senses, impulses (signal / message) is sent through the nerves toward the center of the brain.
There impulse process is divided in two. Some sent to the cortex, where stimulus awareness, and emotions felt. Others are sent into the muscle, where changes in body and behavior occur.
Neurological findings revealed, the human can control the emotions by manipulating a certain sensation. For example, we can control the emotional pain by allowing the gate block pain signals sent to the brain. This has been practiced in the health world, one in acupuncture.
- Interpretation of sensation
The presence of a stimulus in front of us is not only caused a sensation in physiology, but also lead to interpretation. Physiological sensation to determine how much the intensity of emotion, while the interpretation that this is a mental component to determine quality or meaning of an emotion.
So, when we experience is the emotion of anger, through physiological changes (the body), then we can feel how strong our anger. In addition, through mental experience (the process of interpretation), we understand why we are angry and the other meanings of our anger.
Regarding the interpretation, a pair of researchers, Schacter & Singer, found that mental picture (of what we think) and social situation there is a very important instructions that determine how our interpretation of those sensations in the body.
Example of this is when one drinks a cup of coffee. At that time he may realize and probably did not realize the effect of coffee on the physiology of the body. Shortly after drinking the coffee, her heart skipped a beat.
When that moment he was confronted with someone who behaved harshly, if he does not realize the effect of coffee on heart rate, he will interpret that the person in front of him that had upset her until her heart beat faster.
However, when one is aware of the effects of coffee which increase heart rate, when dealing with people who behave roughly, he tends to interpret the heart throb from drinking coffee, not the result of people's behavior in front of him.
The same example can also be applicable in different social situations. When we experience the sensation of warmth caused by drinking one cup of wine (wine), when a moment later in the presence of the opposite sex we present an interesting, if not aware of the physiological effects of wine, then we tend to interpret the warmth as the effect of the presence of other people. We can fall in love with it!
With the description above, we know that our emotions are a combination of physiological factors and factors of mental processes (cognitive). With this understanding, we can recognize the emotions that hit us better.
We can trace what arouse our emotions: is there a physiological factors that come into play? Do we consume food, beverages, or certain drugs that affect the physiology of our body? Whether hormonal factors, such as menstruation, menopause, andropause? When you do not really exist, then we can conclude that our emotions actually triggered by the existing social situation.
By identifying the origins of such emotions, we can better control your emotions. A woman who easily become angry before, or is menstruating, when she realized the impact of menstrual physiological situation, then he is more able to control myself not to be angry even though there is a trigger of their social environment (does not work smoothly, the child made the disappointment, and so forth). Imagine if we let go of the anger away. Perhaps, the situation is not advantageous thrive.
- Adaptive Response
Emotion is often understood as a feeling, and behavior are influenced by feelings. How emotions affect behavior? In psychology, a person who received a stimulus will soon make an intuitive assessment: good or bad.
This assessment is a guide or a determinant of behavior. In animals there is a primitive emotional response, ie, fight (fight) or flight (run away). Similarly, our emotions, which leads to certain actions: approaching or avoiding.
For example, if we are attacked constantly by someone who is full power (powerful), then we would feel afraid. In these circumstances, appear instinctively flee / run away (flight), which usually occurs in situations when we feel helpless. However, if the constant attacks that come from people who think we lack in power, then we are feeling angry. In such a situation arise instinct to fight (fight), which usually develops in situations where we feel can be a determinant of (control).
Seems that emotions have an important role in life. Emotion has two functions for adaptation. First, it is a predisposition to perform the adaptive response that allows us to conduct the defense of life (survival). Second, it strengthens sociality (social ties) between a person and the others in his group.
Adaptive function of both is evident in everyday situations. The emotion of parental love towards children to help parents determine how their behavior toward the child. Romantic love helping couples to behavior toward each other. Negative emotions, like jealousy, anger, etc., also have a function, namely eliminating unwanted behavior in social relations.
Knot
One thing to remember is, we have the freedom to control our emotions. If we can control our emotions, we also control the behavior.
This capacity needs to be empowered, especially when it has a tendency to develop a destructive emotion. Without control of emotions, life purpose in the long term may not be achieved due to our behavior fatal.
Controlling emotions does not mean that we naturally suppress your emotions into the subconscious, ie, by ignoring or assume that emotion does not exist. We need to recognize our emotions in the heart, without expressing it for granted. We need to express emotions in a way that is acceptable to the environment. This is one way to stay healthy.
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