Positive, negative and neutral emotions and are they all necessary?

1. What causes negative emotions in a person
2. The influence of negative emotions
3. How to deal with negative emotions

Feelings and emotions are part of our life; they are reactions to certain actions, events or statements. And it can be both positive and negative. And if positive feelings and emotions have a positive effect on life, then the same cannot be said about negative feelings and emotions. The negative charge that we receive or emit has a destructive effect on any person. Therefore, it is very important to understand how negative thoughts and emotions arise, affect people and how you can get rid of them.

Positive and negative emotions

You might think that positive psychology is only about positive emotions. But it's not just them. Negative and neutral emotions are an integral component that we must feel in order to live brightly and richly. Why are negative emotions needed in combination with positive ones, and why a neutral state is an integral attribute of everyday life, read on.

List of neutral human feelings: what is their essence?

Neutral human feelings
Feelings called neutral are remarkable in that they have no color at all. These can be indifference, indifference, etc. These emotions are ignored by the body; it does not give any reactions - neither positive nor negative.

However, the point is also that neutral emotions are a normal human state. After all, a person cannot be in euphoria or depression all the time. Her usual state of mind is neutral. Neutral feelings are akin to positive ones - they also do not involve pain and suffering, but also do not cause any elation. This is their essence. Here is a list of neutral human feelings:

• Curiosity
• Astonishment
• Contemplation
• Indifference
• Amazement

Neutral can be a state between pain and pleasure, a state between love and indifference, and so on. The list can be endless.

A look from psychology

People have been studying emotions for years. Given the difficulty of focusing on feelings, it is not surprising that we know little about them. Most people lack an understanding of the necessity of both emotions for healthy functioning and a full range of feelings. Let's start with definitions and find out the types of feelings and impressions when certain emotions arise, what is their source and how to create them yourself.

Definition and meaning of positive emotions

Positive emotions are emotions that we generally find pleasant to experience. The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology defines them as “pleasant or desirable situational responses, distinct from pleasant feelings and undifferentiated positive affect.”

Essentially, this definition states that positive emotions are pleasant reactions to our environment (or our own internal dialogue) that are more complex and goal-directed than simple sensations.

Definition and meaning of negative emotions

On the other hand, negative emotions are those that we usually don't like. Negative emotions can be defined as “unpleasant or unhappy emotions that are evoked by people to express a negative impact on an event or person.”

If an emotion lowers your emotional state and worsens your mood, then most likely it is a negative emotion.

Learn more about conflicting feelings and cognitive dissonance.

How to overcome worries?

If in the primitive world negative emotions saved a person’s life, then in modern realities outbursts of feelings can harm not only their source, but also those around them .

Control of the emotional background allows you to fully activate logical thinking.

However, you should not push your feelings into the background. It is important to recognize them and be able to cope with the most destructive ones.

Understanding the Source

To cope with negative experiences, it is important to understand the source that provokes them. More precisely, the source of experiences is the human consciousness itself, but the stimulus is most often the environment.

How to deal with negativity:

1. The first step in the fight is to become aware of your experiences. “Yes, I’m stuck in a traffic jam. I'm angry because I want to get home as soon as possible. But will my anger speed up the traffic?
2. The next step is to enable logic. We push the outburst of emotions into the background and analyze the situation. “What can I do in this situation? Make good use of your time. I’ll read a book.”
3. Avoid irritants. If you find yourself stuck in traffic on this street five times a week, you have two options: learn to suppress the negativity or stop driving this road. If possible, eliminate destructive situations from your life that provoke outbursts of negativity.

The proposed chain can be used not only in the described example. Distance yourself and evaluate your emotions as if from the outside . Consider negative feelings separately from yourself.

You are not what you think. Once you learn to think not “What a scoundrel!” but “I’m furious,” you will learn to control your emotions.

Stopping the Rage

Sudden rage becomes a real hurricane, destroying relationships and worsening well-being.

Imagine a situation where you are walking along the sidewalk and a passing car splashes you with water from a puddle.

You will probably become furious , because “you could have driven more carefully.”

The driver has already forgotten about you, but you carry your emotions home and will probably throw them out on the first person you come across.

When you feel yourself getting angry, stop the flow of angry thoughts and look at the situation from a different angle. Break away from the belief that your opinion is the only correct one.

Perhaps the driver is rushing to the airport or has just had a baby. Mix your anger with understanding or an appropriate neutral emotion. She will help extinguish the flames of rage.

Suppressing anxiety

Anxiety often comes out of nowhere. Excitement rolls into a snowball , and its owner plunges into anxious thoughts. Often anxiety, fed regularly, becomes a habit.

As soon as excitement begins to draw images of disasters in our thoughts, we stop this flow. Mentally rewind time and analyze the moment when the first exciting emotion of the chain arose.

It is important to get to the bottom of the process . Did you see the article in the newspaper? Did you hear a dog barking loudly around the corner?

As soon as the starting point is found, we begin to devalue the risk of an incident.

What is the probability that an event from the newspaper will happen to you?

Are there other options for the development of events? Can I prevent this disaster?

A cold assessment of the situation and logical thinking will help in the fight against anxiety. Healthy skepticism will gradually teach you to analyze possible incidents from a position of logic, and not outbursts of emotions.

Do we need negative emotions as well as positive ones?

Look at the list of negative emotions. Would you be willing to volunteer to try any of them? Probably not, and this is not surprising! We have already talked about the harm of negative emotions on physical health in an article about psychosomatics .

Here are some examples of identified patterns between negative emotions and human diseases.

Now refer to the list of examples of positive emotions. It is easy to see that this list is full of pleasant experiences that people strive to find and prolong. We need positive emotions to function effectively, grow and prosper.

So, if we generally dislike experiencing negative emotions and enjoy experiencing positive ones, do we even need negative experiences? As it turned out, yes. Next, we will look in more detail at why this happens.

About jealousy

Jealousy differs from envy in that it is “played” by three people. Someone took (or we think they took) what we consider ours... and off we go!

If a jealous person faces the threat of losing something, he will believe that he must either prevent this or return the object of desire back to himself. In the case where these 2 options are impossible, the jealous person can easily begin to take revenge on the people whom he considers responsible for his pain.

Most often, a person himself understands that revenge will not help find what was lost, that it is aimed only at healing the wound received. But the power of negative emotions is great, and a person cannot help himself.

Read also: 10 ways to forgive grievances

Jealousy can be based on real facts or on speculation and prejudice. Low self-esteem coupled with doubts about one's ability to build trust makes a person more vulnerable to jealousy.

Why are negative emotions needed?

Although they are unpleasant to experience, negative emotions are truly essential to living a fulfilling life. This happens for two reasons:

1. Negative emotions give us the opposite of positive feelings.
2. Without negativity, will positive emotions be as pleasant?

Negative emotions serve evolutionary purposes, encouraging us to act in ways that increase our chances of survival and help us grow and develop as individuals.

As psychologists note, there is a good reason for each of the basic emotions, both positive and negative:

• Anger is an incentive to fight problems;
• Fear - allows you to protect yourself from danger;
• Anticipation - helps to look into the future and plan;
• Surprise - focus on new sensations;
• Joy is to be reminded of what is truly important to us;
• Sadness - to connect with those we love;
• Trust - communicate with people who help;
• Aversion is to refuse something that is harmful to health.

Without fear, would you be here today? Or have you engaged in life-threatening activities, putting yourself at unnecessary risk? Without disgust, would you be able to refrain from consuming any harmful substances to which you have access?

As unpleasant as they may be, there is no denying that negative emotions serve important purposes in our lives.

About guilt

We compare our actions to our internal standards by which we measure them.

A person who feels guilty understands that he has violated some moral code that he has accepted as part of his own values. However, he didn't necessarily do anything wrong. But he thinks he did.

Guilt is a very useful emotion for managing people: it helps promote socially desirable behavior.

What to do with guilt? In a sense, guilt creates an impulse to atone, to correct mistakes. But it always stems from internal inferiority and a state of deficiency. Therefore, the feeling of guilt is definitely a negative manifestation of human nature, and it needs to be corrected.

First of all, you need to accept yourself with all your shortcomings and flaws, then you will have a chance for a fulfilling life. Sometimes negative emotions arise, there is no escape from it, the main thing is how we react to them.

Briefly and interestingly about accepting emotions

Do people really only experience stress in negative situations?

Although you may think of stress as a purely negative emotion or reaction, people often experience stress in neutral and positive situations.

In fact, many events that are usually considered positive can cause enormous stress in our lives.

Here are just a few examples of positive experiences that stress can bring:

• Planning an upcoming wedding;
• Moving or new job;
• Expecting a baby;
• The start of an exciting journey.

It is natural to feel stressed in all of these situations, even if they are classified as happy and positive. This is another example of the interaction between positive and negative feelings that give balance to our lives.

From practice about the “excellent student syndrome” - hyper-responsibility.

This special advice is for people who are stressed and suffering from illness because they want to do everything perfectly. Against this background, the hormonal system often suffers, women get endometriosis, tumors, the skin can become covered with psoriasis, and the thyroid gland gets autoimmune thyroiditis.

It is difficult to help such a person regain health until he removes the unbearable psychological burden that provokes spasms, immune system failures, and the accumulation of toxins.

If you know about yourself that you suffer from “excellent student or excellent student syndrome,” then ask yourself a few questions first. For example, can you choose the date or hour of your birth? Can a pregnant woman choose when to give birth? Do you know the hour of death or how it will happen? Surely the answer is no!

We can’t even know the dollar exchange rate for tomorrow! What can we say about complete control of your life? So, if the most important moments of your life are not under your control, doesn’t this mean that it’s time to agree that you cannot command everything... How can you worry about something for which, by definition, you are not responsible?

God, if we remember, of course, that he exists in our coordinate system, apparently did not tell anyone to be hyper responsible. There is no such thing either in the Old Law or in the commandments given to us by Christ... Maybe he forgot to say that the most important thing in life is to work until exhaustion, just so that the report or other work is completed with an A+? Or is this not the most important thing for a person? Maybe it’s enough to simply honestly try to work well, treat people in accordance with how your conscience dictates, but worrying about how everything will turn out in the end is useless?

There is a saying: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

A practical recipe is to apply this saying to yourself. Do what you must and come what may!

I also highly recommend taking into account the prayer of the Optina elders at the beginning of the day, which is easy to find on the Internet on Orthodox websites. She is unusually accurate in eliminating diseases caused by the exhaustion of her brain by hyper-responsibility, which displaces joy and a feeling of gratitude.

Positive and Negative Emotions: A Look at the Differences

As we now know, positive and negative emotions are vital to living a healthy, fulfilling life. Let's look at how emotions in both categories affect us.

How do they affect the brain? Positive and negative feelings play important roles when it comes to the brain, but in general they are different roles.

Positive feelings

They affect the brain in the following ways.

• Increases efficiency in performing a cognitive task, uplifting spirit, improving concentration and brain function .
• Triggers motivation and reward pathways in the brain, helping to reduce stress and improve well-being.
• They help expand the horizons and capabilities of our brain.

Negative feelings

They affect the brain in the following ways:

• Facilitate the processing of emotional conflicts, helping to understand conflicting information and not fall into procrastination;
• Help solve complex emotional problems;
• Facilitate the processing of cognitive conflicts by participating in the understanding of conflicting cognitive information.
• Reduces empathy and helps you avoid over-connecting with others and focus on your goals.

Both of these senses play important roles in psychology and brain function, and these roles complement each other rather than compete with each other.

Feelings that are formed under the influence of emotions: list

Feelings that are formed under the influence of emotions
Emotions affect not only the physical state. Amazingly, they can form feelings. Accordingly, a phenomenon or process that gives rise to emotion can become a catalyst for feeling. As a rule, these are the following feelings - a list:

• Gratitude
• Love
• Pride
• Respect
• Confidence
• Safety
• Attachment

However, not only positive elements are born under the influence of emotions. A person may also begin to suffer from:

• Anxiety
• Tosca
• Sadness
• Despair
• Grievances
• Sorrow
• Discontent
• Complaints
• Hate
• Schadenfreude
• Regrets
• Dejection
• Jealousy
• Malice
• Mistrust
• Contempt
• Disgusts
• Envy
• Disappointment

If a short-term, situational emotion is strengthened in the mind for a long time, influencing the worldview, then it is quite possible that this is already the emergence of a unique feeling.

The role of both senses in positive psychology

Considering the influence of positive and negative feelings on a person's thoughts and behavior, one can understand why positive psychology pays close attention to negative emotions. It is also important for us to learn to increase our positive emotions and take advantage of the opportunities they provide. It is equally important to learn to adapt to negative experiences and cope effectively with them.

When we are able to accept and use all emotions, we give ourselves the best chance to live a balanced, meaningful life. This is why the field of positive psychology does not focus on positive emotions alone.

It is also important to understand how to turn negative emotions into useful experiences and put them into practice.

Overcoming Negative Emotions

To overcome negative experiences, you need to work both with objective reasons and with your own psyche - change your point of view on various situations and, ultimately, on the surrounding reality.
It is impossible to always run away from objective reasons, but you need to try as hard as you can. Working with the psyche, no matter how difficult it may be, is much easier. At least it can be changed. In addition to searching for a reliable life anchor, expressed in faith in a bright future, you should:

• control emotions;
• look for and use triggers;

We have willpower and we are often unable to control negative reactions. He does not allow the flames of bad emotions to spread further. Negativity that has received a rebuff, according to the law of conservation of energy, does not go away - it will definitely find a way out in something else. Therefore, the work must be comprehensive.

A trigger is an irritant, an impulse that triggers a particular feeling. Negative emotions are extinguished by studying your weaknesses and strengths and skillfully maneuvering between circumstances and pressing the right “buttons.” If you feel offended, click on analyzing the situation; if you find yourself in a state of irritation, click on positive thinking.

Working on yourself is difficult, but it always bears fruit. Do not let the fire of negativity flare up, extinguish it in every possible way.

If you don’t want to give up and are ready to really, and not in words, fight for your full and happy life, you may be interested in this article .

How to better track your emotions

We now know the importance of accepting and managing our emotions, both positive and negative. The next question is how we actually do it.

The first step to effectively managing emotions is to identify, understand, and look for patterns in emotional experiences.

If you need help identifying positive and negative emotions or tracking experiences, a few charts can help.

Wheel of Emotions

Emotion scale: list of emotional tones

There is a scale of emotions. We all experience feelings and ways of expressing behavior - these are tones. The concept of a “scale of emotions” or tones appeared in the 50s of the last century. Thanks to this scale, people determined the emotional state of a person. Here are the emotional tones:

Emotion scale

Each emotion has its own color. This can be clearly seen in the picture above. This scale of emotions is usually depicted in numbers from 0.1 to 4.0 . A person who is high on the tone scale feels good in his environment. A person whose position is low on the scale of emotional tones is incapable of rational action and feels unwell. Some people are unable to stay in low tones for a long time, while others are stuck in destructive emotions, and this has become their problem.

Learn to manage your emotions so they don't rule your life. It depends on how happy you will feel, live life to the fullest, or be afraid of something, worry about something. Think about it. Good luck!