Know yourself: Do emotions play a role in impacting our health?

Q5: I am a middle-aged male, got a family and work in a company; everything is comfortable, but I get angry often and become emotional; I cannot understand these emotions. Is these emotions are really necessary for humans?

Ans: Dear sir, first, let us try to understand emotions; we constantly feel something. Our emotions are a continuous flow, not a rare event. Inside us is a river of emotions, sometimes calm and raging and overflowing its banks at others. However, sometimes we can’t ignore what we feel or minimise its meaning. All emotions are an important source of information about what is happening inside us. All our senses bring us news from our bodies, minds, and the world around us, and then our brains process and analyse it and formulate our experience. We call that a feeling. Emotions have an efficient purpose: they ensure our survival. They make us smarter. Research says Below five areas where our feelings matter most: the aspect of our everyday lives that are most influenced by our emotions.

♦ Our emotional state determines where we direct our attention, what we remember, and what we learn.

♦ Decision making, when we’re in the grip of any strong emotion-such as anger or sadness, but also elation or joy-we perceive the world differently, and the choices we make at that moment are influenced for better or worse.

♦ Our social relationships. What we feel and how we interpret other people’s feelings send signals to approach or avoid, affiliate with someone or distance ourselves, reward or punish.

♦ It is the influence of emotions on our health. Positive and negative emotions cause different physiological reactions within our bodies and brains, releasing powerful chemicals that, in turn, affect our physical and mental well-being.

♦ Creativity, effectiveness, and performance, we need to understand, as per “Plato”, all learnings have an emotional base.

Why do people get angry? Please contemplate over it, let your near and dear one get angry, and try to be impervious. You can understand them easily. We get angry for various reasons: stress, being under threat, too much physical work, too many responsibilities, multiple roles to play, someone humiliates, and a serotonin deficiency. Expression of anger is to protect the territory, restore an area of operation, to communicate with others; one should not enter into this province; this is my authority, and no one is allowed to cross the borders without my permission. You need to understand why and what makes you feel that people are entering your arena, or learn to navigate slowly by pushing yourself to accept others’ involvement in your life. Once you understand your insecurities about your navigation with your people, gradually, you can become calm and comfortable with stable emotions. All the best. For further understanding, we are here to help you. Take care.

(The writer is a counselling psychologist, [email protected], 9390771469)