Emotions (from lat. emovere-excite, excite) – mental experiences, emotional disturbances (joy, happiness, fear, anger, etc.), resulting from the impact of certain stimuli of the external or internal environment. Emotions can be positive and negative: a sense of security and fear, love and hatred, joy and grief, sympathy and antipathy, location and anger, etc.Emotions are manifested in the form of subjective experiences of a person, in his behavior and reactions of the autonomic nervous system (for example, in increased breathing and heartbeat, increased sweating). Emotions are also connected with the satisfaction of needs. 3. Freud believes that ” emotions-is to increase or decrease the feeling of discomfort in the depths of the brain.”
The anatomical substrate of emotion are the limbic system, reticular formation, hypothalamus, frontal cortex of the big hemispheres of the brain (see sect. “Brain” Chapter 1).
J. Godfrey (1992) believes that emotions are based on physiological activation of certain brain structures responsible for both internal experiences and human behavior. At the same time, the intensity of emotions depends on the degree of activation, and the direction of emotions – on how a person perceives certain phenomena and events. There is an assumption that the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the negative color of emotions, and the left – for the positive. The General emotional state of a person depends on the interaction of both hemispheres.
Positive emotions contribute to the preservation and promotion of health and longevity. Negative-worsen health, oppress the body’s defenses. The intensity of emotions is associated with the level of activation of the body, but the direction of emotions, their positive or negative color depends on how a person perceives this situation – optimists perceive emotions differently than pessimists. The former are easier to achieve self-esteem and self-realization than the latter.
It is known that optimists are less susceptible to diseases of the cardiovascular system. “A merry heart is a good medicine, and a sad spirit dries the bone,” says king Solomon’s Parables (17:22).
Emotions have a huge impact on a man’s life, his health and well-being. Emotions include three main components: subjective, physiological and manifestation. Emotions are a subjective, purely individual experience, which always actually exist. Emotions cause objective physiological changes in the body, which prepare it for a specific manifestation, for example, the reaction of struggle or flight (see section. “Autonomic nervous system” Chapter 1). Emotions are always manifested openly facial expression, grimace, posture, behavior change. Each man perceives the same situation in his own way and shows emotions in different ways. The ability to cope with emotions, to regulate them largely depends on learning. Many tend to suppress the manifestations of emotions, others, on the contrary, easily throw them out.
Emotions help a man to make a choice: optimism or pessimism, health or illness, joy or melancholy, setting for happiness and well-being or constant failure, whining, misfortune.
Emotional health and well-being include many attributes. Perhaps the main thing is high self-esteem and self-esteem. Next (in order of importance) are the signs: the ability to adapt, to deal effectively with stress, to be independent, to experience failure, to manage their lives, to take care of other people, to love, to be friends, to work, to communicate, the ability to listen carefully.