5 ways that Your Brain Influences Your Emotions

Even though we expect of emotions as internal states, psychologists outline emotions as a mix of cognitions, feelings and actions [source: Kalat]. this suggests what we expect of as "emotions" includes not solely how we have a tendency to feel, however conjointly how we have a tendency to method and answer those feelings.

To understand this, it's useful to think about the aim of emotions. In 1872, Charles Darwin initial revealed "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals," that established that emotions serve a very important evolutionary purpose. so as for a species to continue, it must survive and expire its genetic data. Emotions like concern serve to shield you from danger thus you'll survive to expire your genes. The "fight-or-flight" response that primes your body to defend itself or run aloof from danger is additionally an emotional reaction. Emotions like love and lust provide you with the need to breed.

For these reasons, the brain takes on the operate of evaluating a stimulus -- like a dog that is near to attack or a fine looking girl batting her eyelashes -- and crafting an emotional response to it. The brain thinks in terms of how it will best answer a state of affairs so as to survive and reproduce, and it uses emotions because the catalyst to convince the remainder of your body to act accordingly.

Without Words for Emotions
Emotions serve an important function, but what if you were unable to identify yours? For some people, the inability to realize when they're experiencing emotions is a reality. People with alexithymia (Greek for "without words for emotions") have trouble identifying internal emotional states and describing their emotions to others. Alexithymia is caused by brain structure abnormalities, either present at birth or resulting from brain damage [source: Thompson].