Emotion and Health

QOTD

Samantha Jacob, Skylar Lea, Lexi Shryack

How do you deal with stress?

A. Excersise

B. Eating

C. Sleeping / Meditating

D. Social Support etc

E. Watching TV / Reading / Shopping

Brady Goldsworthy

Do you meditate regularly? And if you do, how does it affect your mood?

A) Yes, it positively affects my mood

B) Yes, it has no affect on my mood

C) I don't meditate

Tyler Wilson

Do you believe venting is an effective stragety for dealing with anger?

A. Yes

B. No

C. Sometimes. It depends on what I'm angry about

D. I would rather deal with or cope with my anger in a different way.

Tyler Olson

What is depression?

A. Chemical inbalance

B. Long-term severe uncertainty about goals, convictions, or everything

C. A word used when nothing else can explain the mental state (being sad while having the 'perfect' life)

D. An effect from personal trauma

E. Dunno ¯\_(ツ )_/¯

Zoe Golden

Do we actually feel physical pain when feeling such emotions as heartbreak?

A. Yes, it physically hurts us

B. No, it's all mental

C. Unsure

Nora Alnajjar

When I make a decision, this is the dominant factor:

A) My emotions and my heart.

B) My logical thinking.

Randy O’Reilly

Will AI / Robots need to rely on emotions in the same way that people do for making decisions (i.e., is Spock / Data, etc complete fiction)?

A) Yes

B) No

Mashari Hasawi

Have you ever hated someone so bad to the point where you get really mad so quickly when someone brought his/her name up (and /or wanted to cause them physical harm)?

A) Yes

B) No

The Big Questions / Issues

What is non-obvious about emotion? Textbook treatment is mostly naming the obvious Does neuroscience make it more interesting?

Key practical points: How to be happy? What to do about anger, anxiety, stress?

Start with Taxonomy:Basic Emotions

Fear, Anger, Sadness, Happiness, Disgust, Contempt, Surprise

Why are these basic? What causes them? What benefits do they provide?

Where are Love and Hate?

Why not Pain? Hunger? Lust?

Sample Goal Taxonomy

Valence vs. Arousal

Theories: If you ask a stupid question..

Does emotion start in the body or the mind!? This is a stupid question that people have spent far too

long arguing about (James-Lange vs. Cannon Bard) Emotion is coordinated neural, physiological activity

throughout the brain and body! If you only activate part of it, you’ll get a kind of weird

feeling, but it isn’t the full deal..

The emotional brain

Basic Drives: Hypothalamus

Amygdala Encodes Different Emotions

Map of Emotions in vmPFC

• Driven by subcortical connectivity

• High-dimensional, multi-factorial representation

• Consistent with fMRI, MDD in sgACC, etc

Self Help Psychology

What is Happiness, and how can I get it? What is Anger, and what can I do about? What about Fear? Stress? Does it affect Health?

The Two Faces of Happiness

Happiness = instantaneous emotional feeling

Happiness = long-term life satisfaction

Good news: everybody’s happy-ish!

Bad news: some people aren’t!

Parents are low on instantaneous, high on long-term..

I would be happier if..

A. I won the lottery

B. I became a paraplegic

C. No difference (long term)

Surprise!?

Money != Happiness

Above ~$50k, more $ != more happiness So what does = more happiness?

Immediate social network, relationships Standing in community / social recognition Goal achievement Dopamine driven by social feedback and

progress toward goals!!! And a major (50%) contribution of genes..

Negative Emotions

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

We have many more negative emotions than positive ones!

So we should learn to accept this fact!

Johanna Arch: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Therapy

Acceptance is powerful medicine!

Anger is not a liquid

You don’t have to vent it! Leads to rehearsal..

Figure out the underlying source of frustration

Deal with it

And / or learn to accept the situation

Stress Management..

Stress is mostly “in your head” – does all this stuff really matter that much, or perhaps not??

To reduce stress, become a Boulderite: Exercise Meditation Optimism Sunshine, fresh air, etc..

I Get Sick When..

A. I’m currently under stress

B. After the stressor is over

C. When I am feeling cold / underdressed

Stress THEN Sick

Stress itself does not make you sick.. It is the depletion period AFTER the stressor is

over that makes you sick!

Placebo

Tor Wager here at CU studies this extensively!

“special cream” can reduce pain felt by significant amount..