How Feelings Are Changing Our Brain

Remember when you read a drama novel or watch a sad movie when a character is facing some heartbreaking event or danger we almost feel it in ourselves in our mind, the empathy that we show is part our human brain and nervous system that we are wired to feel and resemble the similar or the same pain or feeling.

Therefore we are easily capable of placing ourselves in someone else's shoes and sense empathy towards them. It taps into our very human potential to share the feelings that others feel. In fact, when we see someone else hurt, the brain regions connected to our own pain also become active.

But it turns out that our emotional state has an effect on how much empathy we feel. Our emotions literally change the way our brain responds to others, even when they are in pain. In particular, it is when we feel bad that it can have a consequence in our social world.

It is apparent that our mood can influence our behavior in a myriad of ways, from the food choices we make – when we are in a bad mood we eat less healthily – to our friendships. When our friends are down and gloomy, the feeling can be contagious and can make us feel more miserable too. Bad moods can even spread on social media, a 2017 study found.

In fact, our emotions are so powerful that when we are in a positive mood, it can dampen how much pain we feel when injured. It provides us with an analgesic-like effect. When it comes to negative emotions, the opposite occurs: our feeling towards that pain is exaggerated.

Worse, a recent study, published in December 2017, has shown that when we feel bad it affects our in-built capacity to respond to others in pain. It literally dampens our empathy. Emilie Qiao-Tasserit at the University of Geneva and her team wanted to understand how our emotions influence the way we respond to others while they are in pain. Individuals were made to feel pain with a temperature-increasing device on their leg. The team also showed participants positive or negative movie clips while in a brain scanner, in addition to making them feel pain, or when watching clips of others in pain. Did participants feel empathy towards those who they knew were made to feel pain, the team wondered.

It turns out that those who watched a negative clip and then saw others in pain showed less brain activity in areas that are related to pain: the anterior insula and middle cingulate cortex. These are usually active when we see others in pain as well as when we experience pain ourselves. “In other words, negative emotions can suppress our brain capacity to be sensitive to others’ pain,” explains Qiao-Tasserit.

This work is revealing. It shows that emotions can literally change our “brain state”, and that by doing so our own feelings modify how we perceive someone else’s.

Along similar lines, another study by Qiao-Tasserit and colleagues found that after watching a negative clip, people tended to judge a face with a neutral emotion as more negative.

These results obviously have real-world implications. If a person in power, say a boss, has been exposed to something negative in their lives – even something as simple as a negative movie – they could be less sensitive to a colleague in pain and even view them more negatively. Our bad moods literally make us less receptive to others’ feelings.

A lack of empathy has other implications too. Findings show that reduced empathy will result in less money donated to charity. Brain scans reveal that we also show less empathy to those who are not in our immediate social circle, say teammates in a sports club.

So why would negative emotions reduce empathy? It could be that a specific type of empathy, called empathic distress, is at play. This, explains Olga Klimecki, also at the University of Geneva, is “the feeling of being overwhelmed” when something bad happens to someone else, which makes you want to protect yourself instead of being overcome by negative feelings. This type of empathy even shows very different brain activation compared to typical empathy. This kind of distress might naturally also reduce compassion.

It might also be that any situation that elicits negative emotions encourages us to focus more on ourselves and any issues we face. "Anxious and depressed patients who suffer from excess negative emotions are more likely to focus on their own problems and be isolated," says Qiao-Tasserit.

One 2016 study by Klimecki and colleagues even found that empathic distress increases aggression. Here participants were subjected to unfair scenarios and then had the chance to punish or forgive their competitors. What’s more, the participants in her study were asked to do personality tests before they came into the lab. She found that those who were more naturally compassionate reacted with less derogatory behavior.

For Klimecki this was telling. In her extensive research on empathy, she has shown that it is possible to cultivate more compassionate behavior. She found that feelings of compassionate empathy can be trained. Our emotional responses to others are therefore clearly not set in stone.

This shows that we can all re-engage our inner empathy, even in the face of someone else’s misery. And when we think a bit more positively it will help broaden our attention towards others’ needs. “This could contribute to greater relationships, a key factor of happiness,” says Qiao-Tasserit.

So next time you are in a foul mood, don't forget the effect it might have on other people you communicate with daily-bases. You may also want to time your reading of chilling drama novels or horror movies wisely. If you read or watch them while in a bad mood, that’s the perfect time to keep your empathy at bay and feel a little less distressed at the pain – real or fictional – of others.

citation: Melissa H. Article and research, BBC news, 

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Then Excellent Life Lessons from Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama is one of the most inspiring people around the world, know by his quotes, books, and speeches. The current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, which is the 14th Lama of Tibetan Buddhism. He was born in July 1935 and his key social stances and poses that are known are the democracy, nonviolence, religious harmony. He is a lightworker and a great teacher of self-discipline, empathy, unconditional happiness, peace and love, acceptance and forgiveness. The wise Dalai Lama always described himself as a "simple Buddhist monk" regardless of all the wisdom and good works that he has done and all the greatness he achieved to all that he teaches by his simplicity and kindness. Here you can find just a pinch of his wisdom and inspiring quotes that I invite you to read and think about for a moment, let it inspire and enlighten your mind and soul and create happiness in your life. I have added my interpretation and thoughts to each quote and I hope you will enjoy that as well.

1 - My religion is very simple, My religion is kindness. 

Kindness is the base of all spiritual teachings, being kind and passionate needs a strong, happy, and peaceful character and being kind means archiving all those levels and have a valuable self-discipline and self-awareness. many may interpret kindness as giving up, or less powerful and that is not what kindness is, the true kindness is given by a person who has reached their high-level potentials who does not hurt themselves while enjoying on supporting others. who is so powerful and string that can support and be kind to their enemies even without getting hurt or harming anyone while standing their ground and fighting against any attack peacefully. Kindness is the key to connect to each other and the universe within and out, the path to the kindness is the religion that would be better for all of us to choose and take on our life.

2 - Love is absence of judgment.

You may hear from religious or spiritual people that judgment serves no purpose in our life, and the truth is whatever we do and we think has a purpose in our life, it is a strategy to serve a core desire in our subconscious and thoughts. Unfortunately, many of us may have used this strategy to feel that they are gaining power, growing, taking what is theirs and even feeling of teaching others what they think is right, while none of these are real and will be achieved by judgmental strategy and behavior, it could be a temporary feeling and it last as that moment and create craving of getting more, therefore the person became more eager to get good feeling so they do the wrong more, judgment. This causes to get away from kindness and peacefulness which creates Love and compassion, give yourself a chance to create, endorse and expand, feel the power and witness, by changing your strategy from judgmental to giving and loving.

3 - Positive and negative actions are determined by one’s own motivation. If the motivation is good, all actions become positive; if the motivation is wrong, all actions become negative.

It happened to may that they try to do and be positive and it felt hard to, or even sometimes impossible to be positive. Well here is the secret of being and doing things positively, the term positive is to do and be good, which can be understood to not harm others and yourself and do as you desire. All our actions are depended on our intentions and goals when our intention and goal the urge of reaching to a point or position requires negativity or we are thought to use harmful ways to reach then it is hard to be and do positive since all our motives are leaded by our intentions and goals. we either need to change our motives and intentions or learn a new strategy that will have positive actions in it to reach our goals.

4 - Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.

Perhaps you have heard that saying, be careful what you wish for, sometimes we don't and cant sees the exact path to get to what we want therefore lots of unwanted things happens without our acknowledgment while deep inside we did wish for it. Well on this particular situation which we want the good for us but not getting it could have more bad and negative affects afterward than what we thought or not. Basically having faith in the universe, god, higher source, the energy that connect us all which is the most wisdom master will ease our life, having faith that things didn't happen because of a reason, and as Steve Jobs said one, we only can connect the dots when looking back, and we should have faith that dots will connect to each other in future. we will release the reason in the future when we look back and connect the dots :)

5 - We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves

Remember everything grows within out not from outside, the seed is the beginning of a tree and the fruit is the result of a healthy tree, same as the tree we are with our physical and emotional body, when we are healthy and peaceful then we can create a peaceful space, room, home, family, friends, and environment. We only can connect and feel the peace when we are in peace. there is no way to get to something with acting opposite of it, that means we cant get to peace by force.

6 - Sleep is the best meditation

When meditating the highest that we can achieve will be closer to when we are going to sleep because then is when we access our subconscious the highest. This doesn't mean that we should not meditate or sleeping is enough meditation, it means we can use the sleeping as the longest meditation and deepest that we can have every night constantly, and how we might do that? remember our subconscious knows the most about ourselves and every data we collected during the day, it is the most active part because it keeps us on track of what we really want and dream of. Before going to sleep clean your mind by clearing your day, check what worked what didn't work during the day, then start appreciating with things that happened or you have this will calm you, give you a joy of living and clear your low vibration and thoughts you may hold and pass to the next day and have a bad sleep. After you cleared your mind, focus on something you want to do, or wish for, create a positive and happy image of what you want in your mind and own it as it is your reality, let it go to our subconscious and sleep. this technique is very powerful that you can try when you have issues to solve and are frustrated, be careful to clear your mind first and you will find next morning you already know what to do or what is the solution to your challenge.

7 - The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred.

Many people want to be happy and yet not paying attention to their own inner anger and hatred toward people, God, and the world also most of the time toward themselves. Acceptance is the first step to conquer the self-anger and frustration. One a person had that cleared they become their own lives hero.

8 - Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

Ignorance is the biggest challenge and enemy that we have within ourselves, once we realize this and choose to not follow and take the ignorance as the master step and choice everything become more clear and visible, we start taking responsibility and get rid of expectations. That's when we step in the world based on possibilities and peace.

9 - It is very rare or almost impossible that an event can be negative from all points of view.

In reality, it's almost not possible for an event to be pure negativity, if we just change our perspective and see things from a different point of view then we can see even most of the time there were a benefit for us, although it could be a temporary or a hidden one and there is. Do your best to detach yourself from that event and acknowledge the reality of it, then review all aspects of it, perhaps you can learn and find a shift, and that by itself is positive. Remember every failure is a step to success.

10 - True spirituality is a mental attitude you can practice at any time.

Believe it or not, the attitude is one of the keys to a successful life and business, the productive and peaceful conversation with others and ourselves. Start practicing to be loving and supportive to ourselves, then it will shine out to our outer world. Say that you love yourself, forgive and accept what you are. Be your teacher and hero by practicing on improving your mental attitude.

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