Feelings & Emotions

You trip and fall at the office. There’s toilet paper stuck to your shoe. You forget your entire presentation in front of hundreds of people. Embarrassing moments can be small or large in impact. One thing’s for sure, though: we’ve all been there. We have an embarrassing moment and feel…

One of the most powerful ways to express oneself involves taking pen to paper or fingers to keyboard as emotions spill out. For people seeking mental health treatment, journaling their thoughts is often a lifeline. I was spending time with a client not too long ago, and I felt myself…

When I was a kid, I went 100 mph non-stop.  It was very seldom that I would take a break to catch my breath.  Personally, I think some of that had to do with my asthma diagnosis—I would not let that slow me down; I wanted to prove that I…

A materialist is someone whose life is centered around acquiring more goods.  Materialists correlate their happiness with their possessions. They claim that these products are the key source of their life fulfillment and a representation of their success in life.  The question, “Would owning more things make me happier?” is…

As human beings, we are drawn to material things.  We each have items that we collect that show others who we are and what we value.  For me, it’s books. I have books in almost every room in my home. It’s obvious that they matter to me, based on the…

A serious injury can happen at any moment, and the impact on your life can be more than just physical. For example, motor vehicle accidents are a leading cause of traumatic brain injuries, and most of us, at some point, get in or drive a car to go to work,…

The majority of us aren’t too comfortable with our emotions, which can be accredited to being raised in a society scared to show our feelings.  We aren’t properly instructed on the biology of emotions and the brain. And as much as we’re told that we should monitor and regulate our…

Most of us could probably agree that social media can damage self-esteem—especially in women. Think about it: every magazine has a slender woman on the cover and a story within about how she lost the weight—and how you can, too. Additionally, TV shows and movies cast female leads that make…

A recent study says emotional or traumatic events can create false memories, despite the widespread belief that traumatic events are more vivid and, therefore, reliable.  The latter belief is called flashbulb memory, which says that emotional events cause us to completely capture the context of the event and our reaction…

Do you have trouble falling or staying asleep? Researchers from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience say your insomnia might stem from emotional distress. The team asked participants to relive shameful moments from their past, while receiving an MRI scan of their brain activity. Researchers found that good sleepers neutralized those…

When we feel ashamed of our secrets, we’re more likely to think about them over and over again. We can better cope by shifting away from shame and toward guilt. A Columbia University study asked 1,000 participants questions about their secrets, including how much shame and guilt they associated with…

Many of us are fearful of snakes and spiders, whether they are or aren’t poisonous or dangerous—why? Researchers say that this fear is deep-rooted, one we likely developed from ancestors that lived 40-60 million years ago. To reach these findings, researchers showed infants varying pictures of which included snakes, spiders,…