The science of emotions

Our ancient brains evolved the perfect way to keep us safe by controlling the chemicals in our mind to moderate our behaviour.

How are you feeling right now? Are you relaxed laying on your sofa and listening to the gentle sounds of the dawn chorus outside your window? Or maybe you are tense with your shoulders hunched up around yourself as you try to get five minutes peace in a busy office? You would think that it is easy to work out if we are happy or sad, angry or calm, but humans cycle through such a vast array of emotions throughout their lives it can be difficult to distinguish them from one another.

 

The emotional response

Emotions are not a simple experience. Every time you feel something your body initiates a physiological change, a chemical release and a behavioural response. This process involves multiple processes working together, including your major organs, neurotransmitters and the limbic system. Your limbic system is the most primordial part of your brain, thought to have first evolved in early mammals. It’s filled with ancient neural pathways that activate our emotions in response to stimuli and controls our fight-or-flight response through the autonomic nervous system.

This response evolved from a need to make decisions based on our emotions. As our body fills with adrenaline and our heart starts racing we prepare to react; do we stay to fight the bear that has come scavenging for food, or do we flee to somewhere safe? We can still feel the effects of this response. When we are confronted for not doing the dishes we might feel the same fight-or-flight response as our adrenaline starts to flood our system. Our heart rate and breathing increases, the fine hairs on our arms might stand on end, and our hands feel clammy as we decide if we are going to stay and argue or if we are going to escape to the safety of our bedroom.

The biological sensations in our bodies in response to emotions can feel very similar to one another. Imagine your palms sweating, feeling your cheeks warm as they flush red, and your heart pounding in your chest. You could feel this because you are sitting nervously in the dentist’s waiting room, or you could be excited as you wait to see your loved ones after they return from a holiday – the physiological reaction is the same. The interpretation of emotions is our logical brain rationalising these responses and describing them as feelings. We take into consideration the context and label our emotions accordingly.

However, we don’t all do this the same way. Because our bodies cause different floods of chemicals in response to different environmental triggers, each person naturally reacts to situations differently. Have you ever seen someone who is being berated in a meeting but facing the onslaught with nothing more than a slightly raised eyebrow? Or watched as someone finds out some bad news but keeps their composure? You are sure that you would have raised your voice or burst into tears, but our responses are defined by how our neurons are networked together. Our past experiences and genetic predispositions influence our brain chemistry and therefore our physiological responses, which in turn determine how we react to various situations – like someone cancelling on us last minute, or surprising us by showing up at the front door unannounced.

At times our emotions can seem like an irrational response, but our brains have carefully evolved these mechanisms with just one target – keeping us alive. While we interpret different emotions as positive or negative, the most ancient parts of the human brain developed them on the principle that we must survive. We evolved emotions as a means of communicative function and to help us navigate social interactions and our environment safely: they are designed to protect us.

Evolution and emotions

Our fear responses were originally a survival tactic that warned us of potential dangers, such as our innate unease around spiders and snakes. Then there is the feeling of disgust, which warns of foods or other substances that may be dangerous. Our other emotions are responses to social interactions that keep us part of a group because we are fundamentally a social species, and throughout our evolution have relied on our tribe to help us survive by working together to find food and shelter. Anger is a response to perceived social threats or a signal of dominance, pride can help us to boost our social status, while shame is intended t0 decrease our standing within a group. These emotions maintain the social balance of our environment safely: they are designed to protect us. Our fear responses were originally a survival tactic that warned us of potential dangers, such as our innate unease around spiders and snakes. Then there is the feeling of disgust, which warns us of foods or other substances that may be dangerous. Our other emotions are responses to social interactions that keep us part of a group. We are fundamentally a social species, and throughout our evolution have relied on our tribe to help us survive by working together to find food and shelter. Anger is a response to perceived social threats or a signal of dominance, pride can help us to boost our social status, while shame is intended to decrease our standing within a group.

These emotions maintain the social balance of our tribe – who we follow, who we trust, who we care about. The fundamental emotions that motivate us individually are almost always sadness and happiness. Sadness results from loss and serves the biological purpose of motivating a person to recover that loss, whether it is a young child searching for their mother in a supermarket, or trying hard to get a new job after being dismissed. But the ultimate human emotion is happiness, and we are all in search of it. When you’re sitting around a campfire, safe in the countryside with some close friends and good food, you feel happy because you have found the resources that your primitive brain is seeking. Our species is drawn so much to happiness because this emotion is our brain’s reward system for finding environments where we are free from threat. A healthy human brain copes with sadness when social bonds are broken, communicates with our loved ones and can recognise and regulate our emotions even when they do not feel particularly positive. The next time you sit in an airport departure lounge, look for the emotions. Our bodies have created these experiences – the tears as we say goodbye, the smiles and laughter as we are reunited – for the purpose of keeping us alive. Our emotions and feelings are fundamentally what makes us human, but it means we’re in for a bit of a rollercoaster along the way


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