{"id":7436,"date":"2016-09-26T06:20:51","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T10:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/?p=7436"},"modified":"2017-01-16T17:20:29","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T21:20:29","slug":"7436","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/7436\/7436\/","title":{"rendered":"The Benefits of Positive Emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>This article is in our series about\u00a0<strong>increasing happiness<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>life satisfaction<\/strong>. \u00a0Many people with chronic pain can\u2019t\u00a0decrease their pain. \u00a0So another way to live a more enjoyable and fulfilling life \u2013\u00a0perhaps even more\u00a0important \u2013\u00a0is to\u00a0increase the positive. \u00a0That\u2019s what we\u2019ll be looking at in this series.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a class=\"irc_mutl i3597 i_Y1RwwLcaUE-dTEICwVRfZc\" tabindex=\"0\" href=\"https:\/\/a2ua.com\/happiness\/page\/1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-noload=\"\" data-ved=\"0ahUKEwiP5rKsmvjOAhVMSCYKHddWBJ4QjRwIBw\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"irc_mut i_Y1RwwLcaUE-HwpH6ZlgJaI aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ_RLye0586JAVU4Edm4soYgZ-TysiYUG16nN976eQyoXxV6D3u\" alt=\"Image result for happiness\" width=\"299\" height=\"148\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Our brains are more likely to focus on the &#8220;negative&#8221;:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">anxiety makes us try to prevent something harmful from happening<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">fear makes us run away or fight<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">sadness makes us try to fix a bad situation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Evolutionarily, our focus on the negative made our survival more likely &#8211; we stored enough food because we were anxious about having enough, and we ran away from the lion.<\/p>\n<p>Do positive emotions help us in any way? \u00a0What do happiness, joy, laughter, and calm do for us?<\/p>\n<p>Well, lots! \u00a0When feeling good, we:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>handle problems more positively<\/li>\n<li>are more creative<\/li>\n<li>are more accurate in our assessment of negative information<\/li>\n<li>have better health<\/li>\n<li>are more productive<\/li>\n<li>enjoy more social involvement<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But don&#8217;t take my word for it. \u00a0For a week,\u00a0<strong>notice what&#8217;s different when you are happy<\/strong>. \u00a0Are you more creative &#8211; for example, in your artwork or solving a problem? \u00a0Are you more able to look at a challenge realistically and come up with a solution, instead of getting into a downward spiral of worry? \u00a0Is your heart rate lower? \u00a0Do you hang out with friends and family more?<\/p>\n<p>Investigate\u00a0as a researcher would &#8211; see what you notice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article is in our series about\u00a0increasing happiness\u00a0and\u00a0life satisfaction. \u00a0Many people with chronic pain can\u2019t\u00a0decrease their pain. \u00a0So another way to live a more enjoyable and fulfilling life \u2013\u00a0perhaps even more\u00a0important \u2013\u00a0is to\u00a0increase the positive. \u00a0That\u2019s what we\u2019ll be looking at in this series. Our brains are more likely to focus on the &#8220;negative&#8221;: anxiety [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7436"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7929,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7436\/revisions\/7929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.howtocopewithpain.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}