Emotional Regulation | Changing Emotions by Acting Opposite to the Current Emotion

TBI Advocate's Note:  What follows is an excerpt from a splendid website entitled "How Psychology Tests Brain Injury." 

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Having studied psychology, the Dutch author Feri Kovács has specialized in neuropsychology and rehabilitation.  This field studies the relationship between brain and behavior — more specifically, brain injury and its consequences and how to cope with it.

By FERI KOVÁCS
Clinical neuropsychologist in Holland         

NETHERLANDS |  Emotions are not only essential in life, they give the flavor to your life as well. Without them, life would be dull but also your information processing would be making much more mistakes.

Feri Kovács

Feelings closely work together with your cognitive (information processing) system to handle yourself, your world and others. Brain injury can change all this.

The most common complaint of family members is that their partner is changed, in his or her emotional reactions.

Meaning: less emotionally stable.

If someone was quite in balance, after the brain injury there can be sudden outbursts of aggression or anxiety.


               

Brain injury affects your emotions and increases stress

Mood changes tend to come more frequently and much more intense than they used to be. Control over such outbursts seems to be reduced. It is as if someone has more stress than before and can not handle it effectively anymore.

Four basic emotions and control

Science dictates that there are six basic emotions:

1. anger, 
2. fear, 
3. sadness, 
4. joy, 
5. disgust and 
6. surprise. 

Actually, one scientist Ekman made this divisions after studying facial expressions all over the world. I and especially some philosophers disagree with this list and I believe that there are only 4 basic emotions.  The rest is just a derivative of these four.

The four fundamental basic ones are:

1. anger, 
2. fear, 
3. sadness and
4. last but not least joy. 

As you can see, nature has provided us and most higher animals with 75% negative feelings. Joy is clearly in the minority.  I always can speculate quite simply why this is so.  I always tell my patients how they can imagine that in the jungle a group of lions can survive if joy would be the most important emotion.

Ever seen only happy lions around? Just laughing? When seeing a deer or a gazelle, they would just laugh? Can you imagine how long such lions would survive out there?

Evolution is also the reason that fear is the most predominant emotion in most higher animals, and also in man.  Sadness is a special case and it only exists in higher animals, not in reptiles. Ever seen a crocodile grieving or sad (as far as we can tell)?

Although feelings are very useful and even necessary for survival, we as human beings have one fundamental task: to control them and not getting overwhelmed by them.

Read the rest of this essay.  Please click here.  Don't forget to check the rest of the site.

© Copyright  F. Kovács. All rights reserved. No reproduction of any kind without express permission.

On Self-Esteem | 10 Ways to Feel Better About Yourself

NEW YORK CITY:  In a March 31, 2011 article on Emotional Fitness, Psychology Today states, "Everyday, you have another chance to make things better. Some days are better than others. On those days that go less well, we usually end up being hard on ourselves."

Here are some tools to avoid doing so.

1. Keep going.
Don't let life's changes throw you off track, but remember that most extenuating circumstances are temporary. Gain more clarity by staying the course and channeling your energy in a positive direction.

2. Trust yourself.
Believe in your inner resources, no matter what, and you'll grow from the experience. I believe that the answers usually lie within and you are probably smart enough to figure out what you need to do. Give yourself a little time and have patience.

3. Be friends with life. 
Remember that the world is not out to get you and it does not punish you. You do that to yourself. Learning to focus on other opportunities or in another direction can give you some perspective.

4. Watch your thoughts.
Your thinking will never be 100 percent positive. You must learn to dismiss the negative thoughts and stay open to other ideas that will help you move in a positive direction. Start recognizing negative thoughts and use your mind to quell them.

5. Summon the strength you have inside.
Learn to access and direct your strengths to the highest good for all concerned. Believe that your strength and intelligence can help you deal with anything. Remember that you have survived worse.

6. Learn to love yourself. 
You do not have to be who you are today, and your life is not scripted. Changing how you feel about yourself means creating a strategy, gathering some new tools, and making yourself into the person you want to be. A good way to start is to stop doing things that hurt.

7. Don't want too much. 
Desire can be a powerful motivating tool, but wanting something too much can be very painful and very expensive, so don't live beyond your means or covet the unattainable. Seek your desire, but keep your integrity.

8. Don't get insulted.
It is wise to be dispassionate about critical comments. Human's will always bump heads, but consider the source, and if it's the other person's issue, ignore it. Learn to respond instead of react, and don't show your ire.

9. Recognize that disappointment is part of life. 
Even the most successful people have to deal with disappointment, but they've learned how to use it to get to the next level of life. The trick is to process your feelings, then take some kind of action.

10. Deal with your fears.
Overcoming fear makes you stronger, and being a little scared can make you better. You want to have butterflies; you just want them flying in formation. It helps to understand and admit your fears. Then you can kick them to the curb.

Feel good about yourself, no matter what life brings. 

Know that each time you wake up, you have another chance to make things better. Don't waste it.

A True Story | Education Is Key: "What Used to Be Natural Had to be Relearned"

By Jodi Schellenberg
The Prince Albert Daily
Published on June 23, 2014

SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA |  After experiencing a brain injury herself, Emilia Becker decided to share her story with others to raise awareness.

Becker came to Prince Albert to bring awareness to Brain Injury Awareness Month and spoke to city council about her own experiences.

Although you wouldn’t know to look at her, Becker was in an accident when she was only 11 years old.

The school bus she was riding at her hometown near Regina ran the yield side, hitting a Canadian Pacific Railway vehicle, causing the bus the flip and hit the opposite ditch.

Emilia Becker, a brain injury survivor, came into Prince Albert
 to talk to city council about Brain Injury Awareness Month.
© Herald photo by Jodi Schellenberg

“I actually don’t remember the day of the accident or three months prior,” Becker said. “I remember waking up in a truck and asking what happened and I remember waking up in the hospital and being asked to draw a straight line but I couldn’t do that.”

She received some physical injuries as well as a diffuse axonal injury, which is a type of moderate brain injury.

Not all brain injuries have the same symptoms -- Becker had physical, intellectual and emotional symptoms.

Becker said one of her physical symptoms was related to her right side, which was partially impacted and her right foot would turn in as she walked.

“I also lost a lot of memory,” she said. “I couldn’t do math to the same level as I could before, I forgot all of my Spanish and my French and I couldn’t read at the same level as I could before.”

To work on her physical symptoms they used reciprocal motion to relearn some skills.

They found her a bike to ride in the winter to retrain her brain to do some reciprocal motion activities that used to be fluid and intuitive.

“What used to be natural had to be relearned, such as actions like running and throwing,” Becker said.

In addition, she was an A-plus student before the accident, involved in activities such as tap, jazz, ballet, Girl Guides and voice lessons -- all of which changed overnight.

“I was somewhat embarrassed to have an injury like this and not be able to do any of the activities I could before,” Becker said. “Eventually I came to the point where I realized that just because you have an injury doesn’t mean that you’re any worse of a person or worse off.

“You can relearn things and you can do things in a different way if not in the same way as before,” she added. “You can retrain your brain and you can learn new ways to do things.”

Read the rest of this inspiring story by visiting The Prince Albert Daily Herald.

Or click here: 

http://www.paherald.sk.ca/News/Local/2014-06-23/article-3774141/Education-key-to-understanding-brain-injuries/1

Simple Self-Esteem Boosts That Improve Emotional Strength

NEW YORK CITY:  When our self-esteem is poor we are likely to experience greater drops in motivation after a failure, and to demonstrate less persistence toward the task at hand.

Lower self-esteem even makes us more vulnerable to anxiety and stress. Studies found that when our self-esteem is low we release more cortisol into our bloodstream when we experience stress and it circulates in our systems for longer compared to people whose self-esteem is high.

Those whose self-esteem was boosted displayed significantly less anxiety those who did not receive a self-esteem boost. Rest assured, no electrical shock was then administered -- but the participants did believe they were about to get zapped.

So, if boosting our self-esteem can improve our emotional immune systems, how can we give ourselves this extra fortification when our self-esteem is at a low?

One of the most effective self-esteem boosters is self-affirmations. In contrast to positive affirmations (which are general positive statements such as, "I am worthy of great love and success!" and which we might or might not actually believe), self-affirmation reflect personal qualities we know we possess.

From Clinical psychologist Guy Winch's Huffington Post article.

Strength Building Self-Statements 

1. What’s the worst that can happen? And based on my experience, and NOT on my emotions, how likely is that to happen? 

2. Feelings are sometimes painful, but are time-limited. 

3. It will get easier each time I practice. 

4. My success is measured by taking skillful action, not by whether I was anxious when I did it. 

5. I’m not going to let a lapse get in my way. I’m going to continue making progress towards my goal. 

6. Feeling I can’t do it is NOT the same as not being able to do it. Stick to the plan. 

7. Good job—I’m staying in the situation, even though it’s hard. 

8. I’m going to make it. 

9. It’s a sign of strength to ask for help in an effective way. 

10. Knowing when to ask for coaching is a skill in itself. 

11. I am a unique person, and I have unique reactions. Only I can determine how I SHOULD feel in any given situation. 

12. My feelings are not right or wrong, they just simply ARE. 

13. A feeling of certainty is not the same as the truth. 

14. My painful emotions happen for a reason and are an important source of information and direction for me. 

15. Urges are a natural part of emotions and of being human. Having an urge (even a strong urge) does not mean that I have to DO anything at all.