We all enjoy feeling good and seek moments of excitement, joy, and happiness. But did you know that positive emotions serve us by much more than just making us feel good? Let’s learn together about the great potential of positive emotions and let’s explore what can you do to generate more joy in your everyday life. This blog will provide you with theory behind emotions and the importance of positivity. You will also be invited to reflect on your positive emotions flower, and you will have a chance to try some evidence-based activities to see what might work for you to experience more positive emotions as you go through your days. Enjoy! :-)

 

We have learned in the new theory of well-being called PERMA5 that positive emotions are one of the ten essential building blocks generating your well-being. But what do our emotions serve for? How can we experience more pleasant emotions and how can we become better friends with the negative ones? Get excited because this blog aims to provide you with answers to all your questions!

 

And let's dive right in by talking about emotions. They are functional biological states that come and go because of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors existing in a continuum from pleasant to unpleasant (Kočí & Donaldson, 2024). Emotions have many functions from preparing us to respond to a stimulus such as we get stressed out knowing our exam is coming, so we rather make sure we study for it, but they also inform us about the situation. If we stay with the exam example, it might inform us that we are stressed out because we care about our study results. We want to succeed to get prepared for our future job, but we also might want to make our grandma happy. 

 

Let's look closer on how emotions serve us, how they open our hearts and minds, fostering receptivity, and enhance our creativity.

 

The Transformative Power of Professor Fredrickson's 10 Positive Emotions

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Psychologist Professor Fredrickson in her Broaden and Build theory emphasizes that positive emotions are more than about making us feel good. Positive emotions broaden our scopes of attention, cognition, and action. We tend to pay attention when someone is kind to us, we process it in our mind with thoughts thinking that this person is safe for us, and we act on it by for example smiling at them. This results in widening the array of precepts, thoughts, and actions presently in our mind.

 

They play a huge role as steppingstones for broadening your thinking and behaviors. Positive emotions are presented as catalysts for building physical, intellectual, and social resources, contributing to a cycle of well-being.

According to Professor Fredrickson, here is a list of 10 most important positive emotions:

• joy

• gratitude

• serenity

• interest

• hope

• pride

• amusement

• inspiration

• awe

• love

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How we can benefit from positive emotions?

 

• Joy motivates us to play, and we gain skills as a result.

• Gratitude motivates us to give creatively, we gain skills for loving and we build social bonds as a result.

• Serenity motivates us to savor and integrate and it helps us to modify self and world views.

• Interest motivates us to explore, and it helps us to gain knowledge and energy.

• Hope motivates us to be inventive and it helps us to be more resilient.

• Pride motivates us to dream big and it helps us with future achievements.

• Amusement motivates us to share laughter and insights and it helps us to build friendships and to be creative.

• Inspiration motivates us to aspire to excellence and it helps us to gain skills and morality.

• Awe helps us to accommodate the new, such as experience, realization or knowledge, and it helps us to see ourselves as a part of a large whole.

• And of course, there is also love. Love is a super-emotion that motivates us to play, explore, savor, dream and as a result, we tend to trust people more, we bond with others, we create community and support our health.

 

But what about our negative emotions?

 

Negative emotions are not as negative as we might think. They help us to meet our needs, they warn us that something could be wrong, and they provide us with energy to act on it. Negative emotions inform us that someone might be violating our boundaries, something could be dangerous to us or that some situation or an object might not be healthy for us. We express our disagreement, and we defend ourselves. We are more careful in our decisions, and we avoid certain foods, situations or even people as a result.

Ten elementary negative emotions are: 

• anger 

• jealousy 

• sadness

• guilt

• fear

• disgust

• annoyance

• insecurity

• disappointment

• embarrassment.

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So, what exact functions do negative emotions carry for us?

 

• Anger tells us that it's time to defend ourselves and it shows us from who or what. 

• Jealousy tells us in whose shoes we would like to be. 

• Sadness and missing someone or something tell us who and what is important to us.

• Guilt tells us it's about the time to change something about ourselves.

• Fear keeps us safe, and it tells us that our well-being might be threatened. But fear also tells us when it's time to step out of the familiar and from our comfort zone.

• Disgust tells us that something might be unhealthy for us.

• Annoyance tells us that we don't like something and that something needs to change.

• Insecurity tells us that we might use more training to gain skills or even to practice self-love, self-compassion, and self-encouragement.

• Disappointment tells us that something is important to us and we might want to do something to have it in our lives.

• Embarrassment tells us that we care about what others think about us and that we might rather practice being curious about our own judgment more.

 

Would you be interested in boosting your positive emotions? 

 

I am happy to share some tips from my newest book Well-being and Success for University Students (Kočí & Donaldson, 2024) with you now:

 

Gratitude

Did you know that something as simple as gratitude helps us generate positive emotions? Giving thanks and reflecting on what you are grateful for can help you, college students, balance school stress. What if we try short and simple activity together right now, so you can get an idea of what to start practicing in your everyday life to boost your happiness?

 

Ask yourself a simple question. What am I thankful for? You might find it helpful to write your answers down. By taking time to write down your answers, you will consciously redirect your attention to that which you are grateful for. And there is usually a lot to be grateful for in our lives. We just must train ourselves to notice the good. This is not so hard, because thankfully, being grateful feels great!

 

The practice of gratitude is a powerful tool for stress relief, with specific questions provided to guide individuals in cultivating gratitude. Expressing gratitude triggers the release of serotonin and dopamine, promoting feelings of peace and joy. So, what do you say, will you give it a chance? 

Did you know that something as simple as gratitude helps us generate positive emotions? Giving thanks and reflecting on what are you are grateful for can help you, college students, balance school stress. What if we try short and simple activity together right now, so you can get an idea of what to start practicing in your everyday life to boost your happiness?

 

Ask yourself a simple question. What am I thankful for? You might find it helpful to write your answers down. By taking time to write down your answers, you will consciously redirect your attention to that which you are grateful for. And there is usually a lot to be grateful for in our lives. We just must train ourselves to notice the good. This is not so hard, because thankfully, being grateful feels great!

 

The practice of gratitude is a powerful tool for stress relief, with specific questions provided to guide individuals in cultivating gratitude. Expressing gratitude triggers the release of serotonin and dopamine, promoting feelings of peace and joy. So, what do you say, will you give it a chance? 

 

If you would like to actively engage with evidence-based activities to grow your positive emotions building block, let me invite you to explore my new book Well-being and Success for University Students (Kočí & Donaldson, 2024) to find more exercises and tips to be-well.

 

And what is the bottom line of our discussion about your positive emotions? Encourage yourself to a conscious focus on positive events and expectations while witnessing and engaging with the full spectrum of emotions. Emotions teach us how to live – so honor them all, and they will be your guide in authentic, joyful, and fulfilling life! 

 

References:

Kočí, J. (2024). Building Well-being of University Students. Praha: Univerzita Karlova, Pedagogická fakulta. ISBN 978-80-7603-506-5.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). “Positive emotions broaden and build,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Vol. 47. eds. P. Devine and A. Plant (Academic Press), 1–53.

Fredrickson, B. L. (1998, September). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 300–319. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.300. PMID: 21850154; PMCID: PMC3156001.

Koci, J., & Donaldson, S. I. (2022). Zdraví a mentální well-being studentů distančního

vzdělávání. Prague: Charles University. ISBN: 978-80-7603-357-3

Koci, J. & Donaldson, S. I. (2024). Well-being and Success of University Students: Applying PERMA+4. New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN: 9781032457185; DOI: 10.4324/9781003378365