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A Neuroscientist’s Strategy for Controlling Your Emotions
It turns out there’s a right way to second-guess yourself
It happens lightning-fast. Someone on my Twitter feed makes a big announcement about their career — a cool new staff writing job or a book deal—and before I have a chance to think about it, I’m seething with jealousy. Or am I? I love freelancing, I remind myself, and I’ve never actually wanted to write a novel. Maybe I wasn’t actually jealous, and my brain just thought I was supposed to be.
It might feel like your emotions pop up automatically, but according to renowned neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, author of How Emotions Are Made, you have a lot more power over your feelings than you think. And that understanding alone is one of the most important tools for gaining control of the feelings that keep you down and hold you back.
Emotions, Feldman Barrett argues, aren’t hard-wired in your brain. Instead, they’re made in the moment. Typically, feelings are the result of three things: your body, your past, and your environment. Using physical sensations, memories, or present stimuli as context clues, your brain forms emotions as “guesses” in response to circumstances. And as with all conjectures, your brain isn’t always right the first time.
