How To Unlock Positive Emotions

So let's talk about physiology and its impact on emotional mastery. So exercise. Exercise has a positive effect on your mood. Also has been shown to reduce stress. Yoga especially is a good workout for stress relief. Exercise improves your energy levels and provides you with a sense of accomplishment, which also serves to improve your mood. It's thought that the improved emotions from exercise are the result of various neurotransmitters that are released when one is exercising, such as endorphins and cortisol. Cortisol levels can also be counterproductive, so you need to be careful. You should stick with enjoyable forms of exercise so that you actually stick with the exercise. Recommendations are 150 minutes of cardio per week and then two days of strength training per week. Another physiological thing you can do to develop mastery over your emotions is sleep. Getting quality sleep is an easy way to make positive impact on both reducing your negative emotions and and increasing your positive emotions. There are numerous studies that show that lack of sleep impacts both positive and negative emotions. But you really need the studies. It's pretty obvious right to you by now that at least on the negative mood side, that when you're sleep deprived, you're likely to be grouchy or grouchier. You're normally grouchy and tend to snap at people you normally wouldn't. You may not notice, however, the impacts on positive emotions that a lack of sleep has. Studies show that people tend to generally be less friendly and less empathetic and generally have a lower level of positive moods once they're sleep deprived. An interesting study noted that when sleep deprived people achieved goals, they were less likely to feel as happy as those who had adequate sleep and they achieved those goals. Why is this? Studies show that sleep deprivation made the old brain, specifically the amygdala, more sensitive to stimuli and increases negative emotion sent to the new brain. However, sleep deprivation also decreased the prefrontal cortex's ability to regulate the negative emotions, thus referring resulting in what I call in technical terms a double whammy. So more negative emotions and less regulation of them. Get an adequate amount of sleep, sleep seven to eight hours per night and keep to a regular routine. It's also recommended not to go to bed too late.