Negative emotions lead to stress, disease, and compromise your chance of success

Lucretia by Rembrandt

Whether anxious, angry, or sad to the point of crying, negative emotions feel like physical pain. Examining the brain during and after negative experiences by placing electrodes on the scalp reveals its complex psychological processes. 

High brain frequencies are critical for many brain functions (sensory perception, analytic problem-solving, motoric action) and are associated with negative emotions. The detail-oriented, energy-intensive activations represent a stressful information flow that siphons spiritual power. Over the long term, negative emotional states lead to impatience, insecurity, fear, and weakness. These problems in emotional processing can lead to social issues, such as rigidity, paranoia, and psychological and psychiatric consequences. Social difficulties and unhappiness can also lead to cognitive decline, mental issues, autoimmune diseases, and heart disease. The possible role of emotions in mental problems and disease gives urgency to understand them. 

A gradually shifting pattern of neuronal activation guides mental focus, unfolding a conceptual landscape. Like elevation in physical space, the brain oscillations formulate a mental, abstract surface. A neutral state corresponds to a flat terrain; high brain frequencies curve toward lower elevation, whereas decreasing oscillations represent an expanding ground. Consequently, positive emotions give the sense of being at the peak of a mountain, allowing an overarching view of an open horizon, free of distracting details. In contrast, the narrow, restricted, and detailed focus of negative emotions is analogous to being in a valley. This way, negative emotions are often seen as signs of weakness and inferiority. Guilt triggers insecurity. Negative emotions carry an emotional weight, leading to an overestimation of physical and psychological burdens and to avoidance.

Many studies have shown the connection between negative emotions and high brain frequencies. Although they often disappear from conscious awareness, negative emotions also have an insidious, long-term presence, manipulating the mind from the background. Stress is a perceived shortage of time that corrupts mental abilities and blinds us to opportunities. It inhibits positive focus and analytic thinking, leading to irritation, passive aggression, and a need for criticism. For example, anxious individuals are attracted to negative stimuli (such as angry faces), which heightens aggravation.  

Fear is a typical trigger for aggression, like the derailed train that moves inevitably toward an accident; emotional cruelty and negativity cause failure, sickness, and family problems. Although suppressing negative emotions reverses the negative state, long-term results come from positive mental change, such as learning, meditation, and mindfulness-based therapies. 

The long-term consequences of emotions on well-being, success, or lack are recognized as karma—further reading: The Science of Consciousness.

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Copyright © 2015 by Eva Deli