My 4 Days Experience of Tracking Positive and Negative Emotions - Paper Sample

A new day always provides another opportunity in life. It is full of expectation of having luck, fun, fortune, companion, laughter and meeting with new people. The expectations create positive or negative emotions (Lambert, 2007). Tracking emotion becomes helpful in analyzing psychological condition and may be used to improve the emotional stress of the individual.

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Positive emotions Woke up early for early shift at work before classes Slept well after a long day at work and school 4/4 Had a successful day at school completing all my assignments on time 4/4 Had a good day catching up with friends and going for a movie 4/4

Negative emotions Had to leave work early to attend to a family emergency 2/4 Had to work a two person job as my colleague failed to show up at work My instructor was biased against me for failing to present my work as group work which he had not indicated 1/4. Police harassed us as we came from the movie as I did not have my documents 2/4

For the four days I tracked my emotions, it seems I experienced less negative emotions than positive emotions. Although the negative emotions came about the positive emotions I experienced overcame the negatives I went through. From the schedule of events, it seems my days started off on a positive note but faced a slightly negative experience that would change the mood. For instance, on the fourth day, I had a fantastic experience meeting with friends and then attending a movie in the evening only to be harassed by police for failing to carry my identification documents. As Beh-Shahar (2014) put it, I had to find a happiness booster to get over the negative emotion. On the third day, we sat with my siblings and tried to remember the old days when we were toddlers and this positively improved my emotions.

My highest response of emotions was a result of meeting with friends and attending a movie together. It made me miss the time I did not have many things to attend to, and we met regularly with friends. The lowest experience was when my sacrifices to perform better were not appreciated by the instructor. I receive backlash instead of motivation to continue in that spirit. Positive emotions have psychological benefits such as love, curiosity, excitement, contentment and joy which are resources to human life (Lambert, 2007). These resources obtained from positive emotions help to improve different aspects of human life. When a person tracks positive and negative emotions, the individual can understand the physical resources which concern the physical part of life like physical fitness, participation in games and exercise.

Among the psychological benefits of positive emotions include improved brain performance such as reasoning and learning. The person becomes positive in conversation, chatting and helping others. Positive emotions equally broaden individual thought-action repertoires by improving their thinking and view on different things. It is also a recipe to a range of opportunity as it opens up friendships. Positive emotions enhance resilience and ability to cope through enhanced problem-focus coping and reassessment as it introduces positivity in negative events (Fredrickson, 2002). They can trigger positive developmental thoughts as they create a sense economic and social improvement. Positive emotions help build the psychological repertoire, therefore, improving critical psychological, social and intellectual resources.

Positive emotions help to counter negative emotions. When having negative feelings, it is important to create positive emotions. One can engage in games to ease stress. To create positive emotion one requires support from others. Having a positive view of life and a circle of friends, training the brain to be more positive, creating, nurturing and enjoying new relationships, maintaining positive old ties, avoiding negative past moments and stopping to focus on future worries and taking great care of ones health are some of the strategies to positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2002).

References

Fredrickson, B. L. (2002). Positive emotions. Handbook of positive psychology, 120-134.

Lambert, C. (2007). The science of happiness. Harvard Magazine, 109(3), 26.

Shahar, B. (2014). EmotionFocused Therapy for the Treatment of Social Anxiety: An Overview of the Model and a Case Description. Clinical psychology & psychotherapy, 21(6), 536-547.