Breathing is an automatic behavior. We can breathe without thinking about how to breathe. Evolution equipped us with conscious awareness not for breathing, but for solving problems and achieving goals. When we meditate, we're actually misusing our conscious awareness. It's not natural for us to focus our mind on breathing. So why waste cognitive energy on practicing mindfulness? Why should I learn to observe my breath if all I want is to achieve goals? 1. When you practice mindfulness by … [Read more...]
Why You Can’t Control Your Mood
In recent weeks, I've written a lot about controlling emotions (see links below). But what about moods? How can you control the affective baseline underneath your emotions? The truth is, you can't really regulate your mood, but let's start at the beginning. What's the difference between mood and emotion? Emotions are discrete affective states; relatively short (a few seconds to an hour max), high in intensity, and clearly linked to a triggering event. Moods are diffuse affective states; … [Read more...]
How to Self-Generate Emotions in 5 Steps
Emotional self-control is bodymind mastery, so you must manipulate both your body and mind to generate an emotion at will. A) Bodily Emotion Generation To self-generate an emotion, you must act as if you were feeling the emotion already, which means (1) to imitate the emotion's physiological profile, (2) to change your body language, and (3) to alter your goal-oriented behavior. 1) Mimic the Emotion's Physiological Profile An emotion's physiological profile is either agitated (sympathetic) … [Read more...]
How Emotions Interact and How to Control Them Effortlessly
How Emotions Interact In traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine, emotions are viewed as having relationships of mutual promotion and counteraction. This is how they are thought to interact: Anger promotes joy and counteracts anxiety. Joy promotes anxiety and counteracts sadness. Anxiety promotes sadness and counteracts fear. Sadness promotes fear and counteracts anger. Fear promotes anger and counteracts joy. Does this theory of emotions, which instantiates Wu Xing, … [Read more...]
Does Catharsis of Aggression Work? The Truth about Anger Release
Does catharsis induce mindcoolness? Does shouting curses at a hated person's picture help to "release poisonous anger"? Does smashing a car with a sledgehammer help to "blow off steam"? Does a full-intensity round on the heavy bag help to "cleanse the soul"? Would it make you a better, freer, more authentic human being if you exercised emotional discharge on a regular basis? Should you practice catharsis to optimize your mental health? Think about a man who rarely or never expresses anger. … [Read more...]
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