5 Tips to Experience More Positive Emotions
The pursuit of hearing a great speech that inspires you, or doing an activity you hold close to your heart can increase your positive emotions. The same feelings can be felt when you witness your partner, friends, or family members being exposed to such emotions. What you need to remember is that emotions are contagious and having happy neighbors, siblings, and friends close to you can increase your odds of feeling the same way. This explains why you can walk in a room where everybody is laughing and find yourself smiling as well. Emotions and human bodies are interrelated and connected, and positive emotions can enhance your health, resilience, and performance.
About Positive Emotions
Moods, whether good or bad, are part of human life. Every day, we are confronted with different situations where we need to manage our emotions. For instance, we might encounter unexpected setbacks when we least expect and feel upset or disappointed. That’s normal. Nevertheless, when you feel happy, proud, grateful, or excited, you open up to new ideas, events, and people. Positive emotions have the power to shape your perspective and a sense of purpose. If positive emotions outweigh negative emotions, you are not only protected from mental health problems but also more open to possibilities that life has to offer. Luckily, you can experience more positive emotions in your life by creating a positive emotion portfolio.
When you think about positive emotions, it’s reasonable to think about pure happiness. However, the range of positive emotions is broader and encompasses the feeling of gratitude, love, pride, serenity, awe, inspiration, optimism, hope, humor, and peace. When the stresses of life overtake your attention and time, try overturning them by creating a positive emotion portfolio which you can achieve by doing the following;
- First things first, choose an emotion you’d want to feel more in your life, be it love, pride, awe, joy, inspiration, confidence, hope or love
- Create a collection of your favorite songs, letters, videos, poems, and pictures that can boost your emotions and store them in a folder on your phone or laptop where you can access them when need be
- Review your positive emotion portfolio for about 8-15 minutes daily for one week
- At the end of the week, take some time and reflect on what has worked in your life and what hasn’t. Avoid any circumstances that could trigger your negativity and add some positive items to your portfolio
- Use your portfolio as often as possible and reflect on it every time you need to build inner resilience and strength that will, in turn, pave the way for a long-lasting happiness
