Why It’s Normal You Feel Down Right Now

We all experience rainbow days, i.e., full and joyful days, and gray days — joyless days, when we are overwhelmed by unpleasant emotions or mired by states of despair and anxiety. And it’s quite normal to:

feel sad;
cry or get angry;
understand that you cannot cope with emotions alone;
talk about your problems out loud;
contact a specialist.

Regardless of the way you select to cope with negative emotions, be it sports, buying Delta 9 gummies, or anything else, it is crucial to allow yourself to experience them. Let us dwell on this in more detail.

Table of Contents

Why do we experience negative emotions?

There are quite a few models of emotion classification, but the most popular is Paul Ekman’s model. Initially, it was about 5 basic emotions, now, there are already 16. The conditionally negative or socially disapproved ones include anger, fear, contempt, guilt, and shame. All these emotions are not always accepted and are sometimes forbidden by others. But they perform important functions in human life.

The division of emotions into negative and positive seems logical, but it is not correct either from an evolutionary, neurobiological, or social point of view. Each emotional state has its own neurobasis, which triggers a chain of reactions: the release of neurotransmitters, changes in the activity of the nervous system and brain, a specific facial expression, and bodily and behavioral reactions. Emotions also helped humanity to survive. That is, thanks to the fact that we can experience and demonstrate them, we share them, demonstrate our condition and warn others, for example, about danger.

Experiencing and becoming aware of certain emotions can contribute to personal growth. For example, when experiencing a sense of guilt, a person realizes that he/she has acted contrary to one’s own values or the expectations of other people. This awareness allows either change behavior or revise ethical standards. It is about a certain development and adaptation to relationships with others, in this case, this feeling of guilt is constructive. Of course, sometimes, if it is impossible to get rid of guilt, it can significantly harm mental health.

Mental health problems can arise and worsen when a certain situation causes such intense emotions and feelings that a person cannot cope with them on their own.

How to deal with difficult emotions

To cope with difficult emotions, you can use the techniques of cognitive-behavioral therapy. They are based on the idea that emotions are closely related to thoughts. And therefore to recognize emotions means to recognize thoughts.

Let’s imagine the situation: If you think that people around you will make fun of you because of your appearance or because you do not speak a foreign language well, you may experience shame and anxiety. To cope with this, it is worth acknowledging the presence of such thoughts and understanding that in most cases, they are not true, but only distort reality and make you feel embarrassed.

Another effective approach is acceptance and commitment therapy. Its main idea is to recognize the presence of unpleasant emotions and to draw up a kind of commitment plan for yourself — to develop a system of small and clear steps that you can personally take so that you do not feel this way next time.

All in all, it is okay to feel down and experience negative emotions, however, it is worth controlling these states and resorting to professional assistance when needed.

Feel Down Right Now