Emotion, Feeling, and Mood.

What comes first emotion or feeling or mood? Emotions come first, then feelings come after as the emotion chemicals go to work in our bodies. Then moods develop from a combination of feelings. Emotions are chemicals released in response to our interpretation of a specific trigger.

There are two main types of feelings or emotions; primary and secondary. Primary emotions include, • Love, Happiness, Surprise, Anger, Sadness Each of these can lead to secondary emotions, a kind of reaction to the first emotion. For example, love could lead to feelings of, • Excitement, Confusion, Embarrassment

Of course, we could also divide feelings into positive and negative ones. Common questions to ask people how they are or how they feel are: • How are you feeling? How are you doing? • How is it going? Common answers might be: • I’m doing fine I feel great • I’m fine I’m good • I feel just terrible

Below we can see synonyms for common feelings: I feel happy today • content, glad, pleased • ecstatic, elated, delighted, thrilled (to bits) =very happy I feel angry • cross, irate, vexed I feel sad • down (in the dumps) • low, blue, despondent

Mood is a mix of feelings and emotions as we go through our days; a mood is a semi-persistent mental + physical + emotional state. Why do we have Moods? Often the threats & opportunities that emotions and feelings signal are not just one-off; by having a lasting mood, we stay attuned to handle what's next. Moods are more generalized. They’re not tied to a specific incident, but a collection of inputs. Mood is heavily influenced by several factors: the environment (weather, lighting, people around us), physiology (what we’ve been eating, how we’ve been exercising, how healthy we are), and finally our mental state (where we’re focusing attention and our current emotions). Moods can last minutes, hours, probably even days.

To be in the mood to do / for doing = to feel like doing something To have mood swings = your mood changes a lot (negative) To be in low spirits = to be sad To feel down in the dumps = to feel sad I am feeling under the weather = feeling sick, feeling off colour To be on an emotional roller coaster = to be experiencing lots of different emotions (negative) To be on a high = to be happy I feel out of sorts = don’t feel comfortable or happy I am tickled pink = to be very happy

1. Do you express how you feel or do you keep it in? 2. What makes you happy? 3. What is one of your happiest memories? 4. Do you like to watch comedies? 5. What makes you angry? 6. Do you have a short fuse? 7. Do you swear when you get angry? 8. Have you ever blown up at a stranger? 9. Do you ever feel stress? What causes you stress? 10. What do you do to get rid of your stress? 11. Do you ever feel lonely? What do you do when you feel lonely? 12. Who is the best person to talk to when you have the blues? 13. Why is mood important in life?