Identifying emotions

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I still have some trouble identifying my emotions, and have spent most of my life making a lot of my decisions without such information, which is probably not the best way to pursue happiness. I always assumed that the way I was feeling had little bearing on what to do, unless it was a really intense feeling that even I could spot.

I'm not sure if I lack certain emotions because you have to feel them in order to identify them. It's like explaining how it feels to fly like a bird when your not a bird.

Im starting to believe that the most sensible decisions are those that balance facts and feelings.

For the next week I'm trying to identify my emotions on a frequent basis, the therapist I'm visiting assures me that I have them even if I don't feel them. So today I've felt anxious and content and numb. That's it. I'm curious if other people have a narrow range of emotions? Also, how do you identify a feeling that you don't know your having?

I definitely think both are necessary. I once heard an educationalist say that learning is an emotional thing. I wish I knew more about how that works. Learning does seems to get blocked if the person is stressed out.

Much recent research indicates that emotional processing interferes with cognitive processing under ST (Wraga et al.,2007; Krendl et al., 2008), either by directly or indirectly sapping the working memory resources needed for successful task performance (for review see Schmader et al., 2008).

These emotion-related costs appear to stem both from increased vigilance for threat-relevant information, such as signs of failure (Forbes et al., 2008), as well as counterproductive attempts to regulate the negative emotions elicited by this information, such as through rumination (Beilock et al., 2007) or emotion suppression (Johns et al., 2008). Although both vigilance and maladaptive emotion regulation may disrupt learning, they may do so through some what different cognitive mechanisms. Studies of anxious individuals sometimes find that increased vigilance for threat relevant information is followed by active avoidance of that information when it is detected, as means of regulating the anxiety it provokes (Mogg et al., 2004; Buckner et al.,2010). Indeed, studies have shown that some individuals under ST will buffer threats to self-esteem by dissociating themselves from threat-relevant information (Cohen et al.,1999).

Extending this to the present study, greater vigilance and initial sensitivity to negative feedback may undermine learning by motivating individuals to regulate their arousal by distancing themselves from the tutorial learning opportunity. In contrast, attempts to regulate ones emotional response by focusing on the response itself, through either rumination or suppression, will likely divert cognitive resources from processing task-relevant information (Richards and Gross, 2000, 2006). If this were the case, individuals may appear motivated to investigate the tutor, but their ability to deeply process the information it provided would be limited by the demands of concurrently monitoring the persistent thoughts and emotions the negative feedback elicited

Depending on what happened that day, that doesn't seem narrow at all to me.

Hmm, does anyone have difficulty identifying their emotions?

The suggestion is that I have them, but at present can't feel them, so I have to tune into how I'm feeling on a regular basis.
This is confusing me because I don't know how to tune into something that I don't consciously feel.

Yes, I have a big problem identifying emotions. I am told that I am a very anxious person, but I have no clue what anxiety is. I have come up with a strategy to identify when I'm anxious indirectly by looking for the opposite of anxious. I know when I am relaxed and comfortable, so the less relaxed or comfort I feel, the more anxious I must be. If that makes any sense.

These emotion-related costs appear to stem both from increased vigilance for threat-relevant information, such as signs of failure (Forbes et al., 2008), as well as counterproductive attempts to regulate the negative emotions elicited by this information, such as through rumination (Beilock et al., 2007) or emotion suppression (Johns et al., 2008). Although both vigilance and maladaptive emotion regulation may disrupt learning, they may do so through some what different cognitive mechanisms. Studies of anxious individuals sometimes find that increased vigilance for threat relevant information is followed by active avoidance of that information when it is detected, as means of regulating the anxiety it provokes (Mogg et al., 2004; Buckner et al.,2010). Indeed, studies have shown that some individuals under ST will buffer threats to self-esteem by dissociating themselves from threat-relevant information (Cohen et al.,1999).

Maybe if emotions could be identified, I would have the information to respond better.