How to Harness Your Feelings
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What insights does Shankar Vedantam share about Hidden Brain's tour?
This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta. Some months ago, I brought seven key insights from the first decade of Hidden Brain to live stage performances in San Francisco and Seattle. The evenings were electric. We got so much positive feedback from those two sold-out shows that we've decided to launch a tour to more than a dozen cities in the coming months. I'll be coming to Portland, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Austin, Dallas, Boston, Toronto, Clearwater, Fort Lauderdale, Phoenix, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. To snap up your tickets, please go to hiddenbrain.org slash tour. You can also sign up to say hello and get a photo with me. In some places, you can sign up for an intimate chat with me and a handful of other fans.
I'd love to see you there. Again, go to hiddenbrain.org slash tour. Okay, on to today's show. This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam. The 19th century naturalist and biologist Charles Darwin is best known for developing the theory of evolution by natural selection. He described the theory in his book On the Origin of Species, one of the most important publications in the history of science. Less well known, but also scientifically important, was the biologist's research on emotions. Charles Darwin's view, which has since been adopted by contemporary scientists of emotion, is that our feelings are adaptations that help us survive and thrive in a complex world. Fear guides us to avoid things that can do us harm. Anger girds us for battle and conflict.
Love pulls us toward mates, family and friends. But if emotions are so useful, why do they so often seem to get us in trouble? Why do we lose our cool and yell at our kids or mope around for weeks following a professional disappointment? Why do we lie awake at night worrying about some imagined catastrophe? How is it we get carried away when everyone around us is losing their heads and lose ours too? Most important of all, when we do get swept away by our emotions, how should we get back on track? Today on the show, we look at the growing and fascinating science of managing our emotions. What scientists call emotion regulation turns out to be one of the most important life skills we can possess.
How does Charles Darwin's research relate to our emotions?
This skill is essential in dealing with setbacks, in balancing risks and rewards, in maintaining successful relationships. Harnessing our feelings, this week on Hidden Brain. All of us can recall moments when we acted in ways that made us feel ashamed afterwards. When we look back at these moments with a clear head, we cannot for the life of us understand why we got so angry or greedy or frightened. At the University of Michigan, psychologist Ethan Cross studies the science of emotions and techniques to help us manage them. Ethan Cross, welcome to Hidden Brain.
Thanks for having me. It's a delight to be here.
Ethan, when you were growing up, your dad was someone who would regularly sit in the lotus position and practice meditation. He was a calm, patient, and sensitive man. But there was one situation that would transform him into someone completely different. What was that situation?
The situation was driving on the roads of Brooklyn, New York. He would often transform into a I have a mental image of Mad Max, if you're familiar with those movies. And he wasn't just a reckless driver right out of the driveway. But if he perceived any – quote unquote, injustice on the road, that is another car that was driving recklessly or cut someone else off, he would take it upon himself to discipline that driver. And what I mean by that is He would get in front of them and then slow our car down so that the other driver would have to slow down.
What are the challenges of emotion regulation?
If I close my eyes right now, I can see us driving on the Belt Parkway, which is this freeway that wrapped around the perimeter of Brooklyn. And I could see him weaving in and out of cars to find the perpetrator.
Yeah. I mean, he was almost playing a cop without wearing a uniform, except he wasn't tailing people and getting them to slow down. He was pulling in front of them and hitting the brakes.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What insights does Shankar Vedantam share about Hidden Brain's tour?
0:03–2:54
2
How does Charles Darwin's research relate to our emotions?
2:54–4:53
3
What are the challenges of emotion regulation?
4:53–14:08
4
How can we coach ourselves through emotional crises?
14:08–27:42
5
What role does music play in regulating emotions?
27:42–48:05
6
What is expressive writing and how does it help with emotions?
48:05
7
How does being bilingual affect emotional regulation?
45:06–1:00:35
8
What techniques can we use to manage our emotions effectively?
1:00:35–1:05:03