Insights Into Teens: Episode 164 ”The Power of Positive Emotions”

INTRO THEME]
[INTRODUCTIONS]
Insights Into Teens: Episode 164 “The Power of Positive Emotions”
My positive and upbeat co-host Madison Whalen

Summary
Emotions
Are negative emotions bad?
Are positive emotions good?
Each serves their purpose, and striking the right balance between the two is the challenge we all face.
In today’s episode of Insights Into Teens we’ll take a look at how both positive and negative emotions help us in different ways and how we can balance the two for a healthy emotional lifestyle.
But before we get to that I’d like to invite our listening and viewing audience to subscribe to the podcast.

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[TRANSITION]

[SEGMENT 1]

https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/power-positive.html#catbest-self

All Emotions Are Natural
Let’s say you start to brainstorm a list of all the emotions you’ve ever experienced. Just for fun, try it now.

What’s on your list?

Chances are, you included things like happy, sad, excited, angry, afraid, grateful, proud, scared, confused, stressed, relaxed, amazed.

Now sort your list into two categories — positive emotions and negative emotions.

Feeling both positive and negative emotions is a natural part of being human.
We might use the word “negative” to describe more difficult emotions, but it doesn’t mean those emotions are bad or we shouldn’t have them.
Still, most people would probably rather feel a positive emotion than a negative one.
It’s likely you’d prefer to feel happy instead of sad, or confident instead of insecure.

What matters is how our emotions are balanced — how much of each type of emotion, positive or negative, we experience.

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[SEGMENT 2]

How Negative Emotions Help Us

Negative emotions warn us of threats or challenges that we may need to deal with.
For example, fear can alert us to possible danger.
It’s a signal that we might need to protect ourselves.

Angry feelings warn us that someone is stepping on our toes, crossing a boundary, or violating our trust.
Anger can be a signal that we might need to act on our own behalf.

Negative emotions focus our awareness.
They help us to zero in on a problem so we can deal with it.
But too many negative emotions can make us feel overwhelmed, anxious, exhausted, or stressed out.
When negative emotions are out of balance, problems might seem too big to handle.

The more we dwell on negative emotions, the more negative we begin to feel.
Focusing on negativity just keeps it going.

How Positive Emotions Help Us

Positive emotions balance out negative ones, but they have other powerful benefits, too.

Instead of narrowing our focus like negative emotions do, positive emotions affect our brains in ways that increase our awareness, attention, and memory.
They help us take in more information, hold several ideas in mind at once, and understand how different ideas relate to each other.

When positive emotions open us up to new possibilities, we are more able to learn and build on our skills.
That leads to doing better on tasks and tests.

People who have plenty of positive emotions in their everyday lives tend to be happier, healthier, learn better, and get along well with others.

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[SEGMENT 3]

The Importance of Positive Emotions

Science is helping us find out how valuable positive emotions can be.
Experts have learned a lot from recent brain studies.
Here are two findings that can help us use positive emotions to our advantage:

Let Positive Emotions Outnumber Negative Ones
When we feel more positive emotions than negative ones, difficult situations are easier to handle.
Positive emotions build our resilience (the emotional resources needed for coping). They broaden our awareness, letting us see more options for problem solving.

Studies show that people feel and do their best when they have at least three times as many positive emotions as negative emotions.
That’s because of something called the negativity bias.

The negativity bias is a natural human tendency to pay more attention to negative emotions than to positive ones.
It makes sense when you think about it:
Negative emotions call our attention to problems — problems we might need to deal with quickly.
Tuning in to negative emotions can be a survival mechanism.

The negativity bias has a downside, though:
It can make us think a day went badly, even if we experienced equal amounts of positive emotions that day.
It takes at least three times as many positive emotions to tip the scales and make a day seem like a great one.

Practice Positivity Every Day
Building habits that encourage us to feel more positive emotions can help us be happier, do better, and reduce our negative emotions.
Building positive emotions is especially important if we’re already dealing with a lot of negative feelings such as fear, sadness, anger, frustration, or stress.

Building a daily positivity habit is pretty simple. It comes down to two basic steps:

Notice and name your positive emotions.
Start by simply focusing on your feelings.
You can tune in to your emotions in real time, as they happen.
Or take stock at the end of the day, noting how you felt in different situations.
For example, you might feel proud when you answer a question right, joyful when your puppy chases you around the yard, or loved when your mom shows up at your game.
When you first start doing this, you’ll probably need to remind yourself to focus on your emotions.
But — like any habit — it gets easier the more you do it.

Pick an emotion and act to increase it.
Let’s say you choose confidence:
What helps you feel confident?
How can you get more of that feeling?
You might give yourself a “Yes, I can!” pep talk before a test.
Or maybe you stand up straighter and practice walking through the halls in a confident way, feeling strong and powerful.
Positive emotions feel good, and they’re good for you.

Pay attention to these powerful tools and find ways to make time for them in your everyday life.
Create room in your day for joy, fun, friendship, relaxation, gratitude, and kindness.
Make these things a habit and you positively will be a happier you!

[TRANSITION]

[CLOSE]

Closing thoughts shoutouts

[OUTRO AND CREDITS]

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Subscriptions:
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Email us at:
Comments@insightsintothings.com
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Hi-res videos on Youtube:
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Links to all these on the web Web:
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00:00:01:19 – 00:00:41:12
Michelle
Insightful podcasts by informative host insights into Things, a podcast network. Welcome to Insights into Teens, a podcast series exploring the issues and challenges of today’s youth. Your hosts are Joseph and Madison Whalen, a father and daughter team making their way through the challenges of.

00:00:41:12 – 00:00:50:16
Michelle
The teenage years.

00:00:51:07 – 00:01:06:12
Joseph
Welcome to Insights into Teens. This is episode 164 The Power of Positive Emotions. I’m your host, Joseph Whalen, and my positive and upbeat co-host Madison Whalen.

00:01:06:25 – 00:01:07:23
Madison
Hey, everybody.

00:01:08:03 – 00:01:09:13
Joseph
How you doing today, Maddy?

00:01:09:27 – 00:01:11:16
Madison
I’m all right, I guess. How about you?

00:01:11:25 – 00:01:17:11
Joseph
I’m doing okay. I am positive and upbeat. Just like you. You are positive and upbeat, right?

00:01:18:18 – 00:01:19:07
Madison
Yeah. We’ll go with.

00:01:19:07 – 00:01:32:14
Joseph
That. Sure. We’ll go with that. I think you’re pretty positive and upbeat for the most part. Mostly anything exciting happened since our last podcast. No mini vacation.

00:01:32:15 – 00:01:39:22
Madison
Okay, fine. Mini vacation. We did that cause, you know, Mommy’s birthday and so forth, right?

00:01:39:24 – 00:01:56:09
Joseph
So we went for a relaxing couple of days out in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in out in Amish country. And we stayed at the Fulton Steamship Hotel, which was a very unique experience.

00:01:56:23 – 00:01:57:25
Madison
Also very small.

00:01:58:00 – 00:02:04:16
Joseph
Yes. One of the few themed hotels I think they have out there. Yeah. But you have a good time.

00:02:05:04 – 00:02:06:07
Madison
I’d say so, yeah.

00:02:06:11 – 00:02:13:25
Joseph
Good. I did as well. It was a good way to get out there and recharge and come back and tackle the rest of the week.

00:02:14:03 – 00:02:15:23
Madison
And get a lot more sleepless nights.

00:02:16:03 – 00:02:23:22
Joseph
There you go. But that is not what we’re talking about today. Today we are talking about emotions.

00:02:24:03 – 00:02:27:13
Madison
Dun, dun dun.

00:02:28:05 – 00:02:52:29
Joseph
Are negative emotions bad and are positive emotions good? Each serves their purpose and striking the right balance between the two is the challenge we all face in today’s episode of Insights into Teens. We’ll take a look at how both positive and negative emotions help us in different ways and how we can balance the two for a healthy emotional lifestyle.

00:02:53:27 – 00:03:17:12
Joseph
But before we do that, I would like to invite out our listening and viewing audience to subscribe to the podcast. You can find audio versions of this podcast listed as insights in the teens. You can find audio and video of all of our podcasts listed as insights in the things, and we’re available on pretty much anywhere you get a podcast.

00:03:17:15 – 00:03:47:20
Joseph
Apple, Spotify, Google, etc.. I would also encourage you to write in, give us your feedback, tell us how we’re doing. Give us your suggestions on topics you’d like us to talk about. You can email us at comments and insights into things that come. You can find us on Twitter at Insights, underscore things, or you get links to all those and much more on our official website at WW w dot insights into things dot com.

00:03:47:22 – 00:03:48:28
Joseph
Are we ready?

00:03:49:05 – 00:03:49:21
Madison
Sure.

00:03:49:28 – 00:03:52:10
Joseph
Here we go.

00:03:57:02 – 00:04:34:24
Joseph
All emotions are natural. Let’s say you start to brainstorm a list of all the emotions you’ve experienced. And just for fun, try it right now. So what would be on your list? Chances are you include things like happy and sad and excited, angry, afraid, grateful, proud, scared. Confused, stressed, relaxed or amazed. Now sort through that list and divided into two categories positive emotions and negative emotions.

00:04:35:20 – 00:04:58:15
Madison
Killing both positive and negative emotions is a natural part of being human. We might use the word negative to describe more difficult emotions, but it doesn’t mean those emotions are bad or we shouldn’t have them. Still, most people would probably rather feel a positive emotion than a negative one. It’s likely that you prefer to feel happy instead of sad or confident instead of insecure.

00:04:59:14 – 00:05:12:10
Madison
What matters is how our most how find me. What matters is how our emotions are balanced. How much each type of emotion.

00:05:12:10 – 00:05:13:12
Joseph
Slow down.

00:05:13:16 – 00:05:26:03
Madison
I need to slow down. All right, let’s start that over again. Sorry, everybody. What matters is how our emotions are balanced. How much of each type of emotion, positive or negative we experience.

00:05:26:24 – 00:05:45:04
Joseph
So going down that list and maybe even things that weren’t listed on that list that I had mentioned mean three negative emotions that that you feel are negative emotions.

00:05:46:08 – 00:05:58:24
Madison
Well, for me, I from the list I see things like being stressed or angry and scared.

00:05:59:01 – 00:06:19:02
Joseph
Okay. So those are those are very good ones. So let’s talk we’ve talked about anger and how well anger can be positive. So let’s put that one aside for right now. How can speaking scared be a positive thing? Nobody likes to feel? Well, I mean, that’s not true. There are horror fans out there who love to feel scared.

00:06:19:27 – 00:06:23:03
Joseph
But how can feeling scared be a positive thing for you?

00:06:24:22 – 00:06:52:28
Madison
Well, I know that it’s we’ve talked about you on the podcast and basically it’s kind of your fight or flight reflex. For years we’ve used fear as a warning sign for oncoming danger. And obviously, even if there’s irrational fears like arachnophobia, for example, it’s fear can still cause your body to or cause you to like sense danger and be able to protect be able to protect yourself.

00:06:53:04 – 00:07:06:05
Joseph
Yeah. So danger, so fear at that point. Fear is a defensive mechanism that you have. What about stress? How can stress be a positive thing for you? I know that’s a hard one to make positive, but how would that be positive?

00:07:06:16 – 00:07:24:02
Madison
Well, I guess from my own experience, me being stressed, it’s made me more productive. Fearing deadlines has made me work on things to make sure that, like everything is done by that deadline, even if I don’t like the feeling it technically does. It is a good motivator for me.

00:07:24:07 – 00:07:43:05
Joseph
So. So that was interesting. You kind of grouped fear and stress together there. Are they two emotions? Does one lead to the other? Are they complementary? Do you normally associate the two of those? Could you kind of did it involuntarily when you’re giving your explanation?

00:07:43:15 – 00:08:04:29
Madison
Yeah, a lot of times never. I feel stressed. I also feel fear whenever I’m stressed on an assignment, I also get a fear of not being able to complete it or not having the ability to complete it. And then especially if I’m if I have a ton of work which the stress is normally from, then fear is also kind of a drag along with it.

00:08:05:05 – 00:08:25:03
Joseph
Okay. It’s kind of interesting how they got together for you there. And and that makes perfect sense. For me, stress is a motivator. You know, I have a project I have to do or I have if I’m at work and there’s a system down or emergency or you know, something like that, there’s stress if there’s an emergency at the house.

00:08:25:26 – 00:08:54:22
Joseph
Stress is one of those things that triggers a response in us that forces us to do something, take an action, you know, put out that fire or get that job done or put that extra effort in. So there’s a positive aspect to it. Now, let’s flip the script a little bit and give me three emotions that are normally you would associate with positive emotions and we’ll see if they can be negative emotions as well.

00:08:55:23 – 00:09:08:17
Madison
Well, I would pick excited, proud and I guess we’ll go through a lot as well.

00:09:08:23 – 00:09:13:01
Joseph
Okay, so how can excited be negative?

00:09:13:01 – 00:09:16:27
Madison
Mm hmm.

00:09:19:23 – 00:09:21:17
Madison
Maybe you’re excited for the wrong thing.

00:09:22:01 – 00:09:49:00
Joseph
That’s possible. So, yeah, I would say excited to me. Makes me make mistakes. Okay. So I might I might be anticipating something at work and I might get excited because I’m looking to the future. I’m waiting for that. Maybe it’s it’s the day before vacation, right? So I’m excited for that 5:00 to get here. I’m excited to start my vacation.

00:09:49:19 – 00:10:10:08
Joseph
And as a result, it causes me to get sloppy. I mean, miss things that need to get taken care of beforehand. I may be less motivated to do what I need to do to get everything buttoned up before I leave. So being excited is a distraction type emotion where it can detract from other things that you have to do.

00:10:11:08 – 00:10:12:10
Joseph
What was the other one you had?

00:10:12:20 – 00:10:13:06
Madison
Grateful.

00:10:13:27 – 00:10:22:23
Joseph
So, okay, that’s a tough one to make a negative. But. But do you have any way that Grateful could be a negative?

00:10:22:23 – 00:10:28:06
Madison
Only thing I can really think of is the idea of you being grateful that you weren’t in an accident.

00:10:28:15 – 00:10:54:13
Joseph
That’s a very good one. So you’re going to flip the script on that one and say, I’m grateful because I wasn’t the one that had a misfortune. That’s not in inherently negative. I think it could be hurtful. It could be in bad taste, which those, by their definition, could be negatives. What was the third one that you had?

00:10:54:23 – 00:11:22:21
Joseph
Relaxed, relaxed, Relaxed is a great one. Okay, so you’re driving a car and you get so relaxed, you fall asleep or you come home from a hard day’s work, but you have to go do an extracurricular activity after school and you come home and you’re stressed out and you need to relax and you relax so much you completely forget you had this other appointment that you have to go to.

00:11:23:18 – 00:12:01:09
Joseph
So again, it’s one of those distraction ones where you feeling this way is a positive to you, but it can have the ability of distracting you from other things that you need to do. So the bottom line is anything that we associate with positive, they’re interchangeable. And this is why in the past we’ve talked about the fact that emotions don’t have positive or negative connotations, a positive or negative connotation would kind of infer intent.

00:12:01:25 – 00:12:26:21
Joseph
And emotions are just things that we feel. The important thing is what you do with those feelings. And that’s the case with pretty much everything we’ve been talking about in the last few podcasts. It’s understanding those feelings, knowing what they are, knowing what they tell you, and controlling those emotions, not letting those emotions control you. Would you agree with that?

00:12:27:04 – 00:12:47:15
Madison
Yeah, Pretty much. I definitely did have my stance that emotions were either good or bad, not even just positive or negative. And, you know, through these podcasts, I’ve kind of developed the idea that now emotions are kind of just emotions, and it really just depends on what you do with those emotions rather than the emotions themselves.

00:12:47:15 – 00:13:19:25
Joseph
Yeah, that’s that’s really I guess the most important takeaway here is that emotions are things everybody feels. Everyone feels these emotions. Once you can identify them and describe them and understand their affect on you and how you can use them to your advantage, then you can start controlling those emotions. So we’re going to take a quick break and we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk about how negative emotions can actually help us and how positive emotions can help us.

00:13:19:26 – 00:13:28:10
Joseph
We’ll be right back.

00:13:29:14 – 00:14:00:18
Michelle
Insights into Entertainment, a podcast series taking a deeper look into entertainment and media. Our husband and wife team of pop culture fanatics are exploring all things from music and movies to television and fandom. We’ll look at the interesting and obscure entertainment news of the week. We’ll talk about theme park and pop culture news. We’ll give you the latest and greatest on pop culture conventions.

00:14:01:15 – 00:14:25:19
Michelle
We’ll give you a deep dive into Disney, Star Wars and much more. Check out our video episodes at YouTube.com. Backslash Insights into things are audio episodes and podcast insights into entertainment dot com. Or check us out on the web at insights into things dot com.

00:14:31:17 – 00:14:52:25
Madison
Welcome back to Insights into Teens. Today we’re talking about the power of positive emotions and now we’re going to talk about how negative emotions can help us. Negative emotions warn us of certain challenges that we may need to deal with. For example, fear can alert us to possible danger. It’s a signal that we might need to protect ourselves.

00:14:53:16 – 00:15:24:12
Madison
Angry feelings warn us that someone is stepping on our toes, crossing a boundary, or violating our trust. Anger can be a signal that we might need to act on our own behalf. Negative emotions focus on our awareness. They help us to zero in on a problem so we can deal with it. But too many negative emotions can make us feel overwhelmed, anxious, exhausted, or stressed out when negative emotions are out of balance, problems might seem too big to handle.

00:15:24:29 – 00:15:31:07
Madison
The more we dwell on negative emotions, the more negative we begin to feel. Focusing on negativity just keeps it going.

00:15:32:14 – 00:16:05:04
Joseph
So how can positive emotions help us out? So positive positive emotions balance out negative ones, but they have other powerful benefits too. Instead of narrowing our focus like negative emotions, do positive emotions affect our brains in ways that increase our awareness, attention and memory? They help us take in more information, hold several ideas in mind at once, and understand how different ideas relate to each other.

00:16:06:06 – 00:16:36:07
Joseph
When positive emotions open us up to new possibility ease, we’re more able to learn and build our skills that leads to doing better on tasks and tasks. People who have plenty of positive emotions in their everyday lives tend to be happier, healthier, learn better, and get along well with others. So let me ask you, on average, do you think you have more positive or more negative emotions in any given day?

00:16:37:15 – 00:16:40:02
Madison
Probably more negative emotions.

00:16:40:13 – 00:16:45:03
Joseph
And why is that?

00:16:45:03 – 00:17:13:03
Madison
I guess the reason is mainly cause, probably because of my own doing, because I am a perfectionist. And whenever it comes to schoolwork, I always get stressed out of the work. I’m never really able to feel confident in my abilities, even after proving it countless times. I feel like maybe if I had a little more confidence I could possibly have more positive emotions.

00:17:13:03 – 00:17:22:23
Madison
Or maybe if I did more things or made more time for activities that made me feel good, maybe I would have been more positive.

00:17:22:23 – 00:17:35:02
Joseph
Do you notice or can you recognize negative things that occur as a result of the negative emotions?

00:17:35:02 – 00:17:47:17
Madison
Yeah, I definitely think I can. I guess some of them I don’t know if I can really pull up a specific example.

00:17:48:19 – 00:18:11:06
Joseph
Like do you find that you start off the day having a negative emotion in the morning because you might be running late and you’re stressed or somebody says something rude or you see something that makes you upset. Do you find that sets the tone for the day and you tend to have more negative emotions that day or you just the day doesn’t go as well as you would hope it would?

00:18:11:25 – 00:18:14:27
Madison
Yeah, that’s kind of how it goes for me. Yeah.

00:18:15:13 – 00:18:18:08
Joseph
Do you wake up in the morning and try to be positive?

00:18:19:22 – 00:18:26:07
Madison
Not directly. Now I kind of just wake up and see all the day goes okay.

00:18:26:15 – 00:18:41:27
Joseph
Do you ever have occasion to take a few minutes and try to find positive things if your day happens to be not going so great and you want to make it better, can you actively find positive things to make your day better?

00:18:42:16 – 00:18:48:00
Madison
I mean, when I get home, I’m normally able to do things that make me feel better.

00:18:48:09 – 00:19:14:12
Joseph
Okay? And I think I think the important thing, the question that I’m asking is that and we’ve talked about this fairly recently, is that we control our mood. So if you if you wind up in a bad mood and we all do, it happens to everybody. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody has complete control, their emotions. Everything can can set us off and in one way or another.

00:19:15:04 – 00:19:41:20
Joseph
But when we see ourselves going down that path, we have it within ourselves to make that change if we choose to make things better. Have you had an opportunity to try that where you kind of start off with a rough day and try to make it better and and see positive results from it?

00:19:41:20 – 00:20:07:23
Madison
Well, I probably could be making more of an effort on that, but most of the time I kind of just try to find ways to almost distract myself from it. I do things that I enjoy, like playing games or drawing or stuff like that. And really I don’t I know I could probably do more to make a day better, but half the time I normally just do distractions.

00:20:08:05 – 00:20:39:29
Joseph
Well, and those distractions are things you enjoy which elicit a positive reaction. So they may be intended as distractions, but the end result is they help to elicit positive feelings and steer you in the right direction. And a good analogy I had heard recently about emotions is that emotions are like a highway, right? So you’re driving down the highway and you know your age is coming up, but you take the wrong exit.

00:20:40:24 – 00:21:08:27
Joseph
That’s a negative emotion. That’s a bad emotion. We all have them. We all experience them. Sometimes it’s outside of our control. We don’t even have the ability to avoid them. But that doesn’t mean that you stay off the highway. When you make that off ramp, what you do is you reinforce that negative emotion with a positive one and you use that positive emotion to get on the next on ramp and get back on the highway and get yourself back on track.

00:21:08:27 – 00:21:32:11
Joseph
We all have the power to get ourselves back on track and get us back on the route that we’re trying to go down. It’s just a matter of one recognizing the fact that we’ve hit that off right, We’ve made that wrong turn. Once you can recognize that, then you can start making changes, then you can start doing the distractions that elicit positive feelings.

00:21:32:29 – 00:21:55:11
Joseph
You can start looking for the positive things that have happened during the day. You can talk to a friend to get a positive reaction from a friend. You can talk to your family or loved ones. You can then take the power. You’re in control. You’ve got the wheel in your hands. You can get back on the road. Does that is that something that that sounds appealing at all to you?

00:21:56:03 – 00:22:20:29
Madison
Yeah, I would really like to have more control over my emotions because for the longest time, it’s always felt like my emotions are controlled me until I finally started to recognize it. Like they controlled so much more of me than they do now. And even now, I’d really like it if I could be a little more positive and not always feel as negative as I do.

00:22:21:26 – 00:22:45:12
Joseph
And we had talked about it actually, we had talked about it fairly recently when we we’re on vacation about, you know, we all have bad days. We kind of can’t avoid those. You try to minimize them, but you can kind of make them go away. And sometimes when we have bad days, it’s best for us to deal with them without interacting with other people first.

00:22:46:15 – 00:23:09:11
Joseph
There are times that I come home from work and I’m frustrated or angry for whatever reason, and I just have to kind of go veg. You know, Usually I’ll go downstairs and fire up one of my first person shooters and I’ll just, you know, involve myself, immerse myself in the game for a bit. And it kind of detoxes me.

00:23:10:12 – 00:23:35:14
Joseph
And after about an hour of getting frustrated with the game because I’m not very good at it, I’ve distracted myself enough and desensitize myself from what I brought home with me. I can then interact with people. What are some of the methods that you use when you’re just in that that bad mood and you’ve got those negative feelings that are overwhelming your actions?

00:23:35:14 – 00:23:40:24
Joseph
What do you do to try to compensate for those incorrectness?

00:23:41:15 – 00:24:04:14
Madison
Well, I also definitely take some time to just be away from people as much as like, I care about you and Mommy and my friends. Sometimes I just don’t want to have to be in a situation where I have to socialize with the people. And I feel like a lot of times that can lead me to feeling negative emotions because I don’t feel like I want to have to be in social situations.

00:24:04:14 – 00:24:21:04
Madison
In certain instances. So when I’m not in a social situation, I’ll do things like penning a cat that’s quite soothing. I’ll play the Sims or draw, I’ll watch some YouTube videos, I’ll kind of just immerse myself and distractions are up in my room.

00:24:21:24 – 00:24:41:15
Joseph
And that makes sense. And I think we all kind of have our own little worlds that we immerse ourselves in. Yours is a virtual world when it comes to the Sims or a real world when it comes to just the cats, you know, the pick up a fluffy cat and pet it for a while. The cat’s going to give you the love back.

00:24:41:15 – 00:25:13:23
Joseph
And that’s kind of that positive reinforcement that you need to to detox, I like to call it. And that makes a lot of sense. Now. Do you find that these incidents that you run into where you kind of need to have that reinforcement are decreasing? The more you learn to understand your emotions or are they getting worse? Or where do you think you feel on that scale?

00:25:13:23 – 00:25:35:01
Madison
I guess it really depends on the day. Like I’ve definitely gotten a lot better than how I used to be, but I still have days where I kind of have breakdowns and even with, you know, getting away from everybody and doing what I do to de-stress, sometimes that’s not enough.

00:25:35:15 – 00:25:43:26
Joseph
Now, do you do you reach out for help when you can’t de-stress or do you just kind of, you know, collapse within yourself?

00:25:45:06 – 00:26:05:22
Madison
I try to search up for help, but I kind of have a can. It’s weird. I try to rely on you guys as much as I can and let you guys know. But sometimes when I can’t understand it myself, I don’t expect you guys to be able to understand it just because I can’t really express in a way.

00:26:06:04 – 00:26:10:08
Madison
And then I kind of just have to keep all that to me.

00:26:10:08 – 00:26:40:29
Joseph
Yeah, and I understand that. And, and there are times that until you can kind of vocalize to do yourself having mommy and daddy see that there’s something wrong and pester you about it. Is everything okay? What’s wrong? Do you want to talk about it over and over? Can just sort of feed into that, right? So it’s one of those ones where we kind of have to see something’s bothering you and not attack that directly.

00:26:41:13 – 00:27:03:13
Joseph
But maybe if you’re upset about something asking you to talk about, it’s not the answer. Maybe going to play rock band is or let’s go get ice cream or let’s let’s do something. Let’s like you said, your distractions. Let’s give you some kind of distraction so that you deal with those things and let you kind of detox a bit.

00:27:04:11 – 00:27:29:21
Joseph
So as a parent has a loved one of someone who goes through these and someone who goes through it themselves, I mean, I, I would be lying if I said I didn’t go through these myself. It’s important for the people around you to recognize that and recognize that you might be going through something right now. You need you need something to give you that positive boost.

00:27:30:21 – 00:27:52:20
Joseph
You know, that not that probing. Let’s talk about it. Let’s have a deep talk type thing. But you’re upset about something. You’re not ready to talk about it. So let’s go do something else. Let’s get your mind off of it. Let’s walk away from it. It’s like when you’re working on a project and you’re staring at it for so long and there’s a problem that you just can’t solve.

00:27:53:26 – 00:28:18:25
Joseph
Sometimes you just need to get up and walk away and think about something else. And the solution presents itself to you without even thinking about it. So that’s another method, and it’s important for others around you to know how to deal with that too. I know we can be a pain in the neck sometimes, you know, because it’s very difficult for a parent to see their child going through a difficult time like that.

00:28:19:20 – 00:28:46:22
Joseph
And I think a lot of parents don’t appreciate the fact that sometimes kids just don’t learn to talk about it. And it’s hard to express that. So, you know, when those types of things happen, there are flags, there’s red flags to look for. But parents can kind of clue into, okay, let’s go distract you, let’s go do something, and then we’ll digest it a little bit and go from there.

00:28:48:08 – 00:28:53:06
Joseph
So your thoughts on that to how the mommy and I deal with that or we have to sit with that at least.

00:28:54:02 – 00:29:10:08
Madison
Yeah. And when I do want to talk about it, you guys are always open to it. It’s just there’s definitely been certain things that I’ve either wanted to tell. Only one of you wasn’t ready to tell the other, or just things that I haven’t told either of you because I either don’t know how to put it in the words or don’t know how you’ll take it.

00:29:10:27 – 00:29:29:16
Madison
And yeah, you guys have seen that when I am in states of I don’t really know how I’m feeling or just moments where I can’t really talk about it. You guys do try to find distractions for me because you know that sometimes I just can’t talk about it.

00:29:30:05 – 00:30:10:27
Joseph
Well, and the important thing to understand is as much as parents may not understand everything that you’re going through, we’ve all been kids at your age at some point, too, So we’ve all gone through similar type things that most kids have gone through. And I think most kids don’t appreciate that grit. The challenges of today are very different than the challenges when we were growing up, but the emotional struggles are pretty constant across the board, the inability to understand and describe and to talk about it.

00:30:11:22 – 00:30:35:08
Joseph
So but my my point is, give your parents and I’m talking not just to you, but I’m talking to everyone in the audience, give your parents the benefit of the doubt that they kind of know what they’re doing. Nobody gives us a handbook when we have kids. So a lot of what we do as parents come from experience.

00:30:35:08 – 00:30:59:29
Joseph
When we were kids and with our parents, a lot of it comes with making it up as we go along sometimes. But, you know, for the most part we kind of have some ideas. So give us give us a little bit of credit for trying to help solve some of these things. So we’re going to take our last break and we’re going to come back and talk about the importance of positive emotions.

00:31:00:00 – 00:31:09:07
Joseph
We’ll be right back.

00:31:09:07 – 00:31:46:18
Michelle
Insights into Teens, a podcast series exploring the issues and challenges of today’s youth. Talking to real teens about real teen problems. Explore issues from braces to puberty, social anxiety to financial responsibility. Each week, we talk about the topics concerning today’s youth. We look at how the issues affect teens, how to cope with these issues and how parents, friends and loved ones can help teens handle these challenges.

00:31:46:18 – 00:32:06:08
Michelle
Check out our video episodes on YouTube.com backslash insights into things. Catch our audio versions on podcast Insights into Teens, XCOM or on the Web at insights into Things. XCOM.

00:32:12:02 – 00:32:39:26
Madison
Welcome back to Insights into Teen. Today we’re talking about the power of positive emotions, and now we’re going to talk about the importance of positive emotions. Not redundant at all. Science is helping us find how valuable positive emotions can be. Experts have learned a lot of up, no experts have learned a lot from recent brain studies. Here are two findings that can help us use positive emotions to our advantage.

00:32:40:19 – 00:33:14:08
Madison
The first finding being led positive emotions outnumber negative ones when we feel more positive emotions than negative ones in difficult situations are easier to handle. Positive emotions build resilience. The emotional resource need resources needed for coping. They broaden our awareness, letting us see more options for problem solving. Studies show that people feel and do their best when they have at least three times as many positive emotions as negative emotions.

00:33:14:21 – 00:33:41:18
Madison
That’s because of something called the negativity bias. The negativity bias is a natural human tendency to pay more attention to negative emotions than a positive ones. It makes sense when you think about it. Negative emotions call our attention to problems. Problems we might need to deal with quickly turning in, turning into negative. Thank you for tuning in. A negative emotions can be a survival mechanism.

00:33:43:06 – 00:33:58:01
Madison
The negativity bias has a downside, though It can make us think a day went badly even if we experienced equal amounts of positive emotions that day. It takes at least three times as many positive emotions to tip the scales and make a day seem like a great one.

00:33:59:12 – 00:34:34:17
Joseph
You should also practice positivity every day. Building habits that encourage us to feel more positive. Emotions can help us be happier, do better, and reduce our negative emotions. Building positive emotions is especially important if we’re already dealing with a lot of negative feelings, such as sadness, anger, frustration or stress. Building a daily positivity habit is pretty simple. It comes down to two basic steps Notice and name your positive emotions.

00:34:35:05 – 00:35:00:17
Joseph
Start by simply focusing on your feelings. You can tune into your emotions in real time as they happen or take stock at the end of the day. Noting how you felt in different situations. For example, you might feel proud when you answer a question. Write joyful when your puppy chases you around the yard or loved when your mom shows up at your game.

00:35:01:16 – 00:35:12:01
Joseph
When you first start doing this, you’ll probably need to remind yourself to focus on your emotions. But Like any habit, it gets easier the more you do it.

00:35:13:17 – 00:35:35:25
Madison
You should also pick an emotion and act to increase it. Let’s say you choose confidence or it helps you feel confident. How can you get more calm? How can you get more of that feeling? You might give yourself a yes, I can pep talk before test. Or maybe you stand up straighter and practice walking through the halls in a confident way, feeling strong and powerful.

00:35:36:14 – 00:35:58:27
Madison
Positive emotions feel good and they’re good. You pay attention to these powerful tools and find ways to make time for them in your everyday life. Create a room in your day for joy, fun, relaxation, gratitude, and kindness. Make these things a habit and you pass and you positively will be a happier you.

00:35:58:27 – 00:36:12:16
Joseph
So let me ask you this and we’ll do a little exercise here. Do you think you had a positive or a negative day emotionally today?

00:36:12:16 – 00:36:31:13
Madison
Uh, I can’t really say. There’s not like anything majorly good that happened today, but nothing like, really bad that happened today. But overall, I guess I would lean more toward the negative bad day kind of vibe.

00:36:31:18 – 00:36:32:12
Joseph
Why is that?

00:36:33:18 – 00:37:01:00
Madison
Are a few. Some people ended up annoying me in class today because our we had a substitute and you know, kids really don’t. And when I was trying to work on the assignment we were given, they were making a lot of noises. And I can’t focus with noise. And I was still kind of stressed out about a project I had for one of my classes.

00:37:01:07 – 00:37:17:16
Joseph
Okay, so you had a negative day today. Towards the end of the day, you’re home, you’ve had dinner or just about word of the wrap up the podcast. What can you do to end the day on a positive note?

00:37:17:16 – 00:37:27:00
Madison
I guess maybe something like playing rock band, drawing, playing sims, watching videos.

00:37:27:27 – 00:37:59:12
Joseph
Kind of camp. Yeah. So my point is, is that even though you had some negative things happen to you today, nothing was tragic, right? You had no major problems. No major downfalls, no world impacting. Things happen, which that alone is a positive. You had some people annoying class because you had a substitute teacher. That could be a negative.

00:37:59:12 – 00:38:02:25
Joseph
I could see that. Did you get the work done that you needed to get done?

00:38:03:12 – 00:38:07:26
Madison
Well, eventually I didn’t get all of it done in class. I had to do it at home.

00:38:08:02 – 00:38:26:00
Joseph
Okay, so the work is done. That’s a positive. So how can we turn these negatives into positives? That’s really the key. You recognize where your negatives were today. What were some of the positive things that happened to you today?

00:38:26:00 – 00:38:33:01
Madison
Well, I ended up somewhat understanding the programing I needed to get done.

00:38:33:03 – 00:38:35:06
Joseph
Day, which was frustrating yesterday.

00:38:35:12 – 00:38:48:00
Madison
Yeah. Okay. I, I had a pretty much easy math assignment that I was able to get done in class.

00:38:48:00 – 00:38:57:09
Joseph
Okay. Did you wake up today? Yes. That’s a positive. Did you wake up with any ailments today?

00:38:57:28 – 00:38:58:19
Madison
No.

00:38:58:19 – 00:39:01:09
Joseph
Then anything bad happened to the family today?

00:39:02:11 – 00:39:02:29
Madison
No.

00:39:03:01 – 00:39:04:19
Joseph
Do you have a roof over your head?

00:39:04:23 – 00:39:05:06
Madison
Yes.

00:39:05:18 – 00:39:12:04
Joseph
Did you have meals today? So you had food on the table? These are all positive things.

00:39:12:09 – 00:39:12:21
Madison
Yeah.

00:39:13:05 – 00:39:40:15
Joseph
They’re positive things because not everybody gets to enjoy those things. The bus pick you up on time today. That’s a positive thing. Did it drop you off on time today or were you late for school on time? That’s a positive. My point is the things that you take for granted every day are positives. They’re all the things because if the bus was late, what would have happened then?

00:39:41:04 – 00:39:43:19
Madison
It would have been more complicated to get to school, right?

00:39:43:19 – 00:40:08:07
Joseph
You would have been stressed out and it would have been a negative. It picked you up on time. So therefore, if it’s not a negative, make it a positive. Count those things as positives. That’s how you make things a positive day. So you add all those things up. I’ll bet you at the end of the day you’ll have more positive things than you will have negative things.

00:40:08:22 – 00:40:29:14
Joseph
The negative and this is what the negative bias, negativity bias is. The negative things are what stick in your mind you failed to mention or to notice all the positive things. So take some time at the end of the day to look at all the things that are positives for you and you’ll learn to appreciate them a little bit more.

00:40:30:23 – 00:40:55:11
Joseph
I think that’s kind of the important thing. Did your friends do anything or say anything? Did you have lunch with your friends today? That’s a positive. So you have to start finding the wins, right? If you have a couple of losses during the week, then finally wins. Appreciate the things that you don’t normally appreciate. Understand that they are positive that happen.

00:40:56:16 – 00:41:18:15
Joseph
Start building it that way. And then midway through the day, if you take stock of how the day’s going, you’re going to find it. It’s a pretty good day today, and that’s going to be the rest of the day. So the second half of the day, because you’re coming into it, you might not wake up positive. I’m not a morning person.

00:41:18:20 – 00:41:38:18
Joseph
I’m never positive in the morning. All right. If I could start my day at 10:00 every day, I would unfortunately, my job doesn’t allow that. So I always wake up a little on the negative side because I have to get up and I’m him. You know, tired and all that stuff. So I have to start finding positive things.

00:41:39:11 – 00:41:59:02
Joseph
Last week, Mommy was away on on business. So one of the really positive things for me was I came down on Wednesday morning and my lunch was sitting on the table Thursday morning. My lunch was sitting like, my mommy always has my lunch sitting for me, which is always a positive and always brings a smile on my face.

00:42:00:00 – 00:42:21:14
Joseph
But she wasn’t here Thursday morning, but I still had lunch on the table. And why do they have lunch on the table? Because you thought enough to make lunch for me. Pack my lunch and put them on the table. That meant the world to me. It’s little things like that, little positive things. You know, you called me yesterday.

00:42:21:26 – 00:42:40:13
Joseph
With what you thought was a negative. You had dropped your phone, you had cracked your case. Well, that negative wasn’t a negative. That negative was a great call that I get to have with you in the middle of the day. You don’t normally have. That was a positive to me. All right. Yeah. So you cracked the cover on there.

00:42:40:14 – 00:42:59:10
Joseph
All will replace it. It’s not that big a deal. So that was a great way of taking a negative and turning it into a positive so you can do it. You got to be a little creative sometimes to find these things, but you’re very creative. So I don’t think if you applied yourself to this that it would be difficult at all.

00:42:59:21 – 00:43:00:01
Madison
Yeah.

00:43:01:12 – 00:43:27:09
Joseph
And that’s really the lesson I’m trying to trying to push here is that every day we have negatives and positives. You’re almost always have more positives if you appreciate the little things in life that you take for granted. You know, I came home soon as I pulled into the driveway today. I had a positive feeling because I could smell dinner.

00:43:28:16 – 00:43:52:17
Joseph
Mom is an awesome cook and anytime can smell dinner because it was warm out today, the door was open, the smell from dinner, I was waiting outside and I immediately had a positive reaction walking in the door. It’s those little things. Sometimes they’re involuntary. Sometimes you have to look for them, but they’re there. You have to just appreciate them.

00:43:52:17 – 00:43:58:02
Madison
Okay. Well, I don’t think I can give my closing remarks. Pretty much just it’s pretty much a store that.

00:43:58:23 – 00:44:07:04
Joseph
Well, now I think it’s worthwhile to get your take on it as well. That was that was all we did have. Did you have anything you want to add to that?

00:44:08:15 – 00:44:11:09
Madison
Honestly, again, I think you summarized it pretty well.

00:44:12:17 – 00:44:24:22
Joseph
Well, we’re going to take a quick break, come back and we will get closing thoughts from you for for the rest of the audience right.

00:44:24:22 – 00:44:46:28
Madison
So this podcast got deeper than I thought it would. So I guess I can really say to everybody is that, yeah, there’s going to be positives in every day and there’s probably going to be more positives and negatives in certain situations. And as long as you can appreciate the little positives in your life that tend to happen, then you’re going to always have good days.

00:44:46:28 – 00:44:51:08
Joseph
I guess that’s one good way to bring balance. Sage advice you have there.

00:44:51:09 – 00:44:53:17
Madison
Thank you. Totally. Didn’t just copy and paste.

00:44:53:17 – 00:44:56:18
Joseph
There’s nothing wrong with that.

00:44:56:19 – 00:44:57:01
Madison
No.

00:44:58:05 – 00:45:23:28
Joseph
Before we do go, I do want to once again invite the listening and viewing audience to subscribe to the podcast. You can find audio versions of this podcast listeners insights into things sorry, insights in the teens. You can find audio and video of all the network’s podcast lists that has insights into things on Apple or Buzz Sprout, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere can get a podcast.

00:45:24:29 – 00:46:05:11
Joseph
I would also invite you to give us your feedback, give us show suggestions, tell us how we’re doing. Tell us what we’re You don’t want us to talk about whatever you want. You can email us at comments and insights into things become or you can find a streaming five days a week on YouTube at YouTube.com slash insights into things as well as on Twitch at Twitch TV slash insights and the things you can get us on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash insights into Things podcast where you can find links to all those and more on our web site and insights into things dot com and you.

00:46:05:25 – 00:46:17:22
Madison
And don’t forget to check out our other two podcasts and inside to entertainment hosted by your mommy if you’re run on during a podcast and then sometimes more are not really monthly podcast anymore hosted by you and my brother Sam.

00:46:17:24 – 00:46:23:03
Joseph
Okay there’s the marketing department for you there. That’s it. Another one of the books.

00:46:23:03 – 00:46:24:01
Madison
By everybody.

00:46:24:03 – 00:46:50:16
Joseph
By.