Emotions have come to my mind over the past few months. Emotions are chemicals released in response to our interpretation of a specific trigger. Research has agreed on six essentially universal emotions: Happiness, Surprise, Disgust, Anger, Fear and Sadness. It is highly likely that the majority of us have experienced all of these emotion during this Covid 19 pandemic.
Emotional Contagion is another word that has come to mind. Emotional contagion is the phenomenon of having one person’s emotions and related behaviours directly trigger similar emotions and behaviours in other people. In other words, our happiness or sadness are shared across the people we meet and interact with. Perhaps this is a good thing, we may have the ability to turn someone’s bad day into a good one, however we do have the ability to do the opposite. Food for thought perhaps as we make our way through the exit stages of Covid 19.
Perhaps a few tips to keep in mind:
1. Be aware of your own emotions, and the possibility of sharing that emotion with other people.
2. When you begin to feel negative, recognise it and try and do something that will improve that feeling, such as a walk, a chat, a smile or a favourite TV programme.
3. Be wise about the sources you take your information from, try and separate the real information from the frenzy.
A good article written by the Harvard Business Review is worth a quick read to get some more tips.
https://hbr.org/2020/03/the-contagion-we-can-control