"Everything goes wrong" has a neurobiological explanation and is related to the amygdala

As the saying goes, misfortune does not come singly.

This seems to be a law, that is, after the first bad thing happens, a series of bad things will happen one after another.

Some people even describe that "even drinking cold water will stuff your teeth.
"
Usually, this series of events is considered by most to be "things go wrong", or called bad luck.

Since the neurodynamics of responding to what is defined as a “bad thing” is related to the momentary emotional experience, the duration of negative emotions also varies among individuals: some people will easily learn from the first bad experience Jumping out of the middle and returning to normal, avoiding the subsequent series of "things go wrong"; while other people will be stuck in the first incident for a long time, making it more difficult to get rid of "things going wrong".

In a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience on March 23, Beijing time, a research team led by the University of Miami in the United States identified some of the reasons behind long-term negative emotions, indicating that negative emotions stay in the brain.
The longer the time, the less happy people will be; unhappiness is the cause of "all things go wrong" and the result of experience after "all things go wrong".

For example: when you were about to bring a cup of fragrant hot coffee to your mouth in the morning, you couldn't hold it firmly.
You only heard a "pop".
When you look at it again, your beloved coffee cup has fallen to pieces and splashed.
Everywhere.
.
.
and at this moment, a good colleague just walked into the office and smiled to say hello to you.

Excuse me, will you still respond with a smile at this time? [1] And in the next day of work, will you still work with the emotion of "coffee spilling incident"? [2] And can the work performance be satisfactory? [3] (Summary at the end of the article) Researchers believe that how the human brain evaluates short-term negative stimuli (such as coffee spills) may affect its long-term mental health.

Nikki Puccetti, the first author of the study and a PhD student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami, said: "We can think that the longer your brain stays with negative events or stimuli, the less happy you are.

Basically, we found that a person The persistence of the negative stimulus of the brain indicates more negative and less positive emotional experiences
in daily life .
This in turn also indicates the individual’s performance in daily life.

"Most human neurobiological studies are The main focus is on how strong the brain responds to negative stimuli, not how long it lasts.

This new research focuses on spillover effects, that is, how the emotional color of one event spills over to other events.

Understanding the biological mechanism of this phenomenon is critical to understanding differences in brain function, daily emotions, and happiness.

In this new study, the researchers focused on how the brain’s different responses to emotional pictures are related to the short-lived emotional experiences in daily life and even long-term mental health.

They speculate that the amygdala on both sides of the brain plays an important role in evaluating stimuli, mood, and memory.

The amygdala attached to the end of the hippocampus is almond-shaped and is part of the limbic system.

From an evolutionary point of view, the amygdala can be regarded as a nerve group related to emotional memory.
It has the function of judging external input information, and can judge whether the information is dangerous or safe at the fastest speed, and then immediately make emotions.
Or physical reaction.

The information that is judged to be safe can be relaxed; otherwise, it can react to confrontation or flight.

The researchers confirmed their guess by analyzing data from the Middle-aged Mental Health Research (MIDUS) in the United States.

The MIDUS study is a longitudinal study that began in the 1990s.
Since then, the study has collected data on the physical and mental health of thousands of middle-aged Americans, including their mental health measurement data.

Together with other researchers in the MIDUS project, the researchers analyzed the data of 52 MIDUS participants (females accounted for 67%).

These participants completed a questionnaire about their mental health and reported on their daily stressful events and positive and negative emotions during about a week on the phone every night.

In addition, the participants also underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans.
When they watched 60 positive emotion images and 60 negative emotion images, 60 neutral facial expression images were interspersed, the researchers measured and mapped them Brain activity.

When the questionnaires, daily telephone follow-up records, and fMRI scan data were linked, the researchers found that people with a shorter duration of the left amygdala under negative stimuli were more likely to exhibit in their daily lives.
More positive emotions and less negative emotions, and over time, these emotions will bring more lasting happiness.

Conversely, people whose left amygdala reacted more persistently to negative images reported more negative emotions and fewer positive emotions in their daily lives.

Researchers believe that for people with higher amygdala persistence, negative emotions may be amplified or prolonged by self-instillation of content that has nothing to do with the negative event itself.

The brain-behavior link between the duration of the left amygdala and daily emotions can help us understand longer-lasting, longer-term well-being.

The study’s corresponding author and assistant professor of psychology, Aaron Heller, said: “This may explain why some people may let a cup of coffee fall on the ground ruin their whole day, and some people will not think about it after cleaning up the mess.
It is.
The
former may show longer persistence, which may tell us why some people are more likely to develop mental disorders.

"Researchers hope that one day they can repeat it with non-MIDUS participants who are at high risk of depression or anxiety.
This research.

* Let's talk about the example of "sprinkling coffee" above.
If you clean up the mess on the ground in time, focus on your work today or other things, even if you joked with a colleague, "Smashed and safe.
"
Although the coffee hasn't entered your stomach, isn't the whole office still full of fragrance? Therefore, don’t let yourself get deeper and deeper because of a small incident.
It’s already happening.
You have to adjust your emotions and perspective of the problem in time, so that you will not continue to ferment in the next [1] [2] [3] events.
So as to let yourself fall into the vicious circle of "everything goes wrong".

Link to the paper: https://doi.
org/10.
1523/JNEUROSCI.
1637-20.
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