Your key to happiness

Most of you are very familiar with diversity, especially in the workplace, but I’m willing to bet you are not as familiar with emodiversity. I know I wasn’t until I stumbled across an in-depth study from last year that showed that both the variety and frequency of emotions one experiences actually correlate to one’s mental and physical health. This study confirmed that emodiversity, a life containing a balance of various emotions (both positive and negative),  is good for you. It is through the cultivation of a variety of emotions, such as sadness, joy, anger, and shame, that you can have a happier and healthier life.

The healthier your emotional ecosystem, the better you will feel.

When we think of healthy emotions we tend to fixate on the happier side of the spectrum. Anybody out there remember singing along with Bob Marley to Don’t Worry Be Happy? What makes this study all the more interesting is to know that there are actually some benefits to experiencing some of the more darker emotions.

Who knew emotional monotony could drag you down?

In the study, over 30,000 participants in France and Belgium were given questionnaires and asked to identify their frequency of experiencing 18 positive and negative emotions. These emotions were:

Alertness
Amusement
Anger
Anxiety
Awe
Contempt
Contentment
Disgust
Embarrassment
Fear
Gratitude
Guilt
Hope
Joy
Love
Pride
Sadness
Shame

The results showed that emodiversity is related to lower levels of depression. This was the case for all types of emodiversity whether they be positive (experiencing many types of positive emotions), negative (experiencing a variety of negative emotions) or a general mix of both emotions. Those with high emodiversity were even less likely to experience depression than those who scored relatively high across the positive emotions.

Someone who is always cheerful in their demeanor isn’t necessarily doing much better than someone who is always down in the dumps and has a sour attitude about everything!

The second study showed a direct correlation between emodiversity to a lower use of medication, a reduction in medical care costs, fewer Doctor visits and less hospitalization time.

Maybe Bob Marley should have written a song called “Don’t Worry, Be Happy and Sad!”

Emodiversity is the secret to being well adjusted in all areas of your life and I’ve always believed life is a journey, one with many ups and downs. I know I definitely experienced more downs than ups in the first decade after my brain injury.

Now I see just how beneficial it is to just roll with it rather than get hung up about the amount of time I may be experiencing one specific emotion. The more the merrier, in this case, experiencing various emotions helps me in being able to better relate to others in where they are at in life with greater understanding and empathy.

All emotions have a direct impact on both our mental and physical wellbeing and what this study has confirmed is that we should all strive to have as diverse and rich of an emotional life that we can.

Is your emotional ecosystem as healthy as it can be?

You can find out in two minutes using the online emodiversity calculator!

Share: 0000