The (Fairly Mind-Blowing) New Science of Emotional Well-Being
This article features excerpts from the soon-to-be-released
“The Poetry of Human Emotion: A Science-based Guide to Emotional Well-being” (Jack Ricchiuto, 2020, NuanceWorks).
Learn more → thepoetryofhumanemotion.com
You're not alone if you’ve been gravitating toward articles and podcasts about emotional well-being lately. Even if you feel you’ve got a good handle on your emotions, you might sense that there’s more to understand—something new that could make your emotional life more manageable, or even more satisfying.
The truth is: we all share a daily wish to struggle less and enjoy more.
But to live our best emotional life, we need an accurate understanding of how emotions actually work. And the new science of emotion has some surprisingly powerful things to say.
10 (Game-Changing) Insights About Emotions
These highlights are inspired by researchers like Lisa Feldman Barrett and others at Northeastern University. Their findings invite a complete rethink of what many of us were taught about emotions.
1. Emotions don’t happen to us—they happen by us.
They're not triggered by external situations. Our brains rapidly compose emotions based on millions of predictive simulations. They seem like reactions, but they’re creations—crafted on the fly to help us make sense of our experience and prep our body for action.
2. We only have the emotions we’re aware of.
Emotions aren't stored in the brain waiting to be triggered. Like a chef making a meal from scratch, our brain cooks them up from present and past experiences. If you want to know what you're feeling, look—it's hiding in plain sight.
3. Feelings and emotions are not the same.
Feelings are wordless, physical sensations (like a tight chest or fluttering stomach). The moment we put words to those sensations—“I hate this” or “This is exciting”—we’re composing emotions. Language doesn’t reflect emotion; it creates it.
4. Emotions are temporary.
Their chemical signatures last about 90 seconds. They’re not attached to you, and they’re not out to ruin your day. Emotions show up as reminders of what matters to you—and they’ll keep showing up until they’ve done their job.
5. More meaningful emotions are often quieter.
Emotions exist on two spectrums:
Valence: pleasant ↔ unpleasant
Volume: loud ↔ quiet
Louder emotions demand more attention, but quieter emotions offer more flexibility and nuance. Cultivating quiet, specific emotions helps us shift perspective and expand possibility.
6. Emotional well-being is authorship.
It’s not about becoming the author of your emotions—you already are. The work is realizing it, and practicing the art of composition. Composing dozens—hundreds—of meaningful, specific emotional experiences is what emotional well-being looks like in action.
7. Narrow emotional ranges increase struggle.
Struggling isn't about having “bad” emotions. It's about having too few emotions—too little language for what you feel. When we go beyond catch-alls like glad, sad, or mad, we begin creating richer, more helpful emotions.
8. Meaningful emotions follow a formula.
They’re composed from:
What’s true about the situation
What might be true
What we like or want in the situation
This is what makes emotions like anticipatory joy or hopeful anxiety more powerful than vague labels. For example, the Intuit word Iktuarpok describes the emotion of restlessly looking forward to seeing someone you love—an emotion more specific and impactful than just “happy.”
9. Every situation offers a chance to compose.
Take that moment when you reach into a bag of chips and realize it’s empty. The mild disappointment, the longing, the guilt—that’s an emotion. And it’s more helpful than the generic label “sad.” The more detail and specificity we bring, the more tools we have to work with.
10. Language shapes our emotional lives.
Kids and adults with more emotionally granular language do better across the board—in school, at work, in relationships, and with mental health. The wider our emotional vocabulary, the more our lives flourish.
Welcome to the New Science of Emotion
This isn’t just a different way to talk about feelings—it’s a revolutionary shift in how we understand what makes us tick. It’s also deeply practical. When we realize that we are the authors of our emotions, we gain access to a wider, more nuanced, more energizing emotional life—and we’re better equipped to support the emotional well-being of those around us.
Want to go deeper?
