March Challenge - Day 4: Emotion Contagion

So the book I've been reading called Connected, has been incredibly interesting. Chapter 2 is all about emotions being contagious and how the people you surround yourself with, and the people they surround themselves with will ultimately impact your emotions.

Most of you might be going "duh, tell us something I don't know," but seriously, how often do you stop yourself in a day to calibrate your emotions back to that safe place, you know, that place where you're not overwhelmingly happy that people think you're Charlie Sheen, or that place you're overwhelmingly sad like a Sarah MacLaughlin album (I swear, that woman can make "Don't worry, be happy" sound like a funeral march).

I've recently hit a slump, and it wasn't until someone else told me about being negative that I was able to take a more conscious note of it. I'm an emotional person, although I try to deny that I have any human emotion, I'm very expressive when communicating with others. When I'm happy, I let out several guffaws while slapping the shit out of my knees. When I'm angry, a torrent of swear words gets unleashed into the world and my hands flail like a mad person. And when I'm overwhelmed, I get quiet and scattered. All of this is picked up by other people and like a domino effect others begin to feel the exact same emotions I project. If I panic, others do; if I stay calm, so do others.

In a study the authors conducted, they found out on average, if you had one close friend who was happy, you were 9% more likely to be happy. But if you have a close friend who is sad, you're 7% more likely to be sad. So the goal seems simple, surround yourself with happy friends, right?

Sure, that sounds simple enough, but terribly difficult when you consider how peoples' lives change on a constant basis. Your happy friend could turn sad one day, and vice versa. What's important is that you continue to check your own state and consciously figure your way back to a medium spot.

Another part of their study talks about how ultimately, people do level themselves out subconsciously - there are very few that spiral completely out of control or that can maintain a nirvana like happy state. However, if you consciously make the corrections everyday, you don't have to wait out the up to 365 days to get back to your normal self.

So the saying is correct after all - check yo'self befo' you 'reck yo'self.

The book talks about love next. Have a feeling I'm not going to like this chapter.