Emotional Plasticity: Using Emotions To Adapt To Challenges
There is no doubt that, among all the mental abilities that distinguish us from other animals, the ability to think in abstract terms and represent complicated ideas through words is one of the most incredible.
However, something even more incredible is that we don’t just use these abstract concepts to name what surrounds us. Furthermore, we are able to think about how we think and how we feel. We are possibly part of the only species.
What happens is that we take this fact for granted and do not stop to examine the potential it has, its implications. That is why few people are familiar with emotional plasticity our ability to adapt to each situation through emotions and feelings.
Emotional plasticity is our ability to not limit ourselves to experiencing emotional states passively, but make them part of our adaptation strategies to the challenges of everyday life.
We must keep in mind that neither emotions nor feelings exist simply to enrich our subjective experience of what it is to live. They are there because they fulfill a function: to guide our behavior towards objectives that usually suit us at all times.
For example, the mix of fear and stress that we usually experience hours before an exam will make it more likely that we will review knowledge, something that under normal conditions would be an unappealing effort. Emotions lead us to action, whether we realize it or not. The question is… do we take advantage of it?
The concept of emotional plasticity is derived from another that comes from neuroscience, neuronal plasticity. This last process has to do with the way in which These nerve cells “learn” to connect with each other following patterns that are useful to us under certain circumstances.
For example, when we learn to read certain neurons that are activated when a part of the arm is in a certain position, they begin to associate more effectively with those that are activated when a part of the thorax is in the position that facilitates that movement.
Likewise, it has been seen that in many patients who have suffered brain injuries, healthy parts learn to perform the functions performed by damaged or missing neuronal tissues. There are even people who, despite being born without large portions of their brain, develop and live relatively normally.
Thus, human beings we can use emotions as supports, resources to guide our actions effectively. Although we tend to think that rationality makes us get closer to our goals and that it is emotions and feelings that keep us away from them (such as obstacles or elements that distract us from what is important), this does not have to be the case.
Some useful strategies
Below you can see some examples of how you can take advantage of emotional plasticity.
1. Sense of completion
Human beings tend to feel much better when we notice that we have accomplished a goal. However, each of these goals can be divided into small milestones, steps that must be taken.
So, when you see that you are faced with a task so complicated and long that it is intimidating, break it down into small sub-goals, each of which can be completed in an hour or less. In this way you “force” yourself to meet those small goals acceptable so that you can feel good when you have reached the end of each of them.
2. Empathize to connect
Meeting new people can be intimidating and complicated, but those moments of coldness at the beginning of a conversation with strangers can pass quickly if we send the right signals that allow us to empathize.
Tell a short story that is interesting and talk about how we are and how we feel, for example, often serves to engage others in stimulating dialogues in which each person speaks honestly. Of course, make sure that the topic of that mini-story is relevant.
3. Create narratives to understand things better
There are many things that, although they are boring, we need to study and learn them. To facilitate the study, make up narratives that contain that relevant information. This is an example of emotional plasticity because our tendency to empathize can cause us to we are interested in the experiences of the fictional characters of these stories, memorizing the data related to these stories more easily.
4. Forms of resilience
Resilience is our ability to recover psychologically after going through crises or tragedies. Although it may not seem like it, this almost always involves forms of emotional plasticity.
Simply focus on those goals that you associate with the feeling of building something useful. The desire to progress and the satisfaction that comes from moving towards a goal will make us stop obsessing over problems (to a certain extent, artificial) that used to frighten us and tie us to the past.
