Derek S. Positive emotions and conditioned responses

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Question

Thank you for creating this site and for answering questions. I have two questions.

1. Can pain result from repressing positive emotions such as happiness and joy? Or is it only negative ones that do us in?

2. I have tension headaches every day. But I do have relief when I get up in the morning or when I've been sitting for a while. As soon as I start moving around, the pain starts in. Why?

Ginnie

 

Answer

Thanks for your question, Ginnie.

I believe that good emotional hygiene entails allowing yourself to feel all of your feelings. This certainly applies to joy/happiness as well as rage and sadness. I view pain as a response to a perceived threat. For many people, feeling anger or sadness can be interpreted by the brain as a threat , thereby resulting in pain. Based on an individual's life experience, it is certainly plausible that the brain could perceive happiness as a threat as well, similarly resulting in pain. Make room for all of your feelings and practice feeling the entire emotional spectrum.

Regarding your headaches, I would agree that this sounds like a conditioned or associative response. Your brain has learned to associate moving around with pain. The "why" of this matters less than your response to it. Your brain now interprets movement as a "threat" so your job is to neutralize this threat by tending to your anxiety, practicing outcome independence, and responding to the symptom with confidence and assertiveness.

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This is a nice way to summarize things!