How your brain creates your emotions

Are you at the mercy of your emotions? Not so much. Open in browser

This week on TED.com January 6, 2018

Talk of the week Lisa Feldman Barrett: You aren't at the mercy of your emotions -- your brain creates them 18:15 minutes · Filmed Dec 2017 · Posted Jan 2018 · TED@IBM Can you look at someone's face and know what they're feeling? Does everyone experience happiness, sadness and anxiety the same way? What are emotions anyway? For the past 25 years, psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett has mapped facial expressions, scanned brains and analyzed hundreds of physiology studies to understand what emotions really are. She shares the results of her exhaustive research -- and explains how we may have more control over our emotions than we think. Watch now »

Playlist of the week Secrets to understanding life From work and happiness, to love and success (and everything else in between), these talks offer insights on some of life's biggest secrets. Watch » 10 TED Talks • Total run time 2:32:27

catch up on this week's new TED Talks Wonder how your life would change without easy access to water? Many countries already live this way, and it's worth learning how they cope. Lana Mazahreh grew up in Jordan, a state with absolute water scarcity, so she learned how to conserve water as soon as she was old enough to write her name. In this practical talk, she shares three lessons from water-poor countries on how to save water and address what's fast becoming a global crisis. Watch » Stewart Brand is a futurist, counterculturist and visionary with a very, very wide-ranging mind. In this long, optimistic conversation with TED curator Chris Anderson, Brand discusses just about everything: bringing back the wooly mammoth, geoengineering, rewilding, science and skepticism, and human nature itself. "The story we're told is that we're the next meteor," Brand says, but "things are capable of getting better." Watch » As parents, it's our job to teach our kids about sex. But beyond "The Talk," which covers biology and reproduction, there's much more we can say about the human experience of being in our bodies. Introducing "The Talk 2.0." Sue Jaye Johnson suggests how we can teach our children to tune in to their sensations and provide them with language to communicate their desires and emotions -- without shutting down or numbing out. Watch » Talent is universal, but opportunity isn't, says TED Fellow Christopher Ategeka. In this charming, hopeful talk, Ategeka tells his story of being orphaned at a young age -- and how being adopted gave him the chance to get an education and live up to his full potential. "We may not be able to solve the problems of this world today," Ategeka says, "But certainly we can raise children to create a positive, connected world full of empathy, love and compassion." Watch »

Read more on ideas.ted.com Science: A crowdfunding platform for studying how we age >> A new way to invest in a fascinating question We humans: Meet a brand-new kind of old-age community >> Support to live well, make friends and stay in your own home Psychology: The secret to becoming more resilient >> Meg Jay shares 8 practical ideas for overcoming what life throws at you

Quote of the Week “ I'm sure you've had this experience, I know I have: You wake up and as you're emerging into consciousness, you feel this horrible dread, and immediately, your mind starts to race. You start to think about all the crap that you have to do at work and you have that mountain of email which you will never dig yourself out of ever, and that important meeting across town, and you're going to have to fight traffic, you'll be late picking your kids up, your dog is sick, and what are you going to make for dinner? Oh my God. What is wrong with your life? What is wrong with my life? (Laughter) Your brain is searching to find an explanation for those sensations in your body that you experience as wretchedness. But those sensations might not be an indication that anything is wrong with your life. They might have a purely physical cause. Maybe you're tired. Maybe you didn't sleep enough. Maybe you're hungry. Maybe you're dehydrated. The next time that you feel intense distress, ask yourself: Could this have a purely physical cause?" Lisa Feldman Barrett You aren't at the mercy of your emotions — your brain creates them

ted radio hour: solve for x Math intimidates a lot of us, but it can deliver surprising answers to life's pressing questions. In this episode, TED speakers discuss the elegant simplicity, and giddy complexity, of solving for X. Get TED Radio Hour on Apple Podcasts or through the TED App for Android.

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