9781422287712

10

SADNESS

Each of us feels many different emotions every day. Often, we feel more than one emotion at once.

Sadness is the emotion we feel when we’ve lost something. It could be a big loss—your dog’s death, for example—or a small loss—your favorite shirt. We feel sad when things aren’t going the way we want them to. We usually think of sadness as the opposite of happiness. It’s one of the main negative emotions human be- ings experience. WHAT ARE EMOTIONS? Emotions are our inner personal experiences in reaction to the world. People used to think that emotions took place in the heart. They thought “heart” feelings were very different from body feel- ings. Today, however, scientists believe that what we perceive as emotions are really changes in our bodies, especially changes in our brains. Different kinds of situations in our lives trigger different