9781422287712

responses inside us. We’ve learned to give all these responses labels—like “happiness,” “sadness,” “anger,” and “fear.” Many experts think that people actually feel only six main emotions— happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, disgust, and anger—and that all the other emotions we experience are some sort of combina- tion or variation of these six. You’ve been feeling emotions your entire life, ever since you were a baby. You probably can’t imagine what life would be like without them. Your emotions do an important job. They direct your attention toward things that are important. When something makes you sad, for example, your emotions say, “Notice this! This isn’t a good situation! Try to change this situation!” Or when something scares you, your emotions tell you, “Be careful!” Your emotions make a bridge between the outside world and the ac- tions you need to take. They help you know what to do next. Ever since you were a young child, you’ve been learning from your emotions: what makes you happy and what makes you sad, what scares you and what makes you laugh. Then you’ve learned to adjust your behavior accordingly. Scientists today believe that humans evolved to have emotions because these inner feelings helped us survive in a dangerous world. Early humans’ brains were triggered by something in the outside world—a source of food, for example, or a possible mate or a dangerous animal—and then a rush of brain chemicals made your long-long-ago ancestors feel things that prompted them to act in various ways that helped them survive. Those behaviors included smiling, shouting, fighting, making friends, and falling in love. In one way or another, all these things helped humans survive as a species . Being happy or sad, angry or surprised, compassionate or jealous were all survival mechanisms . TYPES OF SADNESS Like most emotions, sadness comes in many shades and flavors. The sadness you feel when you lose a favorite earring is very dif- ferent from the sadness you feel if a grandparent dies.

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What I s Sadnes s?