How will long-term negative emotions affect cognitive ability?

A new study shows that long-term negative emotions will increase the risk of cognitive problems and may lead to dementia in the future. It is found that the content of protein in the brain of pessimists is high, which is related to the development of Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

In this study, scientists from University College London analyzed the influence of negative thinking on adults over 55. The result is a bit unexpected-people who have the habit of repeating negative thoughts (RNT) are more likely to experience cognitive decline with age.

In addition, people with negative thinking patterns for a long time have been found to have more harmful brain protein deposits, called tau and amyloid. These protein accumulations are related to dementia and Alzheimer's disease, and were found in the study participants by PET brain scanning.

Past studies have found that people with depression and anxiety are more likely to suffer from dementia in their later years; This new study may clarify the reasons and point out the common negative thinking patterns in both cases.

The study involved nearly 300 participants, which lasted for two years, and nearly half of them also participated in PET brain scanning. Researchers examined many aspects of brain health, including memory, attention and language ability. Within four years, participants in RNT are more likely to have harmful protein deposition and memory problems, making it a risk factor for dementia.

Hello! I focus on cognitive behavioral therapy @ psychological counselor Xinhai. I'll talk about my opinion according to your question.

I use the cognitive triangle in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you answer this question.

The picture above is the cognitive triangle.

A person's emotions and his cognition and behavior are interactive and mutually reinforcing.

Our emotions do not come from what happened, but from how we look at and evaluate it. This is cognition (that is, thought). In other words, it is not the event itself that leads to our emotional results, but our cognition of the event (that is, our thoughts).

According to this idea, negative emotions are caused by negative thoughts, so the relationship between them is

The treatment idea of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is to change negative emotions by changing negative cognition and negative behavior, so as to break such a negative vicious circle, train and establish a positive virtuous circle, and achieve the purpose of solving psychological problems such as depression and anxiety.

The above is my opinion, I hope it will help you.

Emotion itself is not good or bad, whether it is positive or negative, it is actually a part of our lives, but there are also good or bad behaviors and consequences caused by emotions, so long-term negative emotions will definitely lead to bad behaviors or behavioral consequences.

A person, his cognition, his emotion and his behavior should be related, so there is a very important therapy in emotion management called rational emotion therapy, which is a way to manage our emotions by changing cognition. It believes that it is not the event itself that causes us to have bad emotions or behavioral consequences, but my cognition, views and beliefs about this event, and our unreasonable cognition of it leads to unreasonable emotions or behaviors.

Your question is how long-term negative emotions may affect cognitive ability. Let's analyze it with examples.

Cognition is an idea and not necessarily a fact.

It is easy to understand that a person's thoughts will affect a person's mood. Conversely, a person's emotions will also affect a person's thoughts, because emotions will affect a person's perception, memory, attention and judgment, and then affect a person's cognition.

Xiao and her boyfriend are college lovers. After graduation, my boyfriend broke up. She thought that he didn't love himself and gave so much for himself. She was very sad and wronged at the thought, so she cut her wrist.

In this example, it is an objective event that the boyfriend broke up. He no longer loves himself. It was her idea to pay so much for herself. Sorrow and injustice are her emotions. Cutting your wrist is action.

On the surface, it was the breakup that caused her mood.

In fact, it is the concept of events. He doesn't love himself, and he pays so much for himself, which leads to her mood.

That is to say, he doesn't love himself, and it is also her cognition that he has paid so much for himself.

If this matter is changed to Xiao C, her idea is that the sea is vast and the grass is abundant, and the old ones don't go and the new ones don't come, then Xiao C may be more calm and won't be wronged. Her next behavior may be to put on a beautiful skirt and go to the alumni association.

In this example, A's core belief may be that he is not cute enough, and C's core belief may be that he is cute.

or vice versa, Dallas to the auditorium They influence each other, and emotions will definitely affect thoughts.

For example, Xiao was sent to the hospital after cutting her wrist. She began to feel very annoyed (emotional) and felt how useless she was (cognitive).

And Xiao C made some new friends at the alumni association. They chatted happily (emotionally) and she felt very attractive (cognitively).

First, both the emotional center and the cognitive center control the amygdala. Long-term negative emotions will make the amygdala sensitive and even bigger. The amygdala is the area responsible for emotion, learning and memory. You may feel bigger and bigger, but wouldn't it be better to know each other? That's not true. When you become bigger and more sensitive, your attention will be taken away by negative emotions, leaving you with less attention to observe and analyze what you encounter, which will lead to the decline of cognitive function. Just like patients with depression, they usually show memory loss, slow speech, unclear thinking and slow thinking.

Long-term negative emotions may also have a negative impact on cognition.

Emotion and cognition complement each other, because emotion itself is also a cognitive language. Just like when tutoring homework, the mother said to the child, "How can you be so stupid!" " "

The child realized that this was my mother scolding me. Then the child will have negative emotions. When children have negative emotions, facial expressions and body movements will change. Such emotional language will also be interpreted by parents, resulting in different effects.

1. Children pretending to be poor make me even more angry. This interpretation will lead to the strengthening of parents' negative emotions, and the so-called getting angry is the truth.

2. The poor child. Why scold him? Say it well. When the parents' emotions are relieved, the children's emotions will also be calmed down.

Forget it. Leave him alone. Call him pathetic, not sad, out of sight, out of mind. The parents left, leaving the children in a mood.

What causes children to have negative interpretations? What the child interprets is not "How can you be so stupid!" This sentence. The child explained the emotional language of "Mom is angry and fierce to me".

Parents can try. You smiled and said to the child, "Why are you so stupid?"

Children's reactions are different.

Emotion is a kind of suggestive language, which is presented in body language. Usually, if we don't notice this, we will be influenced by this hint. Trigger our emotional response, we will be angry when the other party is angry, and we will be happy when the other party is happy.

Only in one case, our interpretation of emotional language is just the opposite. I feel bad when the other person is happy, and I feel happy when the other person is sad.

If you know what happened, you can leave a message to interact.

The instruction is wrong and the deviation is too large.

Long-term negative emotions will cause cognitive stagnation!

Negative emotions should be relieved, released and adjusted in time!

People with more negative emotions are more impulsive and love others more; Like to find bones in eggs; Often use words to suppress others; There is no motivation to do anything!

Check your surroundings first to see who is infected, and then stay away from people with more negative emotions!

We should change the perspective of looking at problems, see the advantages and strengths of others, and recognize and praise them; Everything has two sides, both advantages and disadvantages can be seen; Can feel the joy and happiness of completing one thing!

Although we are tasting the sweet, sour, bitter, spicy and salty taste, we should be the masters of our own mood and make the people we get along with comfortable and happy!

We need to find out what long-term negative effects may have on cognitive ability. First of all, we need to understand the process of emotion production and the relationship between emotion and cognition.

First, what is emotion?

Emotion is a series of psychological and physiological reactions produced by subjective cognitive experience to external objective things.

The usual emotions are: joy, anger, worry, thinking, sadness, fear and surprise. Of course, there are also some subtle emotional states under the social system and moral norms, such as jealousy, shame, shame, pride, pride and so on.

Emotion interacts with factors such as emotion, personality, cognition and purpose, and is also influenced by hormones and neurotransmitters.

Emotion is influenced by the psychological process stimulated by objective things.

Psychological process: refers to the process of occurrence and development of human psychological activities. Specifically, it refers to the process that the brain reaction is objectively realized under the action of objective things in a certain period of time. This process includes three aspects, namely, cognitive process, emotional process and will process.

Emotion and will are based on knowledge and develop with knowledge. Influenced by emotion and will in the process of cognition; As a dynamic factor, emotion affects will, and will enriches emotion. It can be concluded that emotions are closely related to the process of psychological activities.

Second, what is cognition?

It refers to the process of human cognitive activities, that is, the process of individual acceptance, detection, transformation, synthesis, coding, storage, extraction, reconstruction, formation of concepts, judgment and problem solving.

Cognition refers to the acquisition of knowledge through psychological activities (such as the formation, perception, judgment or imagination of concepts).

In other words, it refers to the process of people's understanding of the outside world and the process of people's receptors' processing of external stimuli, including psychological phenomena such as feeling, perception, memory and thinking.

A person's cognition is closely related to his experience, knowledge and skills, which refers to a person's understanding of objective things or the world.

Third, the relationship between emotion and cognition.

As we know, a person's mood has an important connection with his cognition. Then a person's cognition affects his emotion, and emotion and cognition are an inseparable unity of mutual transformation and influence. We analyze the relationship between cognition and emotion through the following model.

ABC cognitive model

A = the inducement of objective things

B = cognitive ability

C = emotional response

For example, you submitted your papers and material reports according to your tutor's requirements, but the tutor refused after reading your material reports and papers, thinking that the reasons were not sufficient. Because your previous papers have been rejected, at this time you feel that your tutor deliberately targeted you and deliberately embarrassed you, so you have anger and hatred. (Let's look at this process.)

A (induced): Your paper and material report were rejected.

B (Cognition): You think the instructor deliberately targeted it.

C (emotional reaction): anger and hatred.

If we can change the cognitive state, that is, change B, then your emotional response C will also be changed.

If your first reaction when your thesis is rejected is not to think that the tutor is deliberately embarrassed, but to reflect on yourself or the reasons for your thesis, ask the tutor humbly, and the tutor will seriously point out your problems and reasons to help you pass the next level smoothly, then your emotional reaction will change from anger and hatred to gratitude and happiness.

So to sum up: if we can change our view (cognition) on this matter, then we can change our mood.

Conclusion: Our emotions and our cognition play a transforming role.

1: Positive cognitive ability can bring positive emotions, while negative cognitive ability can bring negative emotions.

2. Cognition and emotion are a process of mutual influence and transformation.

3. Because emotion and cognition influence and transform each other, long-term negative emotions will bring you long-term negative cognitive ability.

Author | Good Will Hunting

Emotion is the most influential and powerful component among many psychological factors. If negative emotions such as nervousness, worry and fear persist for a long time, it will not only reduce the efficiency of study and work, but also bring harm to body and mind.

Before answering this question, learn about emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, also known as emotional intelligence quotient, refers to a person's ability to control his own emotions, others' emotions, endure setbacks and adapt to changes, and is an indicator to measure a person's emotional level.

Cognitive ability is one of the five major contents of emotional intelligence, which includes: the ability to know one's own advantages and disadvantages, the ability to know one's true feelings, and the ability to make correct choices about major events in life.

Individuals can detect an emotion as soon as it appears and realize self-cognition, which is the core and foundation of emotional intelligence. Psychologists' research results show that "people who don't understand their feelings will inevitably become slaves of feelings", "only when they master feelings can they become masters of life and make correct choices about life events such as marriage and work", and "people who don't have the ability to understand their feelings can't understand others' feelings".

Some people are jealous because they can't look at themselves correctly, which leads to the painful tragedy of hurting people and hurting themselves.