INFECTION TO PRICKLY EMOTIONS FROM OTHERS

Something I have experienced many times though didn’t realise then though later observed to realise a super common problem that holds an individual from performing to their potentials, keeping many of us from executing our best. It is the ability to regulate our emotions, depending on how allowing we are to a principle called Emotional Corruption.

Emotional Corruption

It is the pace at which we can influence the emotions of other people and make them as our own. The problem is most of us are highly sensitive to other people's emotions. Task completion or work performance either at work, leisure activity or at home will impact even with the smallest external factor. Although, we can learn how to avoid other people's emotions by becoming better at regulating our own.

The best possible and common experience is the pandemic due to the Novel Coronavirus outbreak. It evolved from Wuhan city in China and soon caused a state of a pandemic, now has a lasting impression figuratively and literally. So much that the method to regulate our emotions and avoid catching the emotions of other people, I will name it the “Viral Effect.” I have summarised that the coronavirus is just like us humans. They can be contagious, and if we are not careful, they can infect us and also claim others around us.

To understand how this processes in real life, it is essential to know what emotions actually are. There's two popular theories about where emotions come from, first theory being the Cognitive Appraisal.

Definition: It is the experience of an emotion we judge where our current situation aligns with our expectations.

Example: Let's consider you are on your way home to disclose your exam results and that you have topped the batch with your mother. You walk through the door, you find her sitting on the couch, but instead of “wha’s the result like?” She leave the room without saying a word. Now, that's not how you expected leading to the emotion of feeling annoyed. This defines Cognitive Appraisal.

The other theory is called Physiological Perception

Definition: The emotions we subconsciously assign to the physical changes in our body.

Example: Public speaking is the perfect example. Most of us usually have a weird feeling right before the talk or speech. Sweaty palms, confusion and moment of panic imagining what if you forget. Considering the last time you spoke you had the same feeling and the speech went well, you may define that sensation as the emotion of excitement. On the other hand say you messed up last time, you may now define that feeling as anxiety or fear. Basically, we overlay our physiological perception from our past experiences onto our current situation.

Moreover, the interesting part in both the theories is how we assess the emotions of other people. A section in the brain that processes emotion and memory called the limbic system is considered to be a non feedback system as it can be influenced by any external factor.

Think about this as passing by someone and without communicating or greeting, you could feel how annoyed or excited that person is? And then maybe you too felt annoyed or excited. It's an interesting concept to think about, because our brain is capable to pick up these subtle cues in our environment, which makes it possible for the other person's emotions to infect your emotional state.

Many people don't realise that every human being is affected by our non feedback system. Many people at work or on the same team inevitably catch feelings from one another. They share everything from jealousy to envy and worry to joy. The more connected they are, the stronger is the sharing of emotions.

Positive Consideration: If the team has a larger target to achieve but the captain regulates his or her emotions by staying grounded and calm, which increases the likelihood that the rest of the team will stay grounded and calm as well.

Negative Consideration: All it takes is for one person on that team to express a negative emotion for the whole thing to fall apart.

Now take a moment and think about how long you have held onto an emotion say irritation, especially after an encounter from a person who is agitated. Was it days? Weeks? Months?

The ideal situation, which improves team and group dynamics as well as individual happiness, is for everyone to control their emotional state by sending back the other person's emotions to them. And research prove that there's two common emotion regulation strategies that can be the best solution.

SOLUTION

The first method to regulate emotions is called Cognitive Reappraisal, where you work to reframe how you interpret the situation in order to regulate your emotions. Countering the first theory of Cognitive Appraisal explained above, you assign definitions to a situation based on your goals and expectations on the outcome. For instance, taking active steps like following social distancing, regularly sanitising hands and wearing a face mask to re-evaluate your outdoor activity in order to avoid being a victim in on-going the pandemic.

Training our brain to reframe is time consuming and needs dedication. This will not be easy as there are hints of truth within each of our thoughts. But if we work consistently on reframing, we shall be able to engage prickly people without being negatively affected by their mood.

The second method to regulate emotion is Acceptance. It is learning to accept a moment for what it actually is and not what you expect it to be. To explain this this, I will use a three-step framework: "OK; so what; now what." By saying "OK," you halt all additional judgment to the person or to the situation. You then allow yourself space to accept your physiological responses and your perception to what's happening. And once you've distanced yourself from your thoughts and your emotional state, then you can say, "so what" because this helps acknowledge what happened purely as an event. And as you transit to "now what" that adds that you have gathered enough information to be able to respond to the event.

Now most people can get to "OK " but struggle to get past "so what" because it can be difficult to detach our physiological perception from the situation. Now here's something essential to be kept in mind, acceptance does not mean that we are OKAY with what happened or that you even want it to continue. It means that we are able to take an aerial shot of the exchange and understand where the prickly spines are and if they're worth attaching to.

Now, both of these strategies are my favourites because they are powerful and effective, especially on the effects that they have on how we approach life and relationships. One study suggests that cognitive reappraisal tends to be associated with more immediate emotional relief in negative situations, whereas acceptance may be better suited for decreasing short-term physiological reactions in unpleasant situations. But the best part? Both of these strategies don't have to be separate practices. Acceptance and cognitive reappraisal can be used interchangeably in order to maintain emotional self-control. The key though to implementing them is to become self-aware when you become emotionally triggered by another person or event. And once you've consciously become aware of either your thoughts, emotions or physical sensations, well then you can practice either technique.

These may be common concepts, but they are definitely not commonly practiced. So by remembering the jumping Viral Effect, it will help you to be more self-aware and self-regulated. And in turn, well, you'll avoid getting pricked by ... a prick.

Could You Live Without a Smartphone?

People off-late are busy with their mobile phones walking on the street, crossing the road or travelling on public transport to their offices and often see people bumping into each other or stumbling over objects on the road. Does it happen to you to text, phone, check your Facebook timeline or maybe catch a Candy Crush while you’re walking?  How many of these times do you actually have to go online? Well, we check our devices, about 221 times per day according to a research or about every 4.3 minutes of the time we don’t sleep.

Well, we live in an economy based on distraction. The more web pages we browse through more brand advertisements can pop up, and so the more money ad space companies can make. Their success metrics are based around how much time we spend using their app, or we were on their website, not on how productive or focused we are. Two years ago, around the same time of the year, I decided to give up my smartphone, and replace it with a very basic phone just for incoming and outgoing calls. At the time, I was working in a senior position in digital marketing agency, which means that I was connected pretty much 24/7. I slept with my phone, I kept checking it all the time, and even felt it vibrating in my pocket or I hear any mobile phone ringing to check if mine is ringing. At times forgetting the fact I was out with family or the person I wish to spend the most of my time with. Giving up my smartphone was one of the best decisions that I have ever made. And today, I want to share with you my key learnings from the journey of taking back control over my time and my life. But, before we do that let me give you all a little challenge.

THE CHALLENGE: 

Given that we check our devices about every 4.3 minutes, this means that you will feel an urge to check your device three or four times during my talk. So, I want to challenge you to resist this urge and count how many times you will succeed in doing that.

LESSONS LEARNT:

ONE : You are more addicted to your device than you think. But you’re also much more resourceful. Now, increasing the time limit we go for 5 minutes without our devices?

A psychologist, David Greenfield, says “the Internet is like a slot machine: you never know what you’re going to find inside”. And this variability of the reward releases dopamine, the neurohormone of pleasure and anticipation of the reward. The problem with dopamine is that excessive stimulation of your brain that is caused by dopamine creates addiction. This is exactly how drugs work. They first make you feel excited, but then you have to go back and take a new dose, to have the same feeling. So devices use the same principles. You never know what you’re going to expect in your message, mailbox or on social media, right? One day you post a picture or a status getting a “Like” and then the next day it increases to 50 “Likes.” WOW! You fee l great. That’s Dopamine release. But then the excitement fades pretty quickly, and you need to go back to your device to feel good again. 

Technology is purposefully designed the way to make us use it over and over again. We also feel dependent on our gadgets, because we have outsourced too many important functions to them. Did you go on Google Maps or any other kind of online maps, and look up your way even though you kind of knew how to get there? This is exactly what I mean, we easily get into the habit of not trusting ourselves. Well, I discovered it’s not actually very easy to get lost in Mumbai. There are walking maps all around. And all I needed to do was to ask my way once before I start. I realise that I have outsourced to technology too many things that were important to me, that made me human, like my sense of orientation and direction, my memories of spaces and certain events, and it felt great to gain them back.

All I wanted, when I was giving up my smartphone, was to have a little bit more clarity in my brain and not to feel so overwhelmed. And what I unexpectedly gained was a feeling that I will find my way no matter what both physically and metaphorically. And, of course, a great chat up with strangers to make new connections. 

TWO : If you want to change your digital habits, do not rely on your willpower. Instead, create structures around you to support you in that.

Our brain is very lazy. So when we repeat a certain action over and over again, it starts organising our brain cells, neurones, into particular chains so that it is easier to pass the information through those chains. This makes our behaviour automatic and unconscious. And this is exactly what notifications do. They prompt us to come back to our device over and over again, up until our behaviour becomes automatic and unconscious. According to a report, 87% of Android users and 48% of iOS users opt in for receiving app notifications on their devices. In other words, all these people allow their devices to decide how they will behave. Once these chains are formed, it takes quite a long time and effort to undo them, and relying on your willpower doesn’t help.

For the first time, when it took me five months from the decision of giving up my smartphone to actually doing it. And for the second time, when after about a year of not owning any smartphone I got one back, which I thought, I would only use as a spare device, in case my laptop breaks down and I need to talk to clients over Skype. I certainly learned it twice.  And in no time, I found myself using it all the time. The neural path was still there. Now, it felt incredibly embarrassing, because at the time I was already an example of digital detox and I obviously was not walking my talk, but it also gave me great insights into the real challenges that people who do not want to give up their devices altogether face. So I developed four principles that helped me take back control over my time and my life, and I want to share those principles and these are: time management, space management, relationship management, and self-management. These principles help re-establish the boundaries that technology removes between our work and private lives, or between our public and private lives. So, explaining about them further in detail.

1)Time management:

We need to give up on the idea that we have to be connected or accessible 24/7.  Now of course that everything is very important, the truth being very few things really are. Remember, it is your attention that is a real scarcity in the age of information technology. It is something like with food, you can have all the food you desire to have in your fridge, but this does not mean that you need to eat it all and all at once. So my top tip is to disable all notifications on your devices, use delayed email function to avoid being distracted by emails, and use blocking apps to make sure that you’re accessing certain websites only at a certain time and not being distracted by them at other times. This way, you are in charge of where you’re getting information, as opposed to being dictated by technology. And to give an example, Ratan Tata, who is Ex Chairman of Tata Group and Tata Sons, has been using his smartphone as a gaming device as a source of entertainment. And, believe me, he’s a much busier guy than most of us.  Also, do not multitask online. So, do not switch between different tabs or between different devices. An experiment proves that the more we multitask, the worse we become at it, we unlearn our brain to do that. Well, you will still likely get distracted, but you can plan for it. So incorporate five minutes of distraction time every now and then in your work routine, but only after you’re done with a chunk of work and as a reward only. Again, this way, you are taking back control over your time.

2)Space management:

Space management is all about where you want to have connection, and where you want to have silence.

Have you ever thought 

⁃ Why the most expensive areas in the city are usually the quietest ones?

⁃ Why is it that, in airport business lounges, there is hardly any sound or music or advertising?

⁃ Why is silence valued so highly? 

Well, this is because it’s only in silence that our brain gets an opportunity to process information that we have been feeding into it. We cannot take good conscious decisions or be creative if we are overwhelmed. And we are always overwhelmed when we go online, because our brain is not good at multitasking. So, do not bring the devices into the areas where you process information, where you have rest. This includes your bedroom and your dining table. Your device is just a tool. It is not part of you. As any tool, your devices need their own places.

3) Relationship management:

When I was still working for an advertising agency, we had a client who kept sending us hundreds and hundreds of emails daily to make sure that we’re on the track of delivering the project. In fact, it was his emails that kept us away from doing the work, because all we were doing was just reading and answering them. So, we have built a job timeline that allowed us to show to the client the progress we’re making in real time without any involvement. In a week’s time, the email rate dropped so considerably that we were finally able to get the work done. We still don’t have a digital etiquette as to how people can best contact you, so you can get an equally important message via WhatsApp, Skype, email, you name it. The moral is you need to heavily manage people’s expectations as to how they can contact you. For example, before I meet somebody, I ask them to send me a text message if anything changes. Because I don’t have Internet on my phone. And it works really well. What do you do, however, if you work for a company that expects you to be connected and on top of everything for 24/7?

Well, first things first, stop contributing to this mess by cc’ing everyone.If you want to receive fewer emails, send fewer emails. Second, you might want to mention a few statistics to your colleagues and bosses.

If this doesn’t help, then you can try moving to a different country, like France and Brazil where they have now the so-called rights to disconnect laws, where that, among other things, regulate whether the person has the right not to read work-related emails after the working hours.

4) Self Management:

Self-management is the last cornerstone of changing your digital behaviour, and the most tricky part. Because it does not help, it doesn’t work, if you prohibit yourself from going online. Because your brain still needs the excitement of dopamine.

So, instead, you need to be thinking about where you will take this dopamine from? What will you do with all this free time that all of a sudden you will have available? And this is where I want to share with you my last key learning, and why I think I failed for so long to give up my smartphone. I just did not want to deal with my own problems. When you don’t have anything that distracts you, then you will have to start dealing with the stuff you have been running away from. We often go online not because we need to, but because we have some internal trigger to do that. Maybe we want to feel Important, or maybe we are depressed. In fact, a study says that people who spent a lot of time online tend to be depressed. So, the next time you feel an urge to check your device, ask yourself: What is really triggering me to do that? Is there something I’m trying to avoid feeling or thinking about?

Once you get a life, and a natural source of dopamine, you won’t need anything to distract yourselves from yourselves. Lets pledge to value ourselves, the time we have, people we are surrounded with and the special someone who constantly feels neglected just because of your presence they may choose not to be vocal.