Emotions occur as neurochemical reactions in our bodies which are felt as abstract internal sensations. Our “8th sense”, interoception, actually determines which state or “feeling”, we will experience and is the seat of our emotions. These sensations then direct us or motivate us in a specific way. Especially in higher order animals, such as “us”, this internal emotional signaling serves as a prompt to modify behavior to benefit the survival and “thrival” of the person. A simple example of this would be fleeing when you sense a dangerous person or situation nearby (or a bear or man in the woods, which seems to have social media perplexed right now as to which is scarier). This tells us that emotions are a crucial component and contributor in learning, decision making and future behaviors, by appropriately categorizing them as either positive or negative and then modifying and adjusting our beliefs and behaviors accordingly.

There are 5 basic emotions that have been studied to some extent. They are happiness, fear, anger, love, and sadness. 

HAPPINESS, which can mean different things to different people, and is no doubt subjective,  can ultimately be seen as the absence of negative emotions and fear as well as the ongoing process of desiring, reward seeking, and experiencing pleasure.  A pretty odd way to think about happiness! 

The actual chemicals, hormones, and neurotransmitters that come into play when a state of happiness is obtained, are, oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, GABA, and endorphins.

Oxytocin, sometimes referred to as the “love hormone”, is a peptide hormone (has a shorter amino acid chain than protein hormones), is created in the hypothalamus and released into the bloodstream when engaging in friendly, loving , and bonding type activities and behaviors such as hugging and kissing. It can also be released through music and exercise. Oxytocin allows for increased empathy and trust, which helps to facilitate deeper and more long lasting relationships, both platonic as well as intimate. This hormone also creates a calmness within the nervous system and helps to lower stress and anxiety.

Dopamine, often referred to as the “pleasure hormone” is a big driver of happiness from a pleasure, motivation, and reinforcement perspective. Meaning, happiness can be achieved by way of those 3 components. When there is a deficiency, or when it is inhibited, let’s say for example, by serotonin, it can lead to negative emotional states. Serotonin must regulate as well as inhibit dopamine to an extent in order to ensure addictive behaviors don’t develop since much dopamine is derived from such things as, sex, spending money, smelling and tasting good food and the like. 

Serotonin, which was discussed earlier in the article, helps to regulate several emotions, which includes promoting feelings of contentment, confidence and positive self esteem. Estrogen hormones have also been shown to increase serotonin formation.

GABA (Gamma Amino Butyric Acid) is the largest contributor in achieving and maintaining a calm state within the nervous system. This is crucial because the nervous system seems to favor being in a more alert state. This makes sense and is probably a good thing because it causes behavior that is favorable to the person avoiding danger, and unsafe situations, circumstances and people. When the nervous system does become overactive, it manifests as more stressful and negative emotions. Similarly, the hormone. progesterone has the same effect as GABA, in terms of relaxing the nervous system.

Endorphins, are peptide hormones (short chain amino acids), are correlated with pleasurable emotional states and pain relief. Engaging in activities like laughing, exercising, playful activities, being in love, eating chocolate (and supposedly oysters), all release endorphins into the system.

Now we’re getting into inflammation and possible autoimmune disease territory…..

LOVE is a very complex emotion, as it involves many compatible and conflicting feelings and states combined, which makes it a bit of a paradoxical emotional state. The quick and simple explanation is that love can be seen as mainly a combination of pleasure, joy, reward, (components of happiness), attachment and bonding, as well as stress. It also connects the stress centers of the brain to the reward-seeking circuits. NO wonder it causes people to go crazy! 

Once we have identified someone specific that makes our “Spidey senses” tingle, and an attraction begins, our stress response is activated to a degree and we are in a stress state. When love is unrequited, (loving someone who doesn’t love you back), it usually results in a degree of anger, then sadness. The reason is because when we first realize that the other person (our reward) is not interested, anger arises because your “reward” has been blocked. After processing some of this, we can move into sadness because we become disheartened and discouraged. We can also turn to self criticizing and punishment as well. (I am not good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, etc.) You know,  the usual self beatdowns…

Studies have shown time and time again that love begins as more of a stress response than anything else. As I sat here and thought about very few times I thought I was “in love”, it sure felt stressful. It all makes sense now! Once we have identified someone specific that makes our “Spidey senses” tingle, and an attraction begins, our stress response is activated to a degree and we are in a stress state. This doesn’t sound like a good thing because it involves the word “stress”, but this is a good thing as it motivates us to behave in a way that encourages us to spend time with this person and build a bond and relationship. This also facilitates the anticipation of reward. The more we spend time with this special person, the initial stress response relaxes because the familiarity, comfortability, and trust increases with time. The stress response to love is actually a pleasant one, as the specific neurotransmitters involved in stress are being constantly moderated by  ones that promote security and trust. Many studies have shown that when someone suffers from heart ache, a broken heart, or the like, it sets off a cytokine storm in the immune system. This, of course, results in not only massive  inflammation within the heart muscle itself but the heart sends out these inflammatory signals throughout the body. Studies have also shown that this specific type of emotional upheaval actually suppresses parts of the immune system. So, not only is massive inflammation circulating around the body and heart, but this state also keeps part of the immune system from helping out and doing its job to its fullest capability. A study done by Ohio State University, showed that people who recently got divorced were more likely to contract and fall ill from viruses such as the Epstein Barr virus. They were also shown to produce less natural killer cells, which are crucial for fighting diseases. We are definitely headed into “pre-autoimmune disease and autoimmune disease territory. here. When any type of prolonged abuse happens between loved ones, such as psychological and emotional, (assaults on the soul and spirit vs. the physical body), child or adult, the intense polarizing emotions of love and hate (the alternating hatred experienced, either for the person or the acts committed), causes massive amounts of inflammation that will eventually manifests physically.

FEAR, (which includes anxiety), happens when we are faced with either a real or perceived specific threat that will require us to either “fight” of “flee”, and sometimes “freeze”, and is a sympathetic nervous response. A swift response is necessary here!

Anxiety, on the other hand, can be described as more of a generalized feeling (in the absence of an external provocation), which usually comes from an internal place of being worried/concerned about a future event and feeds “catastrophizing”, where a person ruminates about the worst possible outcome regardless of how small the probability of it occurring, statistically speaking. Sometimes it happens for no apparent reason. It is for this reason that anxiety is thought to be a product of “fear- based learning”.  This means it helps us prepare for possible future negative events by using the brunt of our energy to think about (in this case, ruminating)  how we need to modify or adapt to prepare. When this becomes worse in frequency and depth, anxiety disorders begin to manifest.

It appears that through  evolution and facing the profound dangers our ancestors had to face on the daily, our waking hours are controlled by the stress hormones. Some level of stress chemicals and hormones are necessary for all emotions. What they do is provide the necessary energy to increase it from its baseline level, in order to motivate the body into taking action. Disproportionately low levels can lead to such feelings as lethargy, boredom, and restlessness.  Obviously the opposite happens when there are too many stress chemicals surging throughout the body, it causes stress symptoms and  volatile emotional levels.

Whether or not a person interprets an external stimulus as a threat, has much to do with the amygdala. (“the amygdala that cried wolf”). The amygdala plays a crucial role in identifying the threat and the degree of threat. Based on the type of threat, the nervous system will respond accordingly. For example, when faced with what is perceived to be an inescapable threat, the nervous system will typically go into the “freeze” state. When someone is faced with what they perceive to be an escapable and lower level threat, it may provoke their anger and they go into the “fight” response, to fend off the threat.

The neurochemicals that drive fear are mainly, adrenaline, noradrenaline, cortisol, serotonin, and GABA. 

Adrenaline and noradrenaline, in this case, these hormones are the main driver behind the “fight, flight” response, as well as activate the corresponding coping mechanism.

Cortisol, the adrenal hormone that controls our state of arousal and becomes increased when the person perceives danger and the fear response is set in motion.

Serotonin, in context to the fear response, can promote fear in certain parts of the brain while actually inhibiting it in other areas. Serotonin’s role in fear is a regulatory and facilitative one and is partially responsible for the feelings of dislike, avoidance and even disgust, when faced with something perceived as off-putting.

GABA is a neurotransmitter that helps calm and stifle the fear response. If there is too little, it can cause an ongoing feeling of fear and anxiety.

Now we are really getting close to inflammation and autoimmune diseases!

ANGER (including the lesser forms of frustration and irritation), is an emotion that can be a real trouble maker! It can be described as a combination of stress, hostility and usually but not always, aggression. Common associated feelings are disgust, dislike, judgment, dislike, and criticism.

Since the sympathetic stress response is the most studied component of the emotion of anger, we know it has its neurochemical origins from fear. Because fear is seen as a product of “fear-based learning”, anger is taking that one step further, as “an adaptive survival mechanism”, which prompts the person to motivate to defend itself. Because humans have a more advanced nervous system than animals, it allows us the ability to experience anger, process it and dissipate it in a way that does not always lead to physical aggression. The frontal lobes of humans allow us to reason things out and come up with better solutions than aggression.

People can have various things that cause them anger but usually most people become angry when faced with some type of personal or social injustice, bullying, or  faced with their dreams, goals, etc. being blocked, stifled or redirected.

When the emotional brain and limbic system are caught in the anger response, our conscious brain has little to no control over it and this can lead to explosive bouts of physical aggression and violence without the person even realizing and feelings of remorse, afterward. Anger usually will dissipate on it’s own by itself but when a person is in this state, their cognitive functions go offline to varying degrees and their mental processing becomes much faster, which allows a person to do a couple of things, either find more reasons to be angry within the situation, (often times with a skewed angry perspective and point of view), especially as it unfolds and the situation progresses. Regardless, the high speed cognitive processing can also allow us to work towards other options besides physical aggression, such as, verbal arguments, and the use of negotiation tactics and strategies. The prefrontal lobes, specifically, allow a person to 

A common component of anger but not always, is aggression. It appears to be the result of low emotional control and an increase in the perception of threat, coming from the prefrontal lobe and emotional centers of the brain. The prefrontal lobes allow a person to engage in reflection and re-evaluation of the situation, which allows for real-time behavior modifications and adjustments. If the threat is perceived to be severe enough, however, those emotional control  centers in the brain will likely generate the “fight response”. 

Frustration as well as irritation, are lesser degrees of anger. Frustration is seen as failed reward seeking attempts usually and irritation is experienced as a generalized version of anger (as anxiety is to fear) and can occur with little to know external provocation. Someone can merely “wake up”, irritated. Possibly from a bad dream or hold over thoughts of negative events.

The neurochemicals involved in anger are mainly, serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline, noradrenaline, 

Serotonin-an increase in this neurotransmitter, has been proven to be a main component of anger, especially aggression involving anger.

Dopamine has a role in anger, particularly when the anger is a result of an anticipated reward or goal not being met. This causes a drop in dopamine in relation to serotonin, and when that happens, feelings of frustration, anger and worse can develop.

SADNESS-the simple definition is that emotional reaction to some type of real or perceived “loss” in their life. There is nothing simple about this emotional state, however, as the exact neurochemistry is still being debated upon. The main reason appears to be because sadness can be in relation to varying things like distress, anguish and fear. When faced with a loss of such things as goals, dreams, a career, or a person, it causes a neurological reaction that not only interrupts the reward seeking pathways, but also inhibits feelings such as creating and appreciating humor and engaging in laughter and happiness. Because it has been found to inhibit the reward seeking pathways, it has been theorized that sadness has an evolutionary benefit of making the person  remove focus from “not being able to receive that future reward”. This is known as the “sadness theory”.

Interestingly, even though sadness can be linked to other emotional states, it has a distinctive connection to anger, neurologically speaking. Sadness inherently promotes a strong sense of punishment, usually encouraging a strong sense of penalizing and punishment. Mainly self directed, which overlaps with anger, mainly experienced as frustration, in brain regions that sadness shares with anger.

Now, if sadness is also experienced with a profound surprise, such as the common death of a loved one, it can easily send a person into “fight or flight”, which can end up being prolonged and therefore causing increased and ongoing inflammation in the immune system. Intense sadness even modulates the brain in a way that it sends the body a signal to produce real physical pain.  This would be why we feel real physical pain, usually in the heart and chest area, when experiencing the sudden loss of a loved one. It can also happen after divorce from a long marriage. Think of it like this, even though we are having these experiences in a physical 3D world, it is the soul and spirit that are profoundly affected here, so of course it is going to manifest as physical symptoms, here in this physical world. An autoimmune disease percolating, no doubt….

There is still much research to be done to figure out exactly which chemicals are doing what, but they have identified the following, serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline, and noradrenaline.

Serotonin, in this case, when elevated, promotes punishment type mentality, dislike, and behaviors that align with antagonizing the reward pathways.

Dopamine, in this case is low, which results in the reward pathway  being inhibited

Adrenaline and noradrenaline, could be elevated or decreased, depending on if the fear is coupled with surprise or shock. In this combination, the fight or flight will be set off to varying degrees for varying lengths of time depending on several factors.