Understand Positive Emotions and Try the Ways to Increase Positive Emotions

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1.Learning journal 1

understand positive emotions and try the ways to increase positive emotions

1.1brief description of the personal learning event

According to Fredrickson and Cohn (2009), there are ten important positive emotions in people’s daily life which includes joy, gratitude serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe and love. Firstly, the broaden-and-build theory indicates that positive emotions can lead to the extension of ideas and behaviors, which helps establishing resources that contribute to individual’s future success (Fredrickson &Cohn, 2009). It means that different from studying negative emotions to solve mental problem immediately, positive emotions contribute to people’s growth and development in a long term. In addition, positive emotion is so important cause it let people live longer and better. Fredrickson (2003) indicates that positive emotions not only can undo the effect of negative emotions but also would decrease the risk of illness. Hence, I think positive emotion is worth to study and I try to practice the ability to experience positive emotions in my daily life. How to improve the ability to feel positive emotions? According to Fredrickson (2003), people should develop ways to experience more positive emotions more frequently. In order to know how to feel more happiness in my daily life, I read the article in Moodle which named ‘Five Science Backed Strategies for More Happiness ’write by Newman (2016). This is a useful article which provides some simple strategies for me. I plan to try these methods for a week and record them. I choose Creating and Recalling Positive Events.

According to Newman (2016), in creating and recalling positive events, People need to spend a day to try three different happy activities. First, choose an activity that you can enjoy alone such as reading, listening to music or watching TV. Second, choose what you like to do with other people, such as going out shopping, cycling or watching movies. Third, choose an activity that you think is important and meaningful, such as helping your neighbors, calling for your parents, or volunteering for a local charity. At the end of the day, record what happens during the day and what your feeling after you did three activities

1.2 My action and reaction record：

Creating and Recalling Positive Events

Date: 23/09/2017

It’s Saturday, and I decide to do the Creating and Recalling Positive Events exercise. In the morning, I got up early, and I decided to enjoy something alone. I made a cup of tea for myself and open my kindle to read. I felt very peaceful and enjoyable. Without this exercise, I usually sleep until midday in the weekend, but today I have too many things that need to be completed. I found that morning is a good time for reading and thinking and morning time is so precious. Then I called my friend go out for shopping and we decided to go to city and try a famous dessert shop. We enjoyed an unforgettable afternoon tea time and bought cute clothes. We have not go to city for a long time so we both felt very happy. I think friends is important because you will feel happier when you share beautiful things with them. In the evening, I had a video chat with my mother. She is in China now and we very missed each other. We talked about family trip plan in the vacation and I felt very warm and happy.