Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and none of this should be misconstrued as medical advice. I am merely an inquisitive cartoon on the internet with a strong interest in mental health. You should consult with a medical professional before making any changes to your life and should not disregard their advice because of things read here.
Emotional Contagion
You’ve heard the age old adage that “you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with” from life coach and motivational speaker Jim Rohn. Yet, most people look at this in terms of your career or your habits or lifestyle. Today, we’re going to look at it through the lens of emotions and mood, establish the connection, and change the way you look at your social life.
Emotional contagion is the idea that emotions spread from one person from one another, like an infectious disease would. You’ve heard that people imitate one another in conversation, but goes beyond just that. You may feel anxious when engaging with someone who is anxious, at peace when engaging with someone who is calm, or defensive when engaging with someone who is constantly aggressive (whether or not they realize it). Humans have this innate gift to empathize with others when interacting with them, albeit at varying degrees.
Let’s look some mechanisms for this…
Mirror Neurons
Mirror neurons are specialized types of cells in our brains that light up when we see someone else doing something. For example, if you saw someone else picking up a glass of water and drink it, your neurons in your brain would light up as if you were picking up and drinking that glass of water yourself (see more).
You can feel what other people are feeling and you will be more likely to do what other people are doing around you. If you are surrounded with people who are constantly complaining, lack motivation, are couch-ridden, or compulsive binge-eaters, your brain will pick up on this and it becomes more likely you will feel this way yourself.
Emotions Spread Like Infectious Disease
This paper “formally demonstrated that emotions can be thought of as infectious diseases spreading across social networks.” Depending on how close you are to someone and your shared contacts, emotions will spread to one another at varying degrees.
The Ripple Effect
This paper, written from a human resources perspective, explains how emotions can “ripple” from leaders of an organization down to the workers. Those at the top set the vibe for the entire group.
Why This Matters
Take responsibility for your emotions and vet those around you. People can feel your energy— whether it’s off because of childhood trauma you haven’t worked through, insecurities you’re holding on to, poor sleep habits, not nourishing yourself properly, anxieties about your future. If you resolve and fix these things, you will create a beautiful energy to radiate to others. Culturally, we’ve lost a lot of the wisdom that previous generations have tapped into regrading this.
Side Note: This isn’t something to become neurotic about or self-attack yourself with. Don’t attack yourself because “your energy is off that day” or “you could be doing better”. Use this as motivation to develop awareness of your own state.
Let’s look at this example: if you’re surrounded by people that are constantly picking up food, odds are you’re going to get fat too. There’s a study that quantifies this— “a person's chances of becoming obese increased by 57% (95% confidence interval [CI], 6 to 123) if he or she had a friend who became obese in a given interval.” Extrapolate this to not just overindulging on food but also complaining, being lazy, being pessimistic, etc.
How It Happens Over The Internet / Media
Vet what media you consume (see article here). If you’re chronically watching videos that only talk about how bad the world is, how messed up we are, that there’s no hope for the future, you’re going to develop a negative view of the world. While a lot of those “conspiracy” type thoughts I agree with, if those are all you’re tuning into you’re going to miss out on what’s good about the word. If you’re only listening to music that’s sad, lonely, or heartbroken, those emotions will find their way into your energy field.
Side Note: On the flipside of this, what does how you convey yourself through the internet say about yourself? Are you putting out anxiety and blackpills into the world? Or uplifting those around you?
How to Set This Up In Your Favor
Create an island in your life of people that have ambition, gratitude, things going on, and have done the personal inner work. Now, I’m not saying to go and cut off anybody in your life that has a bad day. What happens when you need a shoulder to lean on? But, if there’s someone in your life who consistently overflows anxiety, worry, lack of ambition that will rub off on you— whether or not you realize it. However, we can create that upward spiral environment where positive vibes are bouncing off each other and moving the energy upwards. Find a way to do this.
Surround yourself digitally with people who lift you up. There’s more than a few accounts on Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube that are constantly putting out whitepills and actively working to make the world a better place. You become like those who you are around the most.
As always,
Thank you for reading and please let me know if you have any questions or coments.
Chi