Why Do I Randomly Feel Sad Then Hsppy Again After While

"I am both happy and sad at the same time, and I'thousand notwithstanding trying to effigy out how that could be" — "The Perks of Existence a Wallflower"

Talk nearly mixed emotions. A happy-pitiful land can be as perplexing to people as to psychologists.

This is not about "smiling depression," where someone feels emotional pain, only masks those feelings with a happy façade. Rather, it's truly experiencing those two conflicting emotions at once.

Khloe Kardashian recently tweeted about going through it when her baby reached a milestone.

Is it possible to feel happy and deplorable at the aforementioned fourth dimension?

Jeff Larsen, a psychology professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has been trying to answer that question for almost twenty years.

"We certainly have a whole bunch of evidence that it is possible," Larsen told TODAY. "Typically, the emotional landscape is laid out in such a way that we're feeling 1 or the other, or neither. There are places where we tin can feel both, and those places are few and far betwixt, merely they're interesting."

When he simply asks people if information technology'due south possible to feel such mixed emotions, most people immediately say "yes," he noted, showing how universal the experience is.

Merely Larsen takes a more scientific approach. In his experiments, he's asked people to watch a clip from a bittersweet movie — "Life is Beautiful," starring Roberto Benigni, to be verbal — and press 1 button if they felt happy, some other button if they felt sorry, or both buttons at the same time if they felt both emotions at one time. It turned out virtually one-half pressed both happy and sad buttons at in one case, though not for very long.

Larsen believes the feel is rare, but possible. In other words, we usually don't feel happy and lamentable at the same time, just nosotros can feel that way.

Yale Academy psychology professor Laurie Santos, who is teaching an extraordinarily popular course on how to be happy, agreed it's possible for people to feel both positive and negative emotions at once.

"This is i of the reasons that most scientific scales for emotion include a dissever dimension for positive emotion and negative emotion — they're not a continuum," Santos said.

When does it happen?

Scenarios that often trigger a happy-sorry country include bittersweet events like graduations or a move to a new urban center for a job — situations when you're sad almost leaving, but happy about new opportunities, she noted. Endings that are likewise beginnings brand these "emotionally-rich" events, Larsen added.

Another mutual scenario is the expiry a loved one, typically a grandparent, who has passed abroad after a adept, long life — especially if the person was suffering and you recollect a better life awaits in the world beyond, he said.

Our mind has the range to feel both happy and sad at the aforementioned time to assist us adapt, psychologists believe.

"Human beings accept the near sophisticated minds in the history of the planet and we have these complex minds, in part, because we alive in a complex world," Larsen said.

"Much as we might like stimuli and events to come up at us one at a time, that's not how the globe works. Maybe you get good news and bad news within the space of a minute."

He cited the example of a man whose daughter survived a plane crash, but whose wife died in the aforementioned disaster in 2009.

If you are feeling happy and lamentable at the same time...

• "The first thing would be to just say is that it may non be unusual — information technology may brand sense. It may not be a bad thing. It may be a sign," Larsen said.
• Ask yourself why you feel this way. There might be a lesson in the experience, Larsen said. Work through your emotions; don't just push them away.
• Sadness is oft thought to be a sign that you need to step dorsum, take stock, come across where you've been and see where you should be going, Larsen said. When ane chapter in life has concluded and another is commencement, that can be a actually skilful thought, he noted. It doesn't take anything abroad from the joy and pride of the accomplishment.

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Source: https://www.today.com/health/it-possible-feel-happy-sad-same-time-t128850