Have you ever spent time with an angry person and noticed a lingering sense of anger afterwards? Or spent time with an upbeat and noticed yourself feeling more energised after the encounter? To explain this phenomenon scientifically, a fascinating study by Mujica- Parodi et al. found that emotions can be sensed through odour. The study took sweat samples from novice skydivers after jumping 13,000 feet (stressful condition), and individuals after treadmill running (controlled condition).
Participants under an fMRI brain scan were asked to smell each sample. Remarkably, when participants smelt the stressful condition samples, their amygdala was activated [1]. The amygdala is a brain region associated with fear [2]. This study is fascinating, particularly because we now know that emotions are contagious and can be imperceptibly detected through smell, so be careful who you are smelling. You are not just smelling them, but smelling their internal emotional state, consequentially impacting your internal emotional state.
Your emotions have an impact on the world. Imagine you are a cloud. You wake up with a negative and pessimistic outlook on life. You nag your family and hurt their feelings, pouring droplets of regret and resentment upon them. You send subliminally rude messages and continue to carry your pessimism around people throughout the day, dribbling some insecurity and doubt on them. You notice everything that is wrong in the day, the world, and people, always having something to complain about to your friends, leaving drops of uncertainty and fear over them. You end the day continuing to digest more negative media, engaging in negative conversation, using negative words, perpetuating your negative outlook on life, repeating the cycle over and over. This negative attitude is harmfully contagious. Progressively persisting this attitude will result in the negativity and pessimism to transfer to your family. Soon enough, the whole house has become a negative bubble. Attitudes and emotions are contagious. Familiar with the effects of how pathogenic diseases like COVID-19 work, attitudes, and emotions are a similarly contagious concept.
On the contrary, imagine you wake up in the morning acknowledging your weaknesses and the presence of any negativity, but make a firm choice to be a cloud of optimism and positivity. You are shining brightly as you encounter your house members in the morning, pointing out nice things about them, showering them with confidence and determination for the day ahead. Throughout the day you offer random compliments and smiles, sprinkling droplets of hope and possibility on the people you encounter. Due to your positive attitude you notice possibilities and solutions. You make your friends laugh and offer them solutions to their problems that you noticed due to your open perspective, showering them with gratitude and happiness. You process your emotions in healthy ways ensuring not to leave droplets of subliminal negativity around. Your positive attitude continues to rain onto your house, infecting them with joy. Eventually, the whole house is glistening with positivity. Over time, this infects your neighbours who continue to rain their optimism onto the community.
In due time, the entire neighbourhood illuminates shared values of positivity; joy, hope, optimism, kindness, compassion, and community. This community now actively creates programs, groups, and activities that maintain and spread their shared values. With enough clouds in this glistening community pouring drops of positivity, this evolves onto the city. At the city level, communities become connected, social capital increases with increased bonding and bridging between communities, as Robert Putnam described in Bowling Alone [3]. With each city being happy and resilient, it results in a happy and thriving nation.
Your attitude can affect a magnitude of people. Every morning that you wake up, you can choose to be a cloud of negativity pouring misery, or a cloud of positivity pouring hope and joy. Make the choice, and make the effort to take care of your mental hygiene, for yourself, for your community, and for the world. Be mindful of your thoughts, actions, and words as they are the droplets you spread with you wherever you go. Making the world a happier place, one cloud at a time, one drop at a time. A drop may seem insignificant, but together it creates a waterfall. What ripple effect do you leave behind?
- Mujica-Parodi, Lilianne R et al. “Chemosensory cues to conspecific emotional stress activate amygdala in humans.” PloS one vol. 4,7 e6415. 29 Jul. 2009, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006415
- Ohman, Arne. “The role of the amygdala in human fear: automatic detection of threat.” Psychoneuroendocrinology vol. 30,10. 2005, doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.03.019
- Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2020.
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