Emotion can be described as an excited state of mind or moving of the feelings in reaction to certain thoughts or stimuli. They can be positive as well as negative. The positive emotions are those which make a person happy. Love, happiness, pleasure, pride and success etc. can provide the basis for positive emotions. On the contrary, negative emotions make a man sad and unhappy and they are manifested in the form of anger, fear, hatred, disappointment etc. The negative emotions are basically harmful and sometimes lead to self-destruction.
Many doctors believe that the newborn babies or neonates have no emotions at all. They learn them through their environment and socialization just as they learn to walk and talk. A young child, for example, may not be afraid of a growling dog or a snake unless it bites the child. Then he may develop a fear, as he gradually learns about their aggressiveness and avoid them in future.
Emotion is sometimes considered as opposite to reason or rationality when it results from passions. This case arises when actions are more spontaneous and performed without a reasonable control over one’s mind at that time. The emotional activity is an expression of one’s past learning and experiences.
Emotions cause many chemical changes in the body which is a part of the body’s defence mechanism. For example, if a person is in a dangerous situation, his adrenal gland sends a hormone called adrenaline into his blood stream. As the blood travels, the adrenaline makes his heart beat faster, sending more blood to his brain and muscles. At the same time, more sugar enters his blood to give his body extra energy to handle the situation.
The emotional disturbances can cause various physical ailments like asthma, stomach ulcers, rheumatoid arthritis (stiffness of the bone joints) and hypertension. Hysteria is also a result of emotional disturbances. In this disorder, the patient feels that some part of his body is paralyzed though the organ is actually not paralyzed and the patient loses control over him and becomes repetitive in his actions.
Emotion is viewed in a context of subjective experiences, expressive behaviours and the activity of the nervous system which we call the neurochemical activity.