“Sadness” is an emotion that absolutely all of us have felt on some occasion in our lives, being one of the four basic emotions of every human being, along with joy, fear, and anger. It is a state of mind that occurs due to an unfavorable event that usually manifests itself with external signs such as crying, pessimism, melancholy, lack of spirit, low self-esteem, in other states of dissatisfaction.
However, by nature, we try to avoid these “sad states” as soon as possible. For example, when we see someone sad, we want to help by encouraging them, telling them that nothing is wrong, or telling them to change their mood. Instead of understanding its cause.
Causes of sadness
Many situations involve “losses” in our life that make us enter into sadness. It could be losing a loved one, a partner, a pet, an opportunity, a job, an object, or suffering from an illness. Another type of situation that can make us sad is those in which we see that we could have done better. All of these and many other situations can trigger in us the emotion of sadness.
Benefits of sadness
Although you might find hard to believe, the fact of feeling sadness can bring us various benefits. When we are sad we become more reflective and introspective, this helps us integrate more profoundly into our system of beliefs, the loss that we are living, to learn from the experience and try to prevent future losses and how to better cope with them.
We can take advantage of these difficult moments to learn many things from and for ourselves. In moments of pain, we can spiritually grow by acquiring many emotional tools that we can use throughout our lives. On the other hand, it can work as an alarm signal for our loved ones since we all tend to help those around us who are sad.
Physical effects of sadness
The sad person experiences, among other effects, a decrease in muscle tone, the respiratory rhythm lowers. Heart rate, blood pressure, and skin conductance lower. All this affecting our overall well-being.
Outward expressions of sadness
The facial expressions of a sad person are characterized by:
-Elevation of the inner part of the eyebrows.
-Lowering of the corner of the lips.
-Head tilt.
-Looking down.
How to alleviate sadness?
Significant positive social contact with our loved ones. This sometimes is very hard when we feel sad, but we must “force ourselves” to share time with our loved ones and interact with them. Their support is essential.
Another suggestion is “music”, psychological studies show that starting the day with happy songs facilitates a positive attitude towards everyday events. Also, we can resort to the practice of activities we enjoy like hobbies, exercise, socializing, among other activities that you like.
Finally, we can say that the emotion of sadness can help us understand what is important to us in life; behind it may be the answer to what we value. Also, remember that sadness generates errors in thought processes, for this reason, we call you to use humor in your life, almost everything has a solution, let it be, relativize, find the fun side of life, and be happy.
