What emotions are and how they function

We all feel emotions every day, but how often do we stop to understand what they really are and how they work? 

Joining Michael for this episode is Ethan Kross, a renowned authority on emotion regulation and author of Shift: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You, for a conversation about the science behind how our internal dialogue affects health, performance, and relationships. 

Ethan explains what emotions are, how they function, and the importance of teaching emotional regulation skills from a young age. 

He also covers various tools and strategies that can help you manage your emotions more effectively, shares examples from his books, and highlights significant studies.

Listen and Learn: 

• Why we have emotions and how they quietly shape our thoughts, bodies, and actions in ways most of us don’t fully notice
• Why meaningful moments almost always come with emotional friction, and what that reveals about living a purposeful life
• The 50-year study that shows how early emotion skills shape health, money, and relationships
• What happens when logic is pushed too far, and emotions are removed, and how science suggests a more balanced approach that quietly shapes better outcomes in work, relationships, and life
• Why managing emotions isn’t about suppressing them, but learning how you can use the right tools at the right time to keep them working for you instead of against you
• Simple mental shifts that help you move through discomfort and emotional blocks faster

Resources: 

• Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You https://bookshop.org/a/30734/9780593444412 
• Ethan’s Website: https://www.ethankross.com/
• Emotion & Self Control Laboratory: http://selfcontrol.psych.lsa.umich.edu/
• Connect with Ethan on Social Media: 
• https://www.instagram.com/ethankross/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekross/

About Ethan Kross

Ethan Kross is one of the world’s leading experts on emotion regulation. An award-winning professor and bestselling author in the University of Michigan’s top- ranked Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business, he studies how the conversations people have with themselves impact their health, performance, decisions, and relationships.

Ethan was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude. After earning his PhD in Psychology from Columbia University, Ethan completed a post-doctoral fellowship in social-affective neuroscience to learn about the neural systems that support self-control. He moved to the University of Michigan in 2008, where he founded the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory.

Ethan’s research has been published in Science, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other peer-reviewed journals. He has participated in policy discussion at the White House and has been interviewed on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, and NPR’s Morning Edition. His pioneering research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, The Economist, The Atlantic, Forbes, and Time.

Ethan is the two-time National Bestselling author of SHIFT: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You and  CHATTER: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters and How to Harness It. His books are routinely featured in the worlds’ top media (e.g., New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC, The New Yorker), have garnered multiple accolades and been translated into over 40 languages. 

Related Episodes:

• 309. The Language of Emotions with Karla McLaren
• 265. The Power of Emotions at Work with Karla McLaren
• 183. Permission to Feel: Emotional Intelligence with Marc Brackett

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