Does letting myself be carried away by my emotions make me less rational?

It is common to assume that there are more emotional people and others more rational. At the same time, we “almost” take it for granted that those who make more thoughtful and objective decisions eliminate all hints of the emotional universe from their cognitive mechanisms. Now, to what extent is this true? Are those who eliminate the “emotion” variable from their lives more successful and happy?

Absolutely not. Passion, fear, disgust, anguish, excitement, love… The human being is, above all, an emotional creature that reasons. Therefore, it is impossible to eliminate this factor from all behavior, from all decisions and conduct issued. As the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio rightly points out, if we did not have feelings, there would be no justice, nor medicine, nor art.

No problem is understood and solved with reason alone. Both spheres are mediators and decisive at the same time to shape our existence, to create the world in which we find ourselves. What we feel connects us first with ourselves, with our body and needs; then, with everything that surrounds us.

Now, knowing this, the next question we can ask ourselves is the following: what happens if we almost always let ourselves be carried away by our emotions? We analyze it.

Emotions are an essential part of reasoned decision making.

The world is not divided into emotional and rational people. We all act following both spheres.

What if I’m more of a person who lets myself be carried away by my emotions?

Our popular culture has long made us believe that emotions are from the heart and the heart is the opposite of the cerebral, the rational. Perhaps the person responsible for this premise is René Descartes himself. It was he who, with his famous phrase «I think, therefore I am», gave way to a stage in philosophy in which reason and enlightened thought understood emotions as something irrational.

These perspectives cause many people to assume that there is something wrong with them. Being more intense, experiencing each stimulus, experience and circumstance at a higher emotional volume, causes them to feel different.

Emotional awareness is an advantage, not a problem

It may be the case that those who let themselves be carried away more by their emotions may be because they have greater emotional awareness. This dimension refers to the ability to connect with one’s own feelings and those of others. It implies, in turn, differentiating them, understanding what message each sensation, each emotional state transmits to us, and then acting accordingly.

Research from the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, United States, points out something interesting. People with greater emotional awareness show a more reflective mental approach. Emotion and reason, in this case, work in harmony for our benefit and this is a great advantage.

Therefore, although it may surprise us, prioritizing the emotion and getting in touch with it to manage it is an intelligent and highly valuable response. The act or rational response does not exist if we have not previously attended to, regulated and channeled each emotion felt.

Letting yourself be carried away by emotions without reflecting on them is not appropriate

It is one thing to allow ourselves to feel each emotion and give them presence to understand them and quite another to allow ourselves to be carried away by them. This means acting impulsively. It also involves making more than one mistake, making hasty decisions and even getting trapped in emotional states of negative valence.

As we can well deduce, no one is interested in falling into this type of dynamic. Getting carried away by emotions without taking responsibility for them is what is truly dangerous. It is okay to give them presence, to listen to them, to tell ourselves that “I am very emotional” because I allow myself to express them. But beware, Every emotion felt has a purpose and that is to give us information that we must attend to and value.

It is not worth getting trapped in its message, we must interpret it and then decide how to act. Only in this way do we say better, only in this way do we adapt more effectively to an always complex context.

Our emotions are a powerful guide for decision making. Taking them into account is an advantage.

There is no rational mind and no emotional mind.

Many of us consider ourselves more emotional than the rest. Others of us assume that we act in our daily lives in a more rational and objective way. Now, having this perception about our personality is legal and understandable. However, what we should not accept as valid is assuming that there are two areas in the brain: one emotional and the other rational.

Also We must reformulate the idea that acting emotionally is being irrational. Because a good part of our behavior is conditioned by our emotions: compassion, affection, empathy and even avoiding risks when feeling the sting of fear. Emotions are also logical and even rational. What’s more, works like those from the University of Colombia insist on a fact.

We must stop categorizing emotional behavior as not very rational. Because, in reality, a good part of our behavioral record is mediated by both spheres. It is enough to keep one fact in mind. The prefrontal cortex, that area of ​​the brain where we carry out more complex executive functions, is connected to emotional regions.

We are all emotional beings trying to act rationally. Some will be more impulsive, others will have a more sensitive personality and some will show less or more emotional intelligence. But let’s remember, no one can remove the emotional variable from our behavioral equation. Otherwise, we would not be human. We would be machines.

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