Feelings, Mindfulness and You

I am passionate about neuroscience as it relates to meditation and brain health. I also teach a beginning neuroscience class for stroke survivors - which has added to my sense of awe about neuroscience and the brain. In a recent class, we had just been talking about emotions and the brain. Coincidently, the topic also happened to line up with a podcast, The Huberman Lab, where Stanford professor Andrew Huberman mentioned a novel app developed at Yale called Mood Meter.  Even though it cost 99 cents - I couldn’t resist trying it.

I tried it for the first time the other day as I was heading out for a late afternoon walk. I was feeling upbeat and energetic at the end of a teaching day. Like mindfulness practice, Mood Meter invites us to let go of assumptions and be curious. In the app, I was guided to identify my energy level on the valance of pleasant or unpleasant. I was then invited select a color by sliding my finger around a color grid to find the word most associated with my current mood.  I was then asked if I would like to shift my mood, and if so, a simple suggestion was offered.

I was pretty sure I knew how I was feeling. I would have labeled it as something like “happy.”  In the app, I chose high energy and pleasant and a color that was somewhere in the pink or red family. Here, it was correlated with the word “surprised”.  I recognized that I was indeed feeling delightfully surprised that a particular class I taught unfolded so smoothly that day. The thing is, I never would have associate feeling surprised with my pleasant state. I had not recognized that I was feeling surprised -- and certainly not that my earlier teaching experience had this lasting influence on my mood, these many hours later.

Jon Kabat-Zinn describes mindfulness as “paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and without judgement.” Mindfulness is not only about “non-judging” but also about curiosity, non-striving, self-trust, patience, loving kindness, beginner’s mind, and acceptance/letting go. There is an element of discernment involved with mindfulness. If you use it mindfully, the Mood Meter can potentially support us to get away from default labeling of something like a mood, which may lead to insights and a refined ability to respond mindfully to our mood. This was my experience.

What about unpleasant feelings? Anxiety, for instance, is generally something unpleasant for us. If we are anxious, especially on a regular basis, we might make assumptions that it represents a specific and familiar emotional state. Mood Meter puts anxiety as a state of high energy/unpleasant. If we’re actually feeling low energy at that time, through Mood Meter we might discern a feeling like sadness or something else. The word anxiety can mean different things at different times. We miss out if we assume that we know for sure what we are feeling when we are anxious. Over time, our default labels can even tie in with our sense of identity.

Here’s an example of my own experience of what I would have labeled anxiety the other night. Late one evening, I came to realize that a very important and time sensitive email had never appeared in my in box or junk folder. Mood Meter helped me see that I was actually feeling a little angry and this made sense to me, because I had encountered this same issue with other emails from the same organization.I also did not like that “angry” was suggested as my feeling because sometimes I don’t like admitting to myself that I feel angry. I think that’s the case for many of us when it comes to unpleasant feelings. There was an opportunity there to fully acknowledge how strongly I felt about this particular situation, to honor my feelings, and to recognize that the intensity was likely tied also to being tired. This helped me care for myself and my feelings and also told me I needed sleep. Not bad for a 99 cent app!

The Guest House

by Rumi, who also reflected on feelings.

Translated by Coleman Barks

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

By recognizing and honoring all our feelings, we are more clearly informed about our needs, values and priorities. Sometimes this clarity is hard to come by, in which case the support of a friend, therapist, creative time, journaling - or even an app, can be a great support. Whether you are curious about mindfulness and feelings, gaining self-understanding, or just being curious about a cool app, I recommend the Mood Meter. Here is also a link to the Huberman Lab podcast on The Science of Emotions & Relationships and the brain where Andrew Huberman mentions Mood Meter. The video notes are time stamped so you can jump directly to that section (which happens to be at 19:03).