Depressed people experience what is called a "downward spiral" of negative emotions. Depressed emotions call forth negative memories that feed more negative thoughts, that feed more negative memories, that feed more depressed emotions. Breaking this downward spiral is crucial to stopping the depression.

Psychologists have found what they call an upward spiral of positive emotion. Positive emotions produce a different way of thinking and acting. The thinking becomes creative and broad-minded, and the actions become adventurous and exploratory. This increased creativity and exploration results in greater expansion.

Often negative emotions and thinking are taken more seriously because traditionally they have been believed to be the evolutionary backbone of human motivation. It was believed that people are motivated primarily to avoid experiencing negative emotions and that positive motivation was merely superficial.

But positive emotions are just as real, authentic and important as negative emotions and are equally important for development, growth, and success.

Positive Emotions Lead to More Successful Interactions in the World

Experiencing more positive emotion results in more friendships, stronger love, better physical health, and more successful interactions in the world accompanied by a sense of mastery. Growth, positive development, and creative and successful interactions in the world (i.e. mental health) may have their foundations in the experience of positive emotions and thinking.

Happy people tend to view themselves subjectively as more successful in the world. Happy people remember more good events than actually happened and forget more of the bad events that happened Happy people see success as lasting, personal and pervasive and failure as impersonal, temporary and specific. Happy people may lose a bit of realism but this does not lock them into ineffective functioning. Happy people are more likely to switch tactics when involved in a task that appears to be failing. In the normal course of events, happy people rely on their tried and true positive past experiences while less happy people are more skeptical. However, when events are threatening, happy people, more readily than less happy people, switch tactics and adopt a skeptical and analytical frame of mind. Happy people seem to deal better with adversity.

Happier people are markedly more satisfied with their jobs than less happy people. Happiness increases productivity and results in higher income. Happiness also makes gainful employment and higher income more likely. Adults and children who are in a good mood select higher goals, perform better, and persist longer on a variety of tasks.

Happy People Are Healthier

Positive emotions result in better physical health. Positive emotions predict health and longevity and protect people from the wear and tear of aging. Positive emotions strongly predict who lives longer, who dies earlier, and who will become disabled. Happy people seek out and make use of more health risk information. Happy people have better health habits, lower blood pressure, and stronger immune systems than less happy people. They endure pain better and take more health and safety precautions when threatened. Positive emotions and thinking prolong life and improve health.

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