Mood Facts

Mood is your state of mind — whether you are happy or sad, angry or afraid, overjoyed or depressed.
Moods and emotions seem to be strongly linked to the structures in the center of the brain, where unconscious activities are controlled (see the brain).
Moods have three elements — how you feel, what happens to your body, and what moods make you do.
Some scientists think the way you feel causes changes in the body — you are happy so you smile, for example.
Other scientists think changes in the body alter the way you feel — smiling makes you happy.
The reasons why we react the way we do in certain a situation, such as feeling happy, is still unclear to scientists. But emotions like these are what make us unique as human beings.
Yet other scientists think moods start automatically — before you even know it — when something triggers off a reaction in the thalamus in the center of the brain.
The thalamus then sends mood signals to the brain’s cortex and you become aware of the mood.
The thalamus also sets off automatic changes in the body through the nerves and hormones.
Certain memories or experiences are so strongly linked in your mind that they can often trigger a mood automatically.
Scientists are only just beginning to discover how moods and emotions are linked to particular parts of the brain.

This entry is filed under Interesting Facts.