Hana Řádová, UČO 143637

Body – cognition – emotions and “everyday psychology”

Psychological knowledge are almost everywhere in our lives. Politicians, media or businessmen use it
to influence our behaviour. There is psychological counselling and therapy in the case of quite big
problems as mental disorder or traumatic situation. Sometimes we need career or relationship
counselling or when somebody needs to examine or test us.

One of the most interesting use of psychology knowledge is in everyday life. Everybody can step by
step develop his attention, memory, decision making, self-regulation, etc. to improve his
relationships, work, studying and generally increase his well-being.

There is one very simple and very useful piece of “everyday psychology” knowledge. It is mutual
relationship of body, cognition and emotions. Probably everybody knows, how emotions and
cognition influence body. If we are afraid of something, we shake, breath shallowly and faster. If we
think about food, we start to salivate. But there are also ways, how to change emotions and thoughts
through change on body level. Change in position of the body or in quality and quantity of breathing
can calm us down and eliminates negative thoughts. And other change, to the contrary, can make
stress or fear even bigger.

In conclusion the purpose of the presentation is to explain, how psychology influence our live and to
show a little piece of “everyday psychology”. That demonstration is based on knowledge of mutual
relationship of cognition, emotions and body and it is useful in wide range of situations, where we
need to influence our mood or mind in positive way.

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