Office Hours with Arthur Brooks

Episode: 3 Steps to Managing Your Emotions

Date: October 13, 2025
Host: Arthur Brooks

Brief Overview

In this episode, Arthur Brooks—a social scientist, Harvard professor, and happiness researcher—guides the listener through the science and practicalities of emotional self-management. The main focus is understanding the biological and psychological basis of emotions and learning actionable, research-backed techniques to help people manage their own feelings rather than being ruled by them. The episode blends neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and habits to offer listeners a roadmap to greater happiness, resilience, and teaching these principles to others.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Emotions vs. Happiness

• Happiness is not an emotion.
  • Brooks clarifies, “Happiness and feelings are related, like the smell of your turkey is related to your Thanksgiving dinner. Feelings are like the smell. The turkey is like the happiness.” (06:03)
  • Happiness is defined (scientifically) as a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning—not just a fleeting state of pleasure or feeling.

2. Triune Brain Theory: How Emotions Work in the Brain

• Describes the “triune brain” model:
  • Reptilian brain: Controls autonomic functions, constantly gathers sensory data (10:30).
  • Limbic system ("paleomammalian" brain): Converts basic signals into emotions; common across mammals.
  • Prefrontal cortex: The executive center, responsible for conscious decision-making.
• Emotional management involves moving the experience from the limbic system to the prefrontal cortex.
• Children are more reactive emotionally because their limbic-prefrontal wiring is incomplete.

3. Purpose of Emotions

• Emotions are not designed to make you happy or miserable, but to “alert you to threat or opportunity,” activating approach (positive) or avoidance (negative) responses (15:24).
• “There’s no such thing as bad feelings… Without negative emotions, you’d be dead in a week. They’re an alarm system.” (16:01)

4. The Four Primary Negative Emotions

• Sadness: Arises from loss, especially social rejection (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex).
  • “If you never felt sadness, you would not be afraid to lose things and people… you would say things and do things that would leave you friendless, fired, and divorced within about a month.” (19:57)
• Anger and Fear: Closely related (amygdala-driven), trigger the body’s stress response.
  • Example: Amygdala hijack leads to “fight or flight”; can result in regrettable outbursts before prefrontal cortex catches up (21:30).
• Disgust: Protects against pathogens (insula/insular cortex); reason for aversion to rotten food, etc.
  • “Before vaccines and antibiotics, all we had was basically our disgust system to alert us...” (24:19)

5. The Core Positive Emotions

• Joy: “The emotion that is often evidence that you have a lot of happiness in your experience.” (29:53)
• Interest: Drives learning and engagement.
• Surprise: Can be positive or negative, basis of humor (parahippocampal gyrus).
  • Shares a dad joke to demonstrate the brain's surprise-humor circuit (32:27).

6. Metacognition: The Secret to Emotional Self-Management

Brooks identifies three main strategies, emphasizing the need to engage the prefrontal cortex:

6.1. Give Yourself Time

• Classic advice: “Count to 10 when angry” (Thomas Jefferson; 33:59).
• Science suggests the right number is closer to 30. “By 30, you just saved yourself a trip to human resources. Congratulations.” (35:33)

6.2. Three Systematic Approaches:

• Knowledge: Understanding your emotional systems (e.g. “hands off my insula” when politicians try to manipulate disgust, 40:34).
• Contemplation: Deliberate practices such as meditation or religious reflection to analyze and interpret your emotions.
  • “I bring things to prayer every day… I can’t be saying those things without using my prefrontal cortex.” (43:24)
• Documentation: Writing emotions down—journaling—actively engages the prefrontal cortex.
  • “With a pencil, you have to use your prefrontal cortex. You can’t write limbically. It’s an executive thing.” (44:29)

Example: The Fear Journal

• Write down specific worries; force yourself to define best, worst, and most likely outcomes along with strategies.
• “What you’ve done is you’ve made it into a realistic scenario, kind of like what an insurance company does… This is your insurance policy vis a vis your prefrontal cortex.” (47:39)

7. The Importance of Negative Emotions

• Embracing and understanding negative emotions is vital. Each negative emotion has an adaptive evolutionary function.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Am I managing my emotions, or are they managing me?” (01:00) – Arthur’s signature question for self-reflection.
• “Your life is kind of like a startup. It’s the most important enterprise you’re ever going to run… the fortune you’re trying to create is love and happiness.” (02:10)
• “There are really three categories of techniques that you can use… knowledge, contemplation, and documentation.” (36:54)
• “Hands off my insula, man.” (40:54) – Brooks humorously encourages listeners to protect themselves from emotional manipulation.
• “Having a learning partner is the best thing. So that’s what I recommend. You want to be a teacher? Actually be a student together with somebody else.” (54:10)

Important Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------| | 00:59 | Opening premise: Are you managing your emotions? | | 05:40 | The happiness-emotion distinction | | 11:00 | Overview of the triune brain | | 17:40 | On the purpose and function of emotions | | 19:50 | Deep dive: Sadness and its evolutionary origins | | 21:30 | How anger & fear work in the brain (amygdala) | | 24:19 | Disgust and disease avoidance | | 29:52 | Positive emotions (joy, interest, surprise) | | 33:59 | Counting to 30: Slowing reaction, metacognition | | 36:54 | The three pillars of metacognition | | 40:34 | Political manipulation of emotions (disgust reflex) | | 43:24 | Contemplation: Meditation and prayers of petition | | 44:29 | Documentation: Journaling as a prefrontal activity | | 47:39 | Transforming anxiety via “fear journaling” | | 52:10 | Q&A: Faith and happiness | | 54:10 | Q&A: Teaching happiness to children/family | | 56:45 | Q&A: Choosing a happy job—earned success and service |

Q&A Highlights

Q1: Is happiness based on faith alone?

• No. “There are lots and lots of people who are not [religious] who are pretty happy… The reason that religion is so highly correlated with life satisfaction… is predominantly due to the fact that spirituality zooms you out… But the bottom line is you need something… that fills this function of transcendence.” (52:10)

Q2: What are good strategies for teaching happiness to family?

• “The best way to be a teacher is to learn together… make it your project to teach each other, to learn together, to remind each other.” (54:10)

Q3: What variables matter when considering a new job for happiness?

• “Earned success… the feeling that you’re creating value… and service to others. The essence of dignity in human life is being needed.” (56:45)

Summary Table: The 3 Steps to Managing Your Emotions

| Step | Technique | Key Action | |-----------------|-------------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------| | Knowledge | Learn the science behind emotions | Understand brain systems/mechanisms at play | | Contemplation | Reflect, meditate, or pray about emotions | Engage in contemplative practices for insight | | Documentation | Write/journal about emotions (“fear journal”) | Make worries explicit, run “mental insurance” |

Final Takeaways

• Emotional self-management is a learnable skill using scientific insights and practical habits.
• Negative emotions are necessary, not harmful. We should honor, understand, and manage them, not wish them away.
• Metacognition—conscious oversight of your emotional system—empowers happiness.
• Teach happiness by going on a learning journey together—be a student with your loved ones.

“Your emotions are something that you can understand, learn from, grow from, and manage better probably than you currently are. I hope you will.” (end)

For more resources or to take the emotional profile test mentioned, visit Arthur’s website or check the show notes.