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Giant Brain Candy: A Word That Quiets the Alarm. When people chose a word for the feeling on an emotional face, like ‘angry’ or ‘scared’, their amygdala, the brain’s alarm, responded less, and a prefrontal region grew more active. Source: Putting feelings into words.
Strong evidenceThe research
  1. Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428.
  2. Torre, J. B., & Lieberman, M. D. (2018). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling as implicit emotion regulation. Emotion Review, 10(2), 116–124.

Journey 2 · Awareness

A Word That Quiets the Alarm

When people chose a word for the feeling on an emotional face, like ‘angry’ or ‘scared’, their amygdala, the brain’s alarm, responded less, and a prefrontal region grew more active.

Source: Putting feelings into words · Strong evidence

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