In a brand new episode of Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman’s “The Psychology Podcast”, noted psychologist, Todd Kashdan talks about the positive aspects of negative emotions. The psychologist makes known that it is good to be unhappy and sad sometimes. While over 80% people all over the world believes that happiness is the “be all and all” of things, psychologist Kashdan opines that the idea of braving out negative emotions can also help in the overall growth of character strength and personality.

People are trained into believing negative emotions are wrong!

The writer of “The Upside Of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self—Not Just “Good” Self—Drives Success and Fulfillment” reveals during his talk that according to his research negative emotions leads people to classify their successful achievements as  “dysfunctional moments”.  He says that a fight between partners may have the possibility of making a relationship stronger, but is often considered a failure because of the negative emotions associated with the event. This is because people are conditioned to believe that like selfishness and narcissism, dark or negative feelings are wrong.

Use the 80/20 rule for better mental health!

While not refuting the presence of certain scientific evidence that shows certain negative feelings to be the cause of insomnia, heart attacks and early death, Kashdan declares that one must not overlook happiness. He therefore espouses the 80/20 rule where 80% should be set aside for “positive” emotions and 20% for “negative” emotions. Even the Northwestern University as well as the University of St. Thomas in their studies talk about the advantages of optimism and pessimism, in addition to a study by the American Psychological Association that shows that the half empty glass theory is as good for people’s health and well-being as the half-full glass theory.