Our happiness depends on the balance of negative and positive emotions. The more positive emotions, the happier the person. Many people face stress every day. They experience irritation, fear, anger, resentment, guilt. It seems to them that this is the case with everyone and that this is the norm. But in fact, there is an alternative way of living life. You can live your life so that it is filled with joy, interest, love, pleasure. Think about your level of happiness. Assess how many positive and negative emotions you have. What outweighs? Now take your level of happiness and remove all negative emotions from it. What will happen to your life then? Your happiness will reach its maximum, because there is room for it. Negative emotions no longer overshadow positive ones and you can fully feel them. Would you like to live like this? I think few people would refuse such a life. And how to achieve such a result? First you need to understand how emotions work, how they arise and function. Simonov's theory will help us with this. He explained how emotions work in one formula. E = -P(In-Is)E - emotionP - needIn - information necessary to satisfy the needIs - Existing information If the existing information about the method of satisfying the information is less than necessary, then negative emotions arise. If there is more information than needed, then the emotions are positive. And now more clearly with fear. Let’s say you’re taking an exam and you realize that you don’t know anything, not even the teacher’s name. You realize that the likelihood of achieving your need - passing the exam - is extremely low given your level of knowledge. Naturally, you feel fear. The same situation, but objectively you know all the tickets, attended all the classes, you have experience of successfully passing exams before, but for some reason you still experience negative emotions. Your interpretation may come into play here. You interpret your future as catastrophic. That is, you lack information in case the worst happens. “If I don’t pass, I don’t know how I will live further,” “If I get expelled, I don’t know what my future will be.” Or you assume what your future will be like and it is far from rosy. And you don’t have a strategy for how to cope with negative consequences - this is a lack of information. Let's look at it in a positive way. Let's say you are assessing the exam situation and assume that you have enough information to pass. You probably feel calm because you are confident that nothing bad will happen and your need will be satisfied. There can be two outcomes here. The first is that you will be able to pass the exam and then you will feel joy and satisfaction. The second one is not. Let’s take a closer look at the second option. In the second case, there will be a range of negative emotions due to the fact that you overestimated your strength. Your expectations did not coincide with reality, as a result of which you experience negative emotions. What is important to understand from this formula?1. If you want to reduce negative emotions, you need to get the missing information.2. To avoid disappointment, don't set unrealistic expectations. 3. To experience joy, you need to satisfy your needs. If you start working in this direction for at least a couple of months, you can significantly increase your level of happiness. By reducing negative emotions, we improve the quality of our lives.