#987 - Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett - The New Science Of Emotions, Anxiety & Brain Health

Modern Wisdom

Chris Williamson

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 August 2025

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Lisa Feldman Barrett is a professor at Northeastern University, psychologist, and a neuroscientist. Why do we feel emotions? From happiness and joy to anger, anxiety, and sorrow, emotions shape how we experience life. But what purpose do they serve, and how can we learn to manage them more effectively? Expect to learn the unique way each of us experience emotions and if the emotions like anxiety, anger and joy feel the same as everyone else’s, why we have emotions at all and what their functions are, how much of our life is actually experienced versus anticipated, how often people are mistaking dehydration, low blood sugar, or lack of sleep for ’being in a bad mood, what actually happens in an anxious brain, how to rebuild your psychological function after a period of chronic stress, and much more… Sponsors: See me on tour in America: ⁠https://chriswilliamson.live⁠ See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D, and more from AG1 at https://ag1.info/modernwisdom Get the brand new Whoop 5.0 and your first month for free at https://join.whoop.com/modernwisdom Get 10% discount on all Gymshark’s products at https://gym.sh/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM10) Timestamps: (0:00) Are Our Emotional Experiences Unique? (5:19) What is the Role of Meaning in Emotion? (10:46) Lisa’s Views on Objective Perception (19:26) Our Emotional Experiences Shouldn’t Control Our Agency (23:16) The Relationship Between Our Internal Conversation and Our Emotions (30:21) Should We Be Looking Back or Investing in the Future ? (39:13) Can Memories Be Lost? (49:21) What Drives Anxiety? (01:05:56) What is the Impact of Toxic Relationships on Our Health? (01:10:54) What Does Chronic Stress Look Like? (01:16:17) How to Rebuild After a Period of Stress (01:20:39) What Can't We Control About Our Emotional State? (01:25:23) We are the Architects of Our Experiences (01:28:11) Find Out More About Lisa Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	How unique is the way that we all experience emotions? Is your experience of anxiety or anger or joy the same as mine or different?
0:11.7	Well, I think the proper question to start with is your experience of joy on one occasion exactly the same as your experience of joy on another occasion. And I think what we know
0:22.7	is the answer is no, it isn't. That joy or anger or any other word for emotion really refers to a
0:32.1	population of instances that are variable, not infinitely variable, but variable and tied to the situation that you're in.
0:39.8	So sometimes anger is pleasant and sometimes it's unpleasant.
0:43.5	Sometimes it's, you know, you're full of energy during anger and other times you're not.
0:47.7	Sometimes your blood pressure goes up.
0:49.3	Sometimes it goes down.
0:50.3	Sometimes it stays the same depending on what actions you're taking.
0:55.5	And your actions differ in anger, right? People scowl in anger about 35% of the time, which is more than chance.
1:03.6	But that means 65% of the time people express anger in this culture, in Western cultures,
1:09.7	actually I should say in urban cultures, because it's in the East and the West.
1:14.4	This is meta-analytic evidence.
1:18.3	65% of the time you're doing something else with your face in anger.
1:22.7	You know, you might smile in anger, you might cry in anger, you might sit silently and plot the demise of your
1:28.0	enemy in anger. And half the time when you scowl, you're not angry. You're feeling something else.
1:33.9	So the point being that, you know, all this variation is not random, but it's not, you know,
1:41.8	anger isn't one thing, joy isn't't one thing so when you ask the question
1:46.1	is your experience of joy the same as mine i think what you mean is to say is um your
1:54.3	vocabulary of joy the same as mine is your distribution of joy is your population of instance is the same as mine, is your distribution of joy, is your population of instance is the same as mine?
2:03.7	And probably not, but there has to be enough overlap that we can communicate about it or else we
2:10.6	wouldn't be communicated, right?
	...

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