When you live in a way that , to some extent , meets all or most of the above needs , then you ' ll enjoy greater emotional stability and control . Knowing what you need in life is the first step to creating ' spare capacity ' to focus beyond your emotions . And you can see how not meeting the need for feeling secure or getting enough attention or feeling connected to people around you could cause you emotional problems . Really think about these needs and gradually pursue activities that are likely to help you fulfil them . In this way , you ' ll begin to feed the right tiger with the right amount of the right foods .
References
1 Delaying gratification and looking beyond immediate greed ( and yes , greed is an emotion ) seems to be an indicator of lifelong success and even better mental health . The marshmallow experiment is a well-known test of this concept conducted by
Walter Mischel at
Stanford University and discussed by Goleman in his popular work , Emotional Intelligence . In the 1960s , a group of four-year-olds were given a
marshmallow and promised another , only if they could wait 20 minutes before eating the first one . Some children could wait and others could not . The researchers then followed the progress of each child into adolescence and demonstrated that those with the ability to wait were better adjusted and more dependable ( determined via surveys of their parents and teachers ), and scored an average of 210 points higher on the
Scholastic Aptitude Test .
2 Ironson , G . ( 1992 ) Effects of anger on left ventricular ejection fraction in coronary heart disease , American Journal of Cardiology , 70 .
3 David Spiegal , MD and Sam Wilson , professor and associate chair of psychiatry and behavioural sciences , found that women with breast cancer and depression are at higher risk of cancer recurrence and early death than breast cancer patients without depression . The research suggested this was because of the way depression suppresses the immune system , making it harder to fight off disease . The research findings were published in the journal Brain , Behavior , and Immunity .
4 Strong emotion stops us thinking clearly . See Daniel Goleman ' s groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence : Why it can matter more than IQ , published in 1995 .
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