9781422287699

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OPT I MI SM AND SELF -CONF IDENCE

Researchers are learning more and more about the chemicals inside our brains that produce emotions.

may believe that the world really is a gloomy place where bad things happen. We believe our sadness tells us something about the outside the world. Really, though, our sadness only tells us about ourselves. It may have been triggered by something that happened in the outside world, but the feeling itself is inside our brains. Chemicals inside our brains cause the feeling of sadness. Our brain cells are what create the different emotions we experi- ences, including optimism and self-confidence. Scientists have researched human emotions. They’ve done ex- periments on brain cells. They’ve used machines like MRIs to actu- ally look inside people’s brains and see what’s going on in there.