Explore the emotional landscape of life and identify those hard to define feelings with these fascinating talks.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with positions in psychiatry and radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

The words we use to describe our emotions affect how we feel, says historian Tiffany Watt Smith, and they've often changed (sometimes very dramatically) in response to new cultural expectations and ideas. Take nostalgia, for instance: first defined in 1688 as an illness and considered deadly, today it's seen as a much less serious affliction. In...

Many of us are witnessing a tyranny of positivity right now -- with calls to "find the silver lining" and "stay positive" amidst a global pandemic. But we are wired to feel negative at times. Contrary to what our culture tells us, accepting our negative emotions can have tangible and powerful benefits. Learn how to rethink happiness and positivi...

You manage your own emotions at work -- and your coworkers' and customers' emotions, too. How do you do it without burning out? To find out how to get into character, deliver a great performance and avoid exhaustion, Adam Grant talks with actor John Lithgow and takes you inside the call center at Zappos as well as the hospitality philosophy of a...

Computers can beat us in board games, transcribe speech, and instantly identify almost any object. But will future robots go further by learning to figure out what we're feeling? Kostas Karpouzis imagines a future where machines and the people who run them can accurately read our emotional states — and explains how that could allow them to assis...

Tiffany Watt Smith investigates the hidden cultural forces which shape our emotions.

After a week of studying, you feel confident that you'll ace your exam. But when you get your grade back, it's much lower than you expected. You're devastated, and the disappointment is hard to shake. Should you be trying to look on the bright side? And is controlling your emotions even possible? Explore techniques to help you identify, understa...

Your money habits reveal a lot about you: your hopes, fears, dreams and other deep personal truths you may not even be aware of, says accountant Robert A. Belle. He shares how taking stock of your transaction history can unlock surprisingly valuable insights about what drives you to spend (and save) -- and provides practical tips on how to perfo...

Do human emotions have a role to play in science and research? Material researcher Ilona Stengel suggests that instead of opposing each other, emotions and logic complement and reinforce each other. She shares a case study on how properly using emotions (like the empowering feeling of being dedicated to something meaningful) can boost teamwork a...

Can a smartphone add a new dimension to fostering mental health? Margaret Morris reveals how subjects successfully interacted with their phones throughout the day -- mapping moods, charting physical responses and getting instant ideas on confronting situations -- and rather than expressing concerns about privacy, they wanted to share their emoti...

It's not just your imagination -- you're more irritable when you're low on zzzzs. Sleep scientist Matt Walker explains how our nightly slumber affects the emotional centers in our brains, and why we can think of sleep as first aid for our feelings.

Can you look at someone's face and know what they're feeling? Does everyone experience happiness, sadness and anxiety the same way? What are emotions anyway? For the past 25 years, psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett has mapped facial expressions, scanned brains and analyzed hundreds of physiology studies to understand what emotions really...

Computers are being taught to learn, reason and recognize emotions. In these talks, look for insights -- as well as warnings.

Every culture assigns stigma or value to different styles and levels of emotional expression, creating an instinct to repress or reject feelings associated with discomfort. Psychotherapist Artūrs Miksons lays out the benefits of discarding unhelpful social stigma and explains why expressing our emotions constructively can help build resilience t...

"You can't just flip a switch when you step into the office and turn your emotions off. Feeling feelings is part of being human," says author and illustrator Liz Fosslien. She shares why selective vulnerability is the key to bringing your authentic self to work.

Life is a constant state of both joy and sorrow, dark and light, bitter and sweet. In a meditative conversation, author Susan Cain explores how being attuned to the bittersweetness of life -- and being fully present for both the happy times and the sad times -- helps us navigate love and loss and connect to the "insane beauty" of the world. (Thi...

Your money habits reveal a lot about you: your hopes, fears, dreams and other deep personal truths you may not even be aware of, says accountant Robert A. Belle. He shares how taking stock of your transaction history can unlock surprisingly valuable insights about what drives you to spend (and save) -- and provides practical tips on how to perfo...

John Koenig loves finding words that express our unarticulated feelings -- like "lachesism," the hunger for disaster, and "sonder," the realization that everyone else's lives are as complex and unknowable as our own. Here, he meditates on the meaning we assign to words and how these meanings latch onto us.

Difficult emotions can get under your skin if you're not careful. Sport and performance consultant Jessica Garza calls this the "jumping cholla effect," inspired by a sneaky kind of cactus that detaches and burrows its spines into unsuspecting passersby. In this empowering talk, she shares four mood-regulating strategies to help you gain self-aw...

Intriguing fact: adults who share a recovery room with children recover faster than those who don't. But why? Erick Brethenoux wants to deconstruct complex human emotions by applying big data analytics, so that positive learning like this can be applied more widely. But he also sees the potential for abuse, and explains why we need to tread care...

How do dogs feel about their owners? In this talk, neuroscientist Dr. Gregory Berns explains how advanced brain imaging technologies could help us answer better understand the emotional bonds that exist between humans and our canine companions.

"Life is an endless sushi conveyor belt of things that are going to test you and teach you at the same time," says writer Laurel Braitman. Exploring the relationship between bravery and fear, she shares hard-won wisdom on love, loss, self-forgiveness and how to embrace the full spectrum of human emotions.

Many of us are separated from people we typically rely on. Others are sharing space in closer quarters than they're used to. How do we navigate our relationships under these tough new conditions? Susan is joined by Dr. Julie Gottman, the president and cofounder of the Gottman Institute and Affective Software, Inc. As one of the world's foremost ...

The 40 or so muscles in the human face can be activated in different combinations to create thousands of expressions. But do these expressions look the same and communicate the same meaning around the world regardless of culture? Is one person's smile another's grimace? Sophie Zadeh investigates. [TED-Ed Animation by Estúdio Bacuri]

Picture your favorite place in nature. How would you feel if it disappeared tomorrow? In this love letter to the planet, social worker and environmental activist Knut Ivar Bjørlykhaug invites us to confront the deep, difficult emotions -- love, sorrow and even rage -- born from climate-driven ecological loss in order to act in service of our col...

"A record of our emotional life is written on our hearts," says cardiologist and author Sandeep Jauhar. In a stunning talk, he explores the mysterious ways our emotions impact the health of our hearts -- causing them to change shape in response to grief or fear, to literally break in response to emotional heartbreak -- and calls for a shift in h...

In 2018, an orca called Tahlequah gave birth. But her daughter died within an hour. Tahlequah, however, didn't leave her body. Over the next 17 days and 1,600 kilometers, she kept it afloat atop her own. By altering her feeding and travel patterns, Tahlequah's behavior was certainly unusual. But was she mourning— or just confused? Barbara J. Kin...

Our emotions influence every aspect of our lives -- how we learn, how we communicate, how we make decisions. Yet they're absent from our digital lives; the devices and apps we interact with have no way of knowing how we feel. Scientist Rana el Kaliouby aims to change that. She demos a powerful new technology that reads your facial expressions an...

Can conflict actually bring you and your partner closer? It depends on how you fight, say Julie and John Gottman, the world's leading relationship scientists. They share why the way couples fight can predict the future of their relationships — and show how anybody can transform conflict into an opportunity for deeper connection and understanding.