BROMP 2.0

An Alternative to a New Year's Resolution: One Thing a Day (Opinion) Resolutions are intentions to make change, shift behaviors, and improve our lives. Good ideas, but I don't make New Year's resolutions.

The Difference Between Data and Evidence: What School Leaders Need to Know (Opinion) Data collection alone won't improve student learning. Here are 7 ways to take action.

Zhang, X., Mao, R., & Cambria, E. (2024). Multilingual emotion recognition: Discovering the variations of lexical semantics between languages. In 2024 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN).

Jonauskaite, D., Abu-Akel, A., Dael, N., Oberfeld, D., Abdel-Khalek, A. M., Al-Rasheed, A. S., ... & Mohr, C. (2020). Universal patterns in color-emotion associations are further shaped by linguistic and geographic proximity. Psychological Science, 31(10), 1245-1260.

biopen.bi.no

By mapping the meanings of the words used to communicate emotions across more than one-third of the planet’s spoken languages, a study in Science found that there is significant variation in how emotions are expressed across cultures. https://scim.ag/3ZJS6i6

The is ‘paroxysm.’
https://ow.ly/Olon50UaYlp

Color Is in the Eye, and Brain, of the Beholder The way we see and describe hues varies widely for many reasons: from our individual eye structure, to how our brain processes images, to what language we speak, or even if we live near a body of water

Crows Perform Yet Another Skill Once Thought Distinctively Human Scientists demonstrate that crows are capable of recursion—a key feature in grammar. Not everyone is convinced

Unexpected Brain Chemistry Is behind the Element of Surprise  Animals learn especially well from surprising events, and the hormone noradrenaline may be one reason why

Alexithymia

Loosely translated from Greek as 'No words for emotions'

“I’m fine”

Inability/difficulty to identify or describe one's emotions
This can lead to:
Anger; Confusion; Discomfort; Anxiety
Delayed emotional processing
Difficulty reading the expressions of others
Increased heart rate
Meltdown/Shutdown

It’s estimated that 1 in 10 people are alexithymic, but up to 1 in 5 of the Autistic community.
It’s also common among those that struggle with depression.

Alexithymia can make it difficult to express emotion, this doesn’t mean they don’t exist though.
Autistic people often have stronger emotions than the wider population, but if a person doesn’t know what it is they are experiencing, or why, then it can be difficult to process and translate.

This can create confusion, anger, panic, and overwhelm.
Not being able to detect physical sensations, such as adrenaline and heart rate (low proprioceptive sense) can make anxiety much worse, causing overwhelm to increase.

Being alexithymic can cause difficulty in emotional regulation, again leading to increased overwhelm, meltdown/shutdown, and burnout either by being reactively expressive or simply ignoring the emotions until they eventually explode.

Not being able or struggling to understand and process one’s intense emotions can make communication and relationships difficult, whether with family, friends, or partners.
There can also be difficulty in processing the emotions and situations of others, becoming situationally mute, shutting down, or even laughing at a serious situation. Simply because you don’t know how to process and react.

Talking with family, friends, or partners about how you feel (text, mouth words, etc) can help you to process the emotions and gain mutual understanding.

Not talking to others and trying to process by yourself can leave you feeling alone, misunderstood, and even depressed.
Talk to safe people, so that you aren’t alone with your thoughts, so they understand what and why you feel something.
This can help them to understand you, and for you to better understand yourself.
Say “I need time to process”, and allies, accept that “I don’t know” is a valid answer.

Help your Autistic friend, partner, or child by connecting a situation and/or environment to their emotion, and what led to the experience. Not the emotion itself.

Autistic people do not inherently need therapy, but if part of your profile is subject to e.g., depression, trauma, etc, then it would be sensible to use an Autistic experience informed therapist.
A non-Autistic experience informed therapist could do more harm.

An emotion wheel can be useful for yourself and others to understand what you might be experiencing.

Emotion wheel:
https://workplacefairnesswest.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/feelings-wheel.jpg

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