Definition of the concept
What does the word "sentimentality" mean? The literal meaning is sensitivity. The name is derived from the French word sentiment, which translates as “feelings”. This is a personality trait in which a person perceives the world around him through the prism of feelings. In simple words, in the struggle between heart and mind, the heart always wins - there is too much sentimentality in a person.
What else is characteristic of a sentimental person? He reacts more sharply to any event. Emotions can be both positive and negative. A sentimental person is easy to surprise, impress, and delight. But he is just as easy to offend and hurt. In most cases, excessive sensitivity is manifested by a heightened sense of compassion and an enthusiastic attitude towards the world. What will not cause any emotions in one person will touch the sentimental one to the depths of his soul. Sometimes this manifests itself in tears for no reason or reason. True, to others, the tears of a sentimental person almost always seem causeless.
Note! Heightened sensitivity does not guarantee kindness, generosity, altruism and other qualities of virtue. A sentimental person can be an egoist, a cynic, an evil type. And often this is what happens if from childhood he realizes that his peculiarity is not accepted, if he is laughed at, mocked.
Lexical meaning of the word “sentimental”
Sensuality in Russian can be understood in different ways: as sexuality, touching, emotionality. That is why the existence of another word, “sentimentality,” is so important, which can express a state of strong sensitivity in relation to some object or event.
In addition, this word can also express a way of thinking. You can be a sentimental person who has highly developed feelings. This is a state when rationality fades into the background, and a person is consumed by emotions. Most often, these are not just emotions, but with a tinge of sadness, pity, that is, these are subtle feelings.
In Russian literature, sentimentality was attributed to gentle young ladies who constantly wanted to experience high emotions. Such feelings manifest themselves in love, in gentleness, in deep experience of even minor events. Sentimentalism is a whole movement in literature that glorifies this feeling.
Sentimentality in men and women
Most people consider hypersensitivity to be a trait typical of women and unforgivable for men. It actually has nothing to do with gender. At the same time, men tend to hide their emotions.
For the most part, women are indeed a little more emotional than men, which is due to greater mobility and plasticity of the nervous system. This is also due to the peculiarity of male and female thinking: the former think linearly (keep attention to only one thing, do not move on to another until they finish it), and the latter think systemically (keep a lot of attention, talk about everything at once).
Psychologists are also still arguing about the difference in thinking between men and women. But it is reliably known that sensitivity depends on the type of nervous system, that is, on temperament. People with a mobile type are more prone to sentimentality. This group includes sanguine and choleric people. But sentimentality is also influenced by the imbalance of the nervous system. According to this principle, the melancholic person joins the already mentioned temperaments. Temperament is an innate characteristic that is not related to gender. So it turns out that excessive sensitivity is also not related to gender.
Characteristics of a strong personality
Or perhaps sentimental is a description of a fairly strong-willed person? Some facts support this.
Emotional intelligence is on a par with that which is usually measured using an IQ test and is given greater importance. It helps us understand people better in order to build relationships with them.
And also - study yourself, control emotions in emergency situations, properly motivate for action (how is that?).
You can also vent your restrained anger in time by watching a touching video. Don’t accumulate it for a long time and then explode on your loved ones.
Self confidence
The team values more strict people who can control themselves and not show their emotions on their faces.
Therefore, the absence of fear of showing one’s true emotions is a manifestation of self-confidence, since a person does not try to please and please everyone.
Sentimental people will never tell others: “Stop crying!” or “Stop petting the cat!” They accept it in their environment. Therefore, they allow their interlocutors to be themselves and can support them. This always puts people at ease, even if they don’t know you well.
How to deal with sentimentality
Do we need to fight sentimentality? If you understand that it interferes with your work and personal life, is psychologically exhausting and physically harmful, then you need to get rid of it. How to do it? Use the anchoring method.
How to get rid of sentimentality and tearfulness for a woman or man:
- Choose any incentive. This could be a word (for example, “stop”), some object (what you will carry with you), sound, smell, etc. - anything.
- Practice interacting with this stimulus. What should be done? Form a stable association between the stimulus and the state of stability, rationality, and restraint. How to achieve this? Choose the state you want to feel instead of an attack of sensuality. Remember any situation in which you experienced exactly this feeling/state. Immerse yourself in it as much as possible, imagine. Example: silently or out loud say “stop”, then remember a situation of power (let’s call it that).
- Repeat the workout regularly. Your goal is to learn to immerse yourself in the desired state without much effort, just by looking at the stimulus or hearing it, feeling it (depending on what you chose).
- Exercise regularly at home, and not just in those moments when your feelings ask to come out. After 2-4 weeks you will notice the first lasting results, and after a couple of months you will be able to easily immerse yourself in the desired state, just by telling yourself “stop”.
How to get rid of excessive sentimentality
In order to restore healthy contact between your mental state and the outside world, you can use and practice the following exercises.
- "Here and now". Pause several times and ask yourself how I feel at the moment, what is happening around me. It is necessary to name all emotions from clearly understandable to light shades. It will be better if we describe them in different words. After such training, over time, a person will become aware of what is happening specifically to him and will not accumulate unconscious negative thoughts.
- “Psychic for empathy” - think about what your loved ones are going through right now. Then ask them and check your guesses. You can do this in public transport, in a store - fantasize about the feelings of others. A person will get used to the external range of emotions and will not react so sharply if a similar condition occurs. It also develops emotional intelligence.
There is no need to close yourself off from friends and relatives who evoke strong feelings. After a rich conversation with them, you can analyze which words and situations caused a flurry of emotions. So that next time it won’t be a surprise, train yourself to be more calm.
Many people find creativity helpful: drawing, writing poetry, dancing. Or playing sports, through which you can convert a storm of emotions into physical strength.
Examples of sentimentality
Heightened sensitivity occurs in all areas of life or only in one thing. For example, a person can be sentimental about animals and completely indifferent, or even cruel, towards people. Some people are sentimental only about joyful events, surprises, compliments, and romantic stories. And some people react excessively emotionally to criticism, remarks, insults, and tragic stories.
A sentimental person may cry when watching a film, hearing a story. Interestingly, sentimental reactions are more often associated with events in other people's lives or with fantastic stories. A person can react rather restrainedly to events in his life. This is due to the fact that excessive emotionality is most associated with compassion and empathy.
Insidious testosterone
This is a hormone that is produced from cholesterol in both men and women. Place of production: adrenal cortex and testicles in men, ovaries in women. The difference in the amount determined by gender is large - in men it is 6-7 mg, in women it is no more than 1 mg.
The main production of testosterone in men occurs in the testicles. The synthesis of the pituitary hormone, which is called luteinizing hormone, commands the synthesis. The production of luteinizing hormone by the pituitary gland, in turn, is controlled by the hypothalamus.
The reference point for starting and stopping synthesis is the level of free testosterone in the blood. When there is little of it, synthesis begins, and when there is enough or a lot, it ends.
The main purpose of testosterone is the formation of secondary sexual characteristics: a powerful skeleton, strong muscles, a low voice, hair on the body and face, natural aggressiveness. Regulation of sexual behavior and sperm synthesis is also his job.
The highest level of testosterone in men is observed from puberty to 45-50 years of age. After 45, the ratio of hormones changes: testosterone falls and estrogen rises. As a result, masculinity melts: the body becomes swollen, the mammary glands become somewhat enlarged, the phenomena of benign degeneration of the prostate appear, and cardiovascular problems begin. During this period, many men become whiny, although they deny it.
How can you influence the level of the main male hormone?
First of all, you need to know that the amount of free testosterone in the blood varies depending on the time of year and day.
Free testosterone is a hormone that is not bound by protein and circulates in the blood.
The amount of the hormone increases with the onset of spring warmth and increasing daylight hours. The seasonal peak is in July. Then the amount decreases, reaching a minimum in mid-September. Daily fluctuations are as follows: minimum from 0 to 3 a.m., maximum from 7 to 9 a.m.
Correction of hormonal status in men is carried out by an andrologist. It all starts with determining the level of hormones in the blood plasma, and if necessary, replacement treatment is prescribed.
Hormonal status is influenced by body weight, quality and quantity of night sleep, and physical activity. These points can be adjusted independently.
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The main sentimentality can be both positive feelings and values, and negative ones, those that make a person vulnerable and that contribute to the accumulation of negative emotions, suffering, and pain in his soul.
What is Sentimentality?
Well understood, Sentimentality is the ability to subtly feel and appreciate something truly positive, including memories and experiences. This also includes the moderate spiritualization of some material things, with which important memories and bright feelings for a person are associated (joy, etc.).
The ability to feel and appreciate subtly is good! But in this matter it is difficult to avoid extremes. After all, sentimentality can be based on bright feelings, on pure love, or maybe on attachments, on the inability to let go of something (for example, your past) or on pity, which is often a substitute for love.
Thus, if a person truly loves, he values both the feelings and values of other people. And if his sentimentality is based on ordinary affection, he values “his own”, but he may not give a damn about the feelings and values of other people. Because the basis of attachment is the most common egoism, which, by and large, is enemy No. 1 for true love.
Pity is also a 100% negative quality, which should not be confused with Sympathy and Compassion. A person has compassion for the soul, for the light that is in another person or animal.
Compassion is a deep understanding of the suffering of another, but not pandering to his weaknesses. And a person feels sorry for problems, evil, negativity, stroking them, justifying them, and thereby feeding and strengthening them.
Here's some insight into sentimentality I found on the Internet. From Nabokov:
“We must distinguish between sentimentality and sensitivity. A sentimental person can be extremely cruel in everyday life. A sensitive person is never cruel.”
A sentimental person is ready to cry at the sight of a sick dog and, at the same time, will remain deaf and indifferent to the suffering of millions of people, if only he does not see this suffering. Often sentimentality has nothing in common with love, but is only a painful impressionability that replaces love.
On the negative side, sentimentality may be based on deeply buried internal grievances, pain, self-pity and the usual habit of suffering, beautifully called nostalgia and sentimentality. This often happens to people who accumulate their disappointments with life and themselves. People who are not used to solving their problems and becoming stronger, who do not want to look into the future and build it, but prefer to live in the past, suffering for it.
The recommendation is this: don’t be deceived! With the desire and sufficient honesty with oneself, each person can determine whether his sentimentality is based on positive bright feelings or ordinary self-pity, some kind of attachment and suffering! The latter definitely destroys a person and blocks his future and the new opportunities that may enter his life.
And if we speak from the point of view of human qualities, then it is better to develop not Sentimentality, but ordinary human Kindness, which is a true strength, in contrast to sentimentality, which often hides a bunch of internal weaknesses and human vices that make a person vulnerable.
Best regards, Vasily Vasilenko
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Signs of hormonal imbalance
If, against the backdrop of a calm life without much stress, a man develops tearfulness, you need to look for the following signs:
- insomnia and fatigue, weakness;
- rapid increase in body weight;
- enlargement and swelling of the mammary glands;
- decrease in sexual desire, including morning erection, duration and frequency of sexual intercourse;
- formation of deep wrinkles, sagging and dry skin.
At the same time, self-esteem may decrease, the desire for self-realization and career ambitions may decrease, and the assessment of life prospects may deteriorate.
Tearfulness may be accompanied by irritability and increased sweating. If at least 2-3 of the signs listed above appear, you should not delay visiting a doctor. Laboratory diagnostics of the level of hormones - testosterone, estradiol, thyroid-stimulating, luteinizing, prolactin, adrenocortitropic and others - will help to quickly clarify the disorders that persistently exist in humans.
Hormonal status is quite accessible to drug correction. The main condition is to visit a doctor every quarter for laboratory monitoring of treatment.
Male menopause can proceed gently and calmly if you do not let things take their course. Talking to a doctor will help you understand that middle and old age has many attractive aspects. Enjoying the aesthetic side of life can sometimes bring more deep and conscious joy than simple physiological processes.
Beer alcoholism
One of the common causes of tearfulness in males with low educational qualifications. Unfortunately, the constant consumption of beer in many families is not considered something pathological.
Many people don’t think about the fact that beer is, first and foremost, a high-calorie drink. 100 ml of beer contains from 30 to 65 kcal. An ordinary half-liter glass contains more than 200 kcal, and together with snacks it reaches 300-400. “Too much” of calories is not the most unpleasant thing, much worse for men are phytoestrogens or hormone-like substances of plant origin that stimulate the restructuring of the body according to the female type. A beer belly, fading sexual feelings, flabbiness, sweating and tearfulness are direct consequences of an addiction to a foamy drink.
