“What are emotions? Can they be managed?”
Dr. Kang Do-hyung, former professor of psychiatry at Seoul National University
The culmination of 20 years of body-brain-mind research!

Emotions are a flow that moves through time and the body.
《Emotion Clock》 is a psychological humanities book that explores the relationship between emotions and the body through these facts.
We stop wandering in the abstract space of the mind and look into our emotions through the concrete medium of the body, and try to recover our emotions by regulating our misaligned biological rhythms.
This book unfolds the story by following the ten body clocks that make up human emotions, focusing on the concept of the emotional clock.
Organs like the gut, heart, skin, spine, and hippocampus are conduits for emotions and starting points of rhythm.
Through daily routines and sensory meditations that explore the intersections of body and emotion, readers are guided to regulate their own emotional clocks.

This book argues that the illusion that we can perfectly understand and control our emotions, which is prevalent in countless books on emotions, is false.
And rather than rushing to offer advice to those who are emotionally swayed, or sending achievement-oriented messages about how to overcome emotions, we argue that emotions are the very way we live, and that they can be properly managed when we accept them as a fundamental part of our physical being.
This book will be helpful to those who want to recover their emotional sensitivity, those who want to understand the mechanisms of emotional development, and those who want to feel alive and emotional again as if they were children.

What I felt most strongly while conducting clinical research on the integrated body-brain-mind was the temporality of emotions.
The clients' depression was usually concentrated at certain times of the day.
Right after waking up in the morning, around 3pm, around 11pm.
The pattern was different, but the rhythm was clear.
Patients with panic disorder often reported worsening symptoms in the early afternoon, while those with depression reported the mornings as the most distressing.
The obsessive-compulsive symptoms were most severe around bedtime, and the anxiety often occurred in the empty hours right after work.
I started keeping a daily log of those times, noting what they ate, when they went to bed, how their digestion was, and how much sunlight they got.
Then I discovered something surprising.
The point is that emotions are not the result of stress or events, but rather the product of waves of bodily rhythms.
One client said that her anxiety always peaked around 10 a.m.


What was revealed through repeated counseling sessions was that this client skipped breakfast, drank only strong coffee, and then sat in front of the computer, working without moving.
She wondered why she always felt anxious around 10 o'clock.
I explained that during that time, the combination of low blood sugar, residual caffeine, and natural fluctuations in cortisol all contribute to anxiety.
It wasn't a mental issue.
It was a tangle of emotions created by the rhythm of the body.
I started treating the 'body' of patients who came to the 'psychiatry' department.
Your stomach, intestines, heart rate, body temperature, breathing, muscle tension, sleep hormones, and even the condition of your spine.
At some point, we began to believe that we could confine our minds to the brain and that emotions could be explained solely through the workings of the brain.
But I rather think that the clock of emotions operates as the mainspring of the body turns.
If this clock operates according to patterns that everyone has, it could provide a basis for measuring, managing, and regulating emotions.
--- From "Prologue: The Illusion of Understanding Emotions"

However, in my clinical experience, a significant number of people who come to the hospital for mental health problems have problems with their bowel function.
To be more precise, there are many cases where we live without recognizing the signals our intestines send and ignoring them.
I ask them again cautiously.
"The five reasons you just mentioned, weren't they something that's been around for a long time? So why is it so difficult to endure now?" The trauma happened years ago, his personality remained the same for decades, and his economic problems hadn't suddenly worsened.
But I held out well during that time.
If so, there may be a separate trigger that caused the pain to explode now.
Interpreting the mind is important, but from a therapeutic perspective, what we need to find first is a system that can intervene right now.
That's the chapter.
Trauma, personality, relationships, and financial problems are all things that are difficult or take a long time to control.
Even if it can be solved, it must be supported by extraordinary efforts and continuous environmental changes.
On the other hand, the intestines are an area that we can control from this moment on.
Changes are rapid and responses are relatively clear.
If the body is the ingredient, the brain is the cook, and the heart is the dish the cook creates.
If a dish goes bad, the cause could be the cook or the ingredients.
There is also a possibility that the systems between these two are out of sync.
Ultimately, what we need to do is redesign the entire cuisine—reorganize the body-brain-mind system.
--- From "Depression Begins in the Gut"

The heart is the metronome of emotions.
So how can we tune this metronome? Let's start our day with the rhythm of our heart.
As soon as you open your eyes in the morning, place your hand on your chest instead of your smartphone, and feel your heartbeat while taking deep breaths.
This routine is even more effective on days when you're anxious or busy.
The heart, the second spring of the emotional clock, is the standard tone that sets the daily rhythm.
If this standard is shaken, the entire day's emotions can be distorted.
Cardio routines focus on sensation and rhythm.
The simplest way is to start your day with five deep breathing exercises after waking up.
Inhale for 4 seconds, exhale for 6 seconds, and place your hands lightly on your chest and lower abdomen.
You should not try to measure your heart rate at this time.
We need an attitude of listening to the rhythm of the heart without judging or trying to correct it.
When the rhythm is transmitted to the fingertips and synchronized with the breathing, the emotional pattern also stabilizes.
From here, you can expand the training to visualizing the heart.
Close your eyes and imagine the weight inside your chest.
Imagine what color your heart is, what shape it is, and how fast it moves.
There is no right answer.
The important thing is to accept that this rhythm reflects your current emotions.
--- From "When the Heart's Rhythm Makes You Uneasy"

The spine is the invisible pillar that supports our emotions, sustains our attention, and enables us to make choices.
When the spine collapses, emotions become crushed and attention becomes scattered.
When you feel like you can't focus, you may actually be losing your focus.
So you need to train your body as much as you train your brain.
In particular, proprioception, the ability to recognize where the body is in space, especially around the spine, must be alive for emotions to find their place.
Only when we add a sense of posture and the central sensory integration that allows the brain to readjust the balance of the entire body is functioning properly can we reach a state of feeling emotions.
In other words, emotions must settle in the body before they can be interpreted by the brain.
This means that emotions can only become clear when the spine is aligned.
The same goes for attention.
Attention is not the ability to select information, but the ability to cut out unnecessary stimuli.
In other words, it is not a skill of selection, but a skill of cutting.
The ability to cut, ignore, and suppress.
When the center is shaken, this cutting sense disappears and we are endlessly swayed by emotional noise.
So straightening your spine is also a way to realign your emotional filters.
To feel emotions, you must first feel your center.
--- From "The Philosophy of Straightening Your Spine"

Researchers at Oxford University have discovered that the insula and prefrontal cortex are the brain regions that evolved most recently in humans, and are also the first to be affected by aging.
As chimpanzees age, the striatum, which is responsible for reward behaviors and habits, atrophies more quickly, while in humans, the insula degenerates first.
Evolutionarily, the abilities acquired last are the first to disappear.
The price is a decline in empathy.
The insula is responsible for higher-order functions such as empathy, morality, consciousness, happiness, and emotional regulation.
I think this is the mechanical basis of the emotional clock.
The insula is the intersection in the brain where the external world of time and the internal world of emotions meet.
When the insula isn't functioning properly, we can't recognize our emotions and connect them to the passage of time.


It means that you cannot regulate your emotions within the rhythm of time.
The problem is that most people live their lives forgetting how to use this island leaf.
In an age where emotions are hidden and suppressed, islands are increasingly becoming isolated, uninhabited.
Expressions like 'my stomach is churning', 'my chest is tight', 'my shoulders are heavy', and 'my head is dizzy' are all bodily sensations, and the insular cortex captures these sensations and gives them names as emotions.
However, when we are in a state of trauma or emotional numbness, the insula stops functioning.
Your body is still reacting, but you can't feel it.
For example, the insula of a person who is overcome with anger but does not recognize it as anger is not functioning.
The insula allows us to perceive emotional waveforms as part of ourselves, but when the insula is not functioning, those waveforms are just passing noise.
You become a person who appears normal on the outside, but cannot feel, connect, or explain.
--- From "If you ask about the existence of a country, look at the island leaves"

Let's say you're learning to dance.
Even if we struggle to keep the rhythm and move stiffly when we first learn to dance, we won't think of ourselves as "failures" or "slaves to dance."
Unless you have a great talent, most people have to move their joints little by little to get used to the rhythm and movements.
Rather than trying to control or suppress your emotions, you must first learn to listen to the rhythm of your emotions.
It may be awkward, confusing, and difficult to handle at first, but if you get into the rhythm and repeat it, you will get used to it.
This is not something that can be done all at once.
Just like learning a foreign language or learning to dance, a process of repetition and failure is necessary.
What this book aims to do is to speak to the inner workings of our bodies that we have neglected.
Through the practice of questioning, feeling, imagining, and communicating, the rhythm of emotions is restored.
You will be able to dance together without being in conflict with your emotions or giving in to them.
Emotions are not something that anyone seeks to control.
It only encroaches on those who are ignorant of the rhythm of emotions.

--- From "Epilogue: How to Live with Emotions"