The science behind EQJOY

Emotions are intertwined with our cognition and our bodily systems, such as the endocrine and cardiovascular system. Think about it, your heart beats faster when you are afraid, you feel hunger when your body needs food and your levels of oxytocin rise when you feel happy. You buy a shirt because you feel good in it, and you get sad just thinking about a lost loved one.

Emotions also shape our relationships with others and ourselves. Envy can make us avoid or even bully another, and shame may lead to self-loathing and -harming. On the other hand, compassion has the power to open up people’s hearts to each other, and to oneself. In the end, everything we do and think has an emotional aspect to it.

“I feel, therefore I am”

It should make sense, then, that emotional intelligence (EQ), the ability to identify, understand, manage, and use emotions, is important. But back in the days, it was believed that emotion and cognition were separate, and “being rational” was very different from “being emotional”. Emotions have long been dismissed, and that’s probably why so many of us haven’t had the chance to learn and build our emotional intelligence skills. It simply was not seen as important, or worse, emotions were seen as unfavorable. Thus, many of us have been used to just bottling them up inside. 

Bottling up, dismissing, or in other ways trying to control emotions usually doesn’t work in the long run, and may even lead to both mental and physical problems. We cannot escape our emotions, as they have such an important purpose to inform us about what is happening around us and inside us. Emotions are thus not good or bad in themselves, but like a road map, telling us where we stand, where we want to go and what we wish to avoid.

“All emotions are valuable. A joyful life is embracing the whole range of emotions, while choosing to act according to one’s values.”

Thankfully, during the last few decades, the importance of emotional intelligence has been increasingly accepted. The already extensive body of research on the subject shows that there are significant advantages of being emotionally intelligent. Children that identify and understand emotions tend to be socially competent and skillful at self-regulating behavior. Emotional intelligence may also protect against internalized problems, such as depression and suicidal behavior, and externalizing problems, such as aggressiveness. 

Further, emotional intelligence is also linked to better academic achievement. It should not really come as a surprise that understanding oneself and others, having the skills to express oneself in a harmless way, and being able to either regulate or effectively use emotions, have an impact on both wellbeing and performance. 

The thing is, few of us are able to build emotional intelligence alone, by ourselves. We need the support of others, we need models, and we need to work on it. However, building emotional intelligence does not have to be all serious and with a focus on problems! Children (and why not adults…) learn best by playing and when engaged, and that’s why we have developed the EQJOY card game and Emotion Explorer. 

“Learning about emotion and practicing emotion management at a quiet time makes it a lot easier -and a lot more fun!”

The EQJOY card game makes the learning process a social and active experience as well as personally relevant. If you want to know more about the game, check out our recently launched website eqjoy.com! The Emotion Explorer is for you to together explore art, poems, activities and more, relating to the different emotions. Hop out in the universe to get started exploring! 

Check out the EQJOY.COM website

In the meantime, you are welcome to check out the eqjoy.com website, which we have launched today! On the website you can take a sneak-peek at how to play the game and explore different emotions together with your children using the Emotion Explorer. You can also read about the science behind EQJOY and check out the tips and recommendations.

Excited as we are? We’d love to hear from you!

Do you want to find out more about, or get involved in, the project? In particular, we are currently seeking distribution partners and gathering together the test group. If you or someone you know might want to participate in this wonderful project, please contact us

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Help non-profit organizations with their fundraising

 

Are you involved in a non-profit organization? A charity, club or association for example? Do you know someone who is?

 

Is that organization interested in raising more funds?

 

The EQJOY card game is a fantastic product for a fundraising campaign.

 

 

Help us find EQJOY Brand Ambassadors

 

Do you know someone famous? Do you know someone who does? Do you think that famous person would like to positively impact children’s mental health by giving them the gift of emotional intelligence and have their personal brand associated with EQJOY?

 

Or…

 

Do you work for a sports team or know someone who does? Do you think that team could be interested in having that brand associated with EQJOY and with empowering children to develop their EQ?

 

Or…

 

Do you work for a company which owns a well-known brand or know someone who does? Do you think the company could be interested in having that brand associated with EQJOY and with empowering children to develop their EQ?

 

If so, click on the button below, tell us who you know and let’s discuss how to make this happen.

 

 

Help us empower even more kids develop their EQ


Are you, or do you know well, any of the following:

 

 

  • A parent of a 6 to 9 year old struggling with their emotions

  • A primary school teacher

  • A middle school teacher

  • A sports psychologist

  • A decision-maker at a museum

 

If so, are you, or do you think they would be, interested in participating in our R&D work and thereby help us bring the gift of emotional intelligence to even more children?

 

If so, click on the button below to find out more about how to get involved with EQJOY’s R&D projects.

 

 

Empower children’s EQ development

 

I ask you to donate to our charity EQJOY Co.

 


EQJOY is on a mission to empower children to develop their emotional intelligence through play. Find out more about EQJOY
here.

 


Your donations will be used to:

 

  • Give children in need packs of the EQJOY card game for free

  • Fund research and development of new EQ development tools

 


There are two paths to donations. For larger donations, click on the Champion Donor button below to find out more about the options. For smaller donations, click on the Donate Now button.

 

Help us spread joy to even more people


Through the Year of Joy community, we have a proven track record of empowering people to harvest more joy in their lives, especially those people struggling to find joy.

 

I ask you to help us give the gift of joy to people by inviting them to join the Year of Joy community to which we are currently offering free membership.

 

Share the link below with the people you know who could do with more joy in their lives.

 

DISCOVER THE JOYS OF BEING A MEMBER OF THE YEAR OF JOY COMMUNITY AND JOIN

 

 

It just might be the biggest gift you give them this year!


If you would like to invite a lot of people, you might be interested in being an official Year of Joy invite partner. Click on the button below to find out more.

 

 

Participate in an Insights Business Impact workshop for free

 

This gift is a special gift to my peers in the market research and insights sector. A sector which has given me so many gifts over the years. 

 

If you work in the sector, or are interested in doing so, I’m offering you the opportunity to participate in one of six free workshops I’ll be running on the topic of the ROI of Insights.

 

During this 3-hour workshop you’ll discover how to measure and demonstrate the business impact of Insights. 

 

You will leave the workshop with a clear understanding of how to measure the value Insights is contributing to the business, as well as how to craft a compelling story to demonstrate that value.

 

Participate in a Discover Your Recipe for Joy workshop for free

 

I’m offering you the opportunity to participate in one of six free workshops I’ll be running. 

 

During this 3-hour workshop you’ll discover the drivers of and the barriers to joy. You’ll be guided on a journey to craft your own Recipe for Joy and will leave the workshop with a plan for taking the next steps on your path to harvesting more joy in your life.

 

Receive a free Joy Superpower webinar for your organization

 

I’m giving away 24 Joy Superpower webinars for free.  

 

During the webinar I will share how through the Year of Joy initiative we were able to significantly boost people’s joy levels and I will lead the webinar attendees on a journey to discover how they can build their own joy muscles as well as bring more joy to the lives of others.