Julie Caulk, age 13, of Des Moines, Iowa, for her question:

HOW DO EMOTIONS WORK?

Emotions can help to protect us from danger. Chemical and physical changes in the body are triggered by emotions. If you are suddenly frightened, for example, strong emotions send signals to various glands and organs. Adrenaline from the adrenal gland is put into the bloodstream, which makes the heart beat faster and gets the body ready to face a crisis. Everyone has emotions. An emotion is aroused when a person views and reacts to something either good or bad.

There are two basic types of emotions: positive emotions and negative emotions. Included in positive emotions are love, joy, liking, delight and hope. Negative emotions are those which make people unhappy or dissatisfied, such as sadness, disgust, fear, anger and despair. The emotions can be either strong or weak.

Many psychologists say that infants are born without emotions. They say that children learn emotions just as they learn to read. There's no fear at a child's first meeting with an angry dog. But if the dog snaps, or if a parent is there to warn the child, he will quickly learn to avoid snarling dogs later on.

In growing up, a person learns to cope with negative emotions and respond with pleasure in positive emotions. And he also learns there are degrees to emotions. A very angry person, for example, can rage with his emotions while a mildly angry person will only be annoyed or irritated.

Emotions can cause some body changes that are harmful to us. If a person suffers from the emotion of constant fear, this can eventually result in a stomach ulcer.

Sometimes emotions are so unpleasant that a person might have such a tremendous fear that he is going to become ill with a certain disease, that he will convince himself he doesn't even feel certain symptoms. Doctors call this a defense mechanism. Experts in the field of mental health report that at some times defense mechanisms can actually be the cause of mental illnesses.

Sometimes strong emotions make it difficult for us to think and solve problems. If a student is worried about failing an examination, his worry may cause him to lose valuable mental energy that he needs for his test.

An emotion doesn't have to be aroused by something in the outside world. It is just as easy to create an emotional response with your thoughts.