The Surprise Sequence

When you are surprised by someone or something it triggers the surprise sequence in your brain. Suddenly your senses are on high alert. The surprise causes a neuro alert that tells you there is something really important about this moment and that you have to pay complete attention.

Your brain is hijacked and forced to focus on the present moment. It can make you feel uncomfortable, but there is also something exciting about being 100% in the moment. You will go through this sequence:

Find - Being surprised causes humans to freeze for an instant. Then once you come out of the freeze, you will be overwhelmed by curiosity to try and find what caused the surprise.

Shift - Often a surprise will shift your emotional state as you weren’t expecting it to happen. So you might be having a bad day, but then you receive a pleasant surprise that makes you feel happy. This shift is the migration of your emotions after that instantaneous trigger.

Assess - The emotions generated by the shift can change your perspective on things, situations or people. Assessing how it made you feel might even change the way you think about things.

 

What Is The Fallout Of A Surprise?

When you are surprised, your emotions can intensify anywhere up to 400 percent! That means if it was a pleasant surprise, you will feel incredible joy. But if it was a not-so-nice surprise, you will also feel the despair that much stronger.

This intensity is caused because your brain does not have the time to do any preparation work. When you expect something, you have the time to mentally prepare yourself, therefore the emotions are not as intense when they actually occur. However, if you are not expecting something you will feel the full power of your emotions.

 

The Joys Of Surprise Gifts

Now that you know that people can feel 400% more joyful if they aren't expecting a gift, I bet you are planning how you can surprise your loved one. Apart from intensified emotions, there are also lot’s of other benefits of a surprise gift. These are…

Receiving:

Feeling Loved - When a loved one or family member takes the time to select the perfect gift and goes to the effort of making it a surprise, you realise how much they must care about you. It is wonderful to feel so loved.

Feeling Appreciated - While we don't do the things we do for recognition, it is very special to feel appreciated enough that someone wants to buy you a gift.

Feeling Worthy - We all get the feeling that we aren’t good enough from time to time. Receiving a surprise gift can really validate that you are good enough - that someone special thinks you are worth it!

Giving:

Feel Good Factor - The old saying that it is better to give than receive really rings true when you are able to truly surprise someone you love with an amazing gift. The smile on their face and the joy in their heart is definitely enough to give you the warm fuzzies.

Paying It Forward - If you can bring a little bit of joy to someone’s day, then they might feel inspired to bring some joy to another person’s day. Suddenly you have set off a chain reaction of people who are paying it forward.

Prove Not All Surprises Are Bad - Some people state that they hate surprises. This is often because they don't like to give up control of a situation and are often trying to protect themselves from potentially negative situations. In doing that, they also close themselves off to potentially happy situations. A surprise gift can break the ice and prove that surprises can be good.

 

We love giving at Happygram, that is why we set up our whole business to spread the joy of surprise gifts. So if you know someone in need of a pick me up or you really want to say thank you, check out our range of surprise gifts here.