Emotional Thermodynamics

With cars, energy flow is a pretty simple matter.  Generally, the more you drive the car the more energy it consumes.  This basic model is complicated a little by hybrid vehicles.  With a hybrid's capacity for charging a large storage battery, a car can actually have more stored energy after it descends a hill.  Still, the basic model holds: when you drive a car it usually consumes more and more energy.  Humans are different, especially when you consider emotional energy.  On personality factors, people differ on whether they are introverts or extraverts.  Extraverts prefer being around people and find the presence of others to be energizing.  Energy flow works oppositely for introverts: Being around other people may provide pleasure but it involves a net energy loss.  Of course, the specific people whose company we keep influence the direction of energy flow—some drain energy away, so much so that several hours can deplete reserves and set us up for a nice long nap.  Other people are restorative; their company yields a net energy gain; we feel stronger and healthier as a consequence of time together.  Not just people, but also activities and places can pull energy away or add it back.  I doubt that physicists will ever try to construct a theory of emotional dynamics; no doubt it's the job of psychologists anyway.  But even without a general theory of emotional energy, it's probably a good idea to try to understand our own personal laws of thermodynamics.