MENTAL HEALTH

3 Powerful Ways To Keep Your Emotions In Check

The more you work through them, the more you calm down.

Photo by Mark Daynes on Unsplash

“Emotions can get in the way or get you on the way.”

— Mavis Mazhura

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word emotion comes from Latin emovere which means to move, to disturb, or to agitate.

Emotion is also defined as energy in motion, which fuels us to accomplish our tasks, dreams, and goals.

According to the Science of people website, emotions are basically a movement of chemicals, called neurotransmitters, which relay information across the brain from neuron to neuron.

You feel different emotions when you have varying levels of neurotransmitters and different areas of the brain become activated in response to a stimulus.

For instance, if one of your articles on Medium goes viral and you just realize you made $1000 overnight, your brain receives the happy news and signals the release of two neurotransmitters, dopamine, and serotonin, into the central nervous system. Your brain is flooded by these tho neurotransmitters and thus you feel the emotion of happiness.

That’s all good, but what happens when you are triggered and experience sadness, anger, and resentment? What happens if you allow these emotions to take charge of you? It doesn’t affect only your behavior towards others but also your mental and physical state as well.

That’s why is important to learn how to properly self-regulate.

What is self-regulation?

According to Andrea L. Bell, LCSW, SEP, self-regulation is the ability to control oneself by oneself.

If you learn to self-regulate properly you can take charge of your behavior, emotions, and thoughts.

“Someone who has good emotional self-regulation has the ability to keep their emotions in check. They can resist impulsive behaviors that might worsen their situation, and they can cheer themselves up when they’re feeling down. They have a flexible range of emotional and behavioral responses that are well matched to the demands of their environment.”

— Andreea Bell

Your ability to self-regulate as an adult has roots in your development during childhood. It’s a direct link to your caregivers and their emotional and behavioral consistency.

A child who does not feel safe and secure, or who is unsure whether his or her needs will be met, may have trouble soothing and self-regulating. In the long run, as an adolescent and an adult, they are likely to adopt maladaptive coping mechanisms, to develop potential mental issues or even substance abuse.

Why is it important to learn how to self-regulate?

Well, if you learn to self regulate, you can:

• Act in accordance with your values
• Calm down easily when triggered
• Cheer yourself up when feeling down
• Become less reactive to your external environment
• Remain flexible and adapt easily to new situations
• Deal better with stress and anxiety
• Develop healthy coping mechanisms
• View challenges as opportunities
• Trust yourself to make the better decisions

Here’s a 3 step guide on learning how to self regulate and healthy ways to do it:

1. Identify your emotion

Pay attention to your physical symptoms. Is your heart beating fast, are your palms sweaty and shaky? If so, you might be experiencing anxiety. Or excitement.

Both fear and excitement feel very similar in our bodies. Think about two separate moments in your life, one in which you experienced anxiety and the other one when you experienced excitement. How did you feel? Did your heart accelerate, your stomach contracted, your thinking became fuzzy and your mouth got dry?

If so, that is because your nervous system became activated. Since your body cannot tell the difference whether the situation you are experiencing it’s pleasant or not, it automatically makes associations with previous intense occurrences in your life.

What to do

Use mindfulness as a way to detach from your emotions and become the observer. Mindfulness is “the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgementally”, according to Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn.

In a 2019 study titled, Experimental effects of mindfulness inductions on self-regulation: Systematic review and meta-analysis, researchers have found that mindfulness has the ability to regulate negative emotions.

Breathing techniques can help you calm your nervous system and take your focus away from your emotions. Meditation is an amazing practice that has multiple benefits in releasing stress and making you less reactive to your environment. I wrote a fully detailed article on the benefits of meditation here.

2. Link the emotion to the event that triggers it

Are there any changes that have been happening lately? A big day at work tomorrow? A trip you have to take to a different city or country? Is there anything in your life that is making you feel anxious? Or excited?

Becoming aware of what triggers you is very important because once you’ve figured that out, the process of controlling your emotions and understanding how they are influencing your behavior will be much easier.

What to do?

Use cognitive reframing. Cognitive reframing is a technique used to shift your mindset so you’re able to look at a situation, person, or relationship from a slightly different perspective.

In a 2016 study titled Emotion regulation strategies in daily life: mindfulness, cognitive reappraisal, and emotion suppression, researchers found a high correlation between cognitive reframing and daily positive emotions, including feelings of enthusiasm, happiness, satisfaction, and excitement.

For instance, if you have to give a presentation tomorrow, instead of thinking that you’re anxious about it, reframe it to: It’s a great opportunity for me to polish my oratory skills.

Or if you text a friend who just doesn’t reply back, instead of going down the ‘he probably hates me or doesn’t like me anymore’ spiral, you can switch to ‘he must be busy, I’m sure he’ll call back when he’s free’

3. Learn to self-soothe

According to this study, just like a toddler, you are susceptible to losing your ability to regulate your emotions if you’re hungry or ‘hangry’.

Research shows the same happens if you feel fatigued.

So, first and foremost make sure your emotional dysregulation is not due to them these two basic needs not being met. Eat something and try to get some sleep in or at least a nap.

How to do it

Learning how to self-soothe is as important for adults as it is for babies.

According to Rachel Eddins, M.Ed., LPC-S, CGP, grounding, and self-soothing is how we calm our bodies when we are overloaded by stress or overwhelming emotions.

Knowing that both hunger and fatigue can cause you emotional impairness, make sure you tend to these basic needs first. Then you can practice grounding techniques.

Here are some grounding techniques you can start implementing in your daily routine:

• Run cool water over your hands. Hold onto ice cubes if the urge is intense.
• Dig your heels into the floor-literally “grounding” them! Notice the tension centered in your heels as you do this. Remind yourself you are connected to the ground.
• Practice the 5–4–3–2–1 Grounding Technique:

Name 5 things you can see.

Name 4 things you can hear.

Name 3 things you can touch within your immediate reach.

Name 2 things you can smell.

Name 1 thing you can taste.

• Practice Progressive Muscle Relaxation technique in which you intentionally focus on relaxing the muscles in your body.
• Practice Yoga. Yoga stimulates different nerves in your body, especially the Vagus nerve that carries information from the brain to most of the body’s major organs, slows everything down, and allows self-regulation, according to Deepak Chopra.

“The more you work through these feelings, the more you will calm down.”

— Vanessa van Edwards

Takeaways

1. You feel different emotions when you have varying levels of neurotransmitters that activate different areas of the brain in response to a stimulus.
2. Your ability to self-regulate as an adult has roots in your development during childhood.
3. Self-regulation can help you keep your emotions in check.
4. You can learn to self-regulate in 3 easy steps.
5. Step 1: Identify your emotion. Once you have done that practice mindfulness techniques such as breathing exercises or meditation to calm down the nervous system.
6. Step 2: Link the emotion to the event that triggers it and use cognitive reframing to shift your mindset.
7. Step 3: Learn to self-soothe by first making sure you are not hungry or tired and then practice some grounding techniques.

“Like a muscle, the capacity for self-regulation appears to grow stronger through regular exercise.”
― Christopher Peterson

Think of self-regulation as a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes.

I’ll leave you with a funny short video from the animation movie Inside Out which illustrates perfectly the concept of self-regulation:

I hope you found this article helpful.

I would love to know what techniques you use to self-regulate and to keep your emotions in check.

Thank you for reading!

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