Master Emotional Regulation: Tools to Manage Emotions and Build Resilience

Emotions bring color to your life - when you experience a wide range of emotions from joy to sadness to fear to anger, and so on. Without these emotions, life can feel very black and white. However, when emotions spiral out of control, they can disrupt our well-being and lead to unwanted consequences. So, in this blog, we will dive into the concept of emotional regulation - what it means, why it matters, and how we can learn to manage our emotions in a healthier, more balanced way.

What Is Emotional Regulation?

Emotional regulation or emotion regulation is defined as the ability to manage and control your emotions so as to reduce the intensity of these emotions. A simple example is when you feel stressed out; you redirect negative emotions into something more joyful and relaxing so that you can deal with these circumstances in a productive manner.

Emotional regulation must not be confused with denying or suppressing emotions. It is a crucial tool that has its roots in emotional intelligence, which is defined as the ability to recognize and manage your own feelings as well as those of others. When you are high in emotional intelligence, you will be better at regulating your emotions as well. This is the general understanding.

The Importance of Emotional Regulation

Emotional control comes with emotional regulation. Controlling emotions is not just a social requirement; it is an essential life skill. The reason being, over a period of time, emotional dysregulation can give rise to mental health challenges, damaging your interpersonal relationships and reducing your quality of life.

While positive emotions like joy and happiness enrich your life, negative emotions are truly damaging. This is not to say that we do not feel negative emotions from time to time, as it is okay to feel sad or angry. Whenever sadness, anger, or resentment build up, they lead to pain and suffering. Therefore, emotional regulation becomes a necessity. With emotional regulation comes balance and peace in life. It also helps build emotional resilience, which helps face different challenges in everyday life as well.

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How To Control Our Emotions?

Emotional regulation usually involves up-regulation and down-regulation. Up-regulation is when there is a need to amplify emotions. This may be when you need to boost some emotions. However, when it comes to emotional regulation, typically, down-regulation is what comes to mind. Down-regulation decreases the intensity of emotions. For instance, if you are overly stressed, then perhaps redirecting emotions to something funny, like watching a comedy show, can help in reducing the intensity of the emotions experienced.

There are two basic ways of controlling emotions. One is reappraisal, wherein you change the way you think regarding a certain event that led to an emotion. This changes the way you react to it. While reappraisal is the healthy way of controlling your emotions, the other way of controlling emotions is suppressing them. This only leads to bottled-up emotions, pent-up frustrations, and so on.

Key Emotional Regulation Skills

As we grow up, we are expected to keep our emotions in check. Sometimes, we are socially conditioned into it, and not always in healthy ways. We bottle up emotions or do not effectively deal with our emotions only for them to get out of control and become chaotic. Emotional regulation skills prevent this from happening, and some key emotion regulation skills that allow you to manage your emotions are as follows:

Cognitive Restructuring:

It is a technique wherein you reshape your negative feelings into something healthy and productive. You challenge maladaptive emotional patterns, which have a significant positive impact on your life.

Building Adaptability:

Emotion regulation requires you to objectively judge a certain event or emotionally-heavy circumstances. This allows you to become flexible and build adaptability.

Self-Soothing Techniques:

You engage in self-soothing to reduce the adverse impacts of negative emotions. Some ways you can practice self-soothing is to engage in self-care and self-compassion.

Breathing Exercises:

Breathing exercises are great ways of regulating your emotions. You can engage in simple breathing exercises like breathing in and breathing out or breath count.

Mindfulness:

Mindfulness connects you with the present and builds self-awareness. It allows you to look inward, identify the negative emotions, and reduce them.

Grounding:

Grounding allows you to control and detach from emotional pain. It involves physical grounding (focusing on the senses), mental grounding (focusing on the mind), and soothing grounding (talking to yourself in a compassionate manner). Grounding helps you stay centered and keep your body in a relaxed state.

What Are Emotional Self Regulation Skills?

Emotional self-regulation skills are those skills that you use when you take some time between feeling something and reacting to it. This in-between time is vital to recognize your emotions and manage them so that you do not regret them later on. For instance, before displacing your emotions from your boss onto your partner or child, when you choose to think and share these frustrations instead, it can lead to something more productive.

• Build Self-Awareness - Identify and name your emotions objectively, without any judgment. Simply focus on what you feel at a given moment.
• Cognitive Reappraisal - Reshape negative feelings into something more positive and flexible. This will help you change the way you react to them.
• Adaptability - Objectively weigh circumstances in life, ask yourself what kind of advice you think you can give to someone who came to you with a similar challenge.
• Self-Compassion - Do not be your harshest inner critic. Practice self-care and positive self-affirmations to nurture emotional regulation and well-being.
• Mindfulness - Practice mindfulness with techniques like breath control and sensory relaxation. It allows you to stay connected with the present and keeps away negative emotions.
• Emotional Support - Lean on yourself and others, especially through open and positive communication.

Common Obstacles to Emotional Regulation

Emotional regulation is not an easy skill to master. It needs time and work, and can have some challenges along the way:

Impulsive Reactions:

Impulsive reactions are the most common obstacles to emotional regulation. Emotions, positive or negative, can get overwhelming. This can make it very difficult to regulate emotions.

Cognitive Distortions:

Cognitive distortions and avoidance are also some factors that can impede emotional regulation. They can stress you out and increase irritability and agitation, making it very difficult to regulate emotions.

Uncertain and threatening conditions:

Uncertain and threatening conditions around you can lead to poor emotional regulation. One of the primary purposes of emotions is to detect threats in the environment, and while this is necessary for many things, including survival, constant stress or threats can lead to emotional flooding. This is when your emotions become all too much to control.

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The Long-Term Benefits of Emotional Regulation

Emotion regulation is the ability to control and manage your emotions, which, in turn, helps control your thoughts, words, and actions as well.

The long-term benefits of emotional regulation are that it,

• Reduces the intensity and effect of negative emotions
• Reduces stress
• Improves performance
• Improves interpersonal and social connections
• Enhances overall health and well-being.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1. What is Emotional Regulation?

A: Emotional regulation is the ability to control and balance your emotions and respond productively to emotional challenges.

Q2. What is the Importance of Emotional Regulation in Recovery?

A: When emotions get overwhelming, it can lead to mental health challenges and self-destructive behaviors like substance use; therefore, emotional regulation is an essential life skill that one learns during their recovery.