5 Steps to Improve Emotional Regulation
Do you ever find yourself getting really upset and having a hard time calming down? Maybe something went wrong at work - a co-worker threw you under the bus or your efforts went unrecognized by your boss. Maybe you feel stressed out, overwhelmed, and it feels impossible to bring yourself back to a calm state. Maybe you and your partner often find yourselves in conflict and your emotions go from zero to a hundred in a matter of seconds.
All of these situations can trigger your mind and body to go into survival mode - your heart rate increases, your thoughts are racing, and you feel a nervous energy that you don’t know how to soothe. When we feel stressed out or overwhelmed by any emotion, our body reacts, causing those physiological symptoms - signals that we feel threatened by our environment. Emotion regulation skills can help bring the reasoning part of your brain back online and help you negotiate with the part of your brain that’s saying “Danger! Danger! You’re not safe!”.
What is Emotional Regulation & Why is it Important?
Emotion regulation is exactly what it sounds like - a strategy to soothe emotions when it feels like we no longer have control over them. Emotion regulation requires an awareness of your feelings in the present moment. It’s important to be able to identify what is physiologically happening in your body as a result of a stimulus. If you notice a tightness in your throat or stomach and increased heart rate and breathing, you might be able to identify that feeling as anxiety. Emotions can feel physiologically different for everyone, but it’s important that you are able to connect what you notice physically to what you feel emotionally. We have to be able to understand our emotions in order to communicate them to others or even to make sense of them ourselves.
Aside from providing immediate emotional relief, emotion regulation also helps in the long term. Research shows that emotion regulation helps improve overall well-being including general levels of stress, our performance at work, and the way we show up in interpersonal relationships.
It makes sense, right?
The better we are at soothing strong emotional reactions, the more present and level-headed we can show up in life.
Let’s say you asked your partner to unload the dishwasher and they didn’t do it - your reaction is to get really frustrated and say “Ugh, of course, you didn’t listen to me! Do you even care?”. This may cause your partner to respond in defense, sparking an emotionally heated argument that becomes far greater than the fact that the dishes did not get put away. The way we react to others matters. Without recognizing it, our initial reaction to something could trigger our partner, friend, or co-worker to have an emotional reaction in response. When we work on our immediate emotional reaction to a trigger, we can change the way we send our emotional messages to others. This is why emotion regulation is so important - having awareness and control over the way our emotions come out in our actions can lead to improvements in communication and interpersonal relationships.
How Does Emotional Regulation Work?
The best way to practice emotion regulation is to practice being with yourself in the present moment, noticing any thoughts or feelings that come up, and being able to accept & soothe them. Here are 5 steps that will help improve your ability to regulate your emotions:
1. Identify your Triggers
Take a step back and try to notice the moments that you feel overwhelmed with stress or frustration. What happened the moment before those feelings came up? Did someone say or do something that was upsetting to you? Did unexpected plans get thrown into your day? See if you can be as specific as possible in identifying triggers - for example, it’s not just that your partner asked you to take out the trash, it’s the tone of their voice or the look on their face when they do it.
Reflect on these questions, and be as specific as possible:
When have I noticed I’ve gotten the most frustrated in the past week?
What are some things that make me feel stressed out?
When have I noticed I’ve gone from calm one second to frustrated the next?
Usually, you can find triggers in many aspects of your life. In your relationship, it could look like the previous dishwasher example or times when it doesn’t feel like your partner is available when you need support. Maybe at work, stress shows up when tasks start to pile up and you feel like you have to complete everything by the end of the day.
2. Notice Physical Sensations
When you feel overwhelmed by all the tasks that need to be done at work, what do you notice happens to your body? Use your body as a tool to understand what you’re feeling. Let’s practice right now - stop, close your eyes, and take a deep breath. Notice any parts of your body that feel tense, in pain, or under pressure. Notice the ways that your body is holding the feeling. Does it feel like there is something heavy on your shoulders or chest that is weighing you down? Try to describe the feeling - what is the image that comes to mind when you focus on that feeling?
3. Identify the Narrative
Consider the story in your mind about yourself, your emotions, or your relationship with the person that has triggered this response in you. Using the dishwasher example from above, the story we have told ourselves is that our partner doesn’t care about us and that we can’t rely on them when we need help.
Notice what narrative comes up for you - maybe it’s that you’re “not good enough” or you’re “too much”. More often than not, we react to defend ourselves - we don’t want our partner or boss to think we’re not good enough so we react in a way to protect this very vulnerable part of ourselves.
To go one step further - consider where this narrative comes from. Do you actually believe this about yourself? Whose voice do you hear in your head saying those things? Many times we internalize messages that we’ve received from previous partners, parents, and even societal or cultural expectations.
4. Practice Self-Validation
Tell yourself “it makes sense that I feel this way”. Using our example it might sound like, “I was relying on my partner to help me out with a chore and I felt frustrated and hurt when they didn’t do it. It felt like I couldn’t rely on my partner when I needed them…it makes sense that I felt frustrated and hurt. I want to feel like I can rely on my partner”. Acknowledge that how you feel about the situation is okay and normal.
Now see if you can also take accountability for your reaction to those emotions - “I felt frustrated and hurt and instead of communicating that to my partner calmly, I made a snarky comment and had an attitude. I recognize it may have been hard for my partner to respond calmly to my actions”. Continue to validate - “I sometimes make snarky comments because I don’t know how to communicate my feelings clearly and calmly quite yet. I get frustrated and my first reaction is to _________.”
5. Choose How to Respond
Although we’ve been using an example in the past tense, you can use these steps right in the moment as well. Consider how you want to move forward after understanding and validating your own feelings and behaviors. It could sound like, “I want to apologize to my partner now that I understand why I reacted that way” or it could even just be that you feel like you want to let go of the situation altogether. The present-moment changes are what will lead to long-term changes in how you handle emotions in conflict. When you’re feeling emotionally heightened, it can be difficult to take notice of your emotions in the moment and remember what steps to take. Try these skills a few times after you calm down from feeling overwhelmed.
Colorado Therapists for Emotional Regulation
If these skills feel particularly difficult or you feel like you could use some guidance, the therapists at CTC are here to help. Our therapists are trained in an experiential evidence-based approach called Emotionally-Focused Individual Therapy (EFIT). For more information on EFIT check out our EFIT Specialty Page. Emotion regulation is a big component of the growth we advocate for in clients. We can help with these skills both in relationships and with individuals. To hear more about our team and how we work, schedule a complimentary 20-minute consultation here.
