Importance
Emotions are inevitable. They are important because they make us truly human. As with anything, there is a spectrum that stretches from one extreme end to the other; from ecstatic joy to deep sadness. And all of us have felt the ups and downs of life at different points in time. However, it is one thing to naturally feel these emotions, and it is another to be guided by them. When making critical life decisions or simply navigating through the trials and tribulations of your day to day, the most sensible approach is to able to regulate your emotions and separate them from your logical brain. Just look at all of the times you’ve made a decision, either by doing or saying something, after being pissed off, for example. More often than not, in hindsight you end up regretting it. You conclude that had you controlled yourself in the moment, perhaps you could’ve handled the situation better. What if you’re working toward a goal and you give up after a few weeks, frustrated that you’re not getting the results you want? Had you remained patient and thought of the long-term rather than the short, you likely would have reached that desired goal.
With that said, managing your emotions is among the most important skills you can develop in life. And the most successful people of all fronts advocate for this, because it’s the only way to make the most of your friendships, relationships, business and purpose. Bruce Lee says, “Emotion can be the enemy, if you give into your emotion, you lose yourself. You must be at one with your emotions, because the body always follows the mind.” Here are the top 5 ways to regulate emotions:
- Meditation. Meditation is a practice discussed at length both in my blog and across the internet. But for those who don’t know, meditation is an exercise based upon the concept of mindfulness – that is, paying attention to one thing, such as your breath, quieting your mind in the process. Among the number of mental benefits that it produces when implemented as a long-term habit, one that is overlooked is the way that it teaches your mind to notice emotion. When you get riled up, depressed, anxious, often the next step is to act without thinking. Practicing meditation allows you to observe or be mindful of how you feel before you end up doing or saying something you might regret – and often that moment of observation is all that’s needed to make the right decision. A study using IBMT meditation (integrative body-mind training) was done on Chinese college students for 5 days, 20 minutes per session. They found that this group had an improved performance in executive control (a cognitive process that stems, in part from regulating emotions), and also lower fatigue and higher positive feelings.
- Physical exercise. A consistent regimen of physical exercise is one of the most effective ways to not only regulate emotions, but increase levels of positive emotion on account of the neurotransmitters that are released. Specifically, your levels of self-control increase, there is less of a chance of you being prone to outbursts of anger or experiencing depressed periods. Personally I can attest that as a result of maintaining a consistent workout routine at least 5 days a week, working out has allowed me to feel more emotionally balanced. My decision-making process has improved by way of being less emotionally distracted.
- Process and understand them using logic. Processing emotion requires awareness, a skill that you can more quickly develop from meditation, as mentioned. However, awareness is the first step before a series of other steps here. Once you’re aware of the emotion that you’re feeling, it’s important that you accept it – rather than lie to yourself about it or fight the feeling. Once accepted, understand what urged you to feel angry, anxious, depressed. This comes in handy for future instances because you’ll remember that when thinking about that specific thing or in a similar situation, your default reaction is a negative one. Equally important is that you can understand the root of the problem as it relates to you. Then, ask yourself a couple important questions: Does it make sense to react this way? And is what I’m thinking true about myself or others? More often that not you’ll find that logical thinking helps to make sense of your reactions to situations in life, and especially make sense of how your own mind works.
- Accept that emotions are normal to feel. Every single person on planet earth has felt negative emotion before. Knowing this and accepting this should be comforting as you know you are not alone. You’re not abnormal for overeating to things because we’ve all been there, unable to regulate emotions at one point or another. Above all, emotions are there to teach us something, about ourselves or about others; and I believe this is where the misconception lies. Most think that they are meant to control us, rather than teach us valuable lessons. However, it’s interesting that unless and until you make an impulsive mistake that is guided by emotion, there is no lesson to extract. This is a process we have all gone through, and we’re all learning like students in this sense.
- Create emotional distancing. This approach is a bit unorthodox because most people don’t think to ever consider it. Imagine there’s a bystander observing your situation and how you react to it. If you try to see your own actions from a different perspective, it allows you to disconnect from your negative emotions, even if it is temporary. It also gives you a sense of what types of reactions would be socially acceptable or not. For example, anger at a slight annoyance you have with someone else would not be viewed as reasonable by the majority of people. Imagining yourself seeing it from their perspective also helps; if you saw someone else react in that same way, you’d probably be thinking the same thing. You can then determine whether your reactions are justified based on how it would be perceived.
- Practice stoic thinking. When you find yourself in a bad state of mind, whether angry, depressed or anxious, think about whether or not that which which you are focusing on is within your control. If it is within your control, do something about it; take action and make the necessary changes in your life. If it isn’t within your control, stop focusing on it because no amount of fixation will change anything. Stoic philosophy emphasizes this notion; it is an effective way to guide your thoughts into the right direction and regulate emotions. By going against this mindset, you are wasting your own time rather than making the most of it.
Sources
- Tang, Yi-Yuan., Tang, Rongxiang., Posner, Michael I. (2016). Mindfulness meditation improves emotion regulation and reduces drug abuse. ScienceDirect, 163(1), S13-S18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.11.041