Improving your emotional regulation is a learnable process of developing specific psychological skills. It is the path from being reactive to becoming responsive, giving you the ability to navigate your inner world with greater awareness and control. This guide provides a toolkit of evidence-based techniques to help you build this crucial capacity for well-being.
What Is Poor Emotional Regulation
Poor emotional regulation, also known as emotional dysregulation, is the inability to effectively manage the intensity and duration of your emotional responses. It is characterized by rapid, intense mood swings and a tendency to react impulsively in ways that you might later regret. An individual experiencing dysregulation may feel overwhelmed by their emotions, as if they are being controlled by them, rather than being in control of them.
Why Do I Struggle With Emotional Regulation
Struggling with emotional regulation is common and arises from several factors. It is not a sign of personal weakness.
- Past Trauma: Traumatic experiences can leave the autonomic nervous system in a state of high alert, making emotional reactions more intense and harder to manage.
- Childhood Environment: Growing up in an environment where emotions were ignored, shamed, or invalidated can prevent a person from learning the necessary skills to understand and manage their feelings.
- Neurobiological Factors: Some individuals may have a naturally more sensitive temperament or a nervous system that is quicker to react to stimuli.
Tools for Improving Emotional Regulation Skills
Developing emotional regulation involves practicing a set of precise psychological skills.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the foundational skill. It is the practice of paying attention to your emotions in the present moment, on purpose, and non-judgmentally. By learning to observe a feeling as it arises in your body without immediately reacting to it, you create a crucial “pause.” This pause between the emotional trigger and your response is where you gain the freedom to choose your action.
Cognitive Reappraisal
Cognitive reappraisal, a form of cognitive reframing, is the skill of changing your interpretation of a situation to alter its emotional impact. It is based on the principle that your feelings are generated by your thoughts about an event, not the event itself. By challenging and changing the thought, you can change the emotion.
Distress Tolerance
Distress tolerance is a set of skills for surviving emotional crises without acting impulsively or making the situation worse. These techniques, drawn from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), are for moments of overwhelming emotion. A simple example is the TIPP skill:
- Temperature: Splash your face with cold water. Changing your body temperature can activate the “mammalian dive reflex,” which helps calm your nervous system.
- Intense Exercise: Engage in a brief, intense burst of physical activity. Vigorous exercise can release pent-up energy caused by intense emotions like anger or anxiety.
- Paced Breathing: Slow down and deepen your breath. When you are upset, your breathing often becomes fast and shallow. Regulating your breath sends a signal of safety to your nervous system.
- Progressive Muscle Relaxation: Sequentially contract and subsequently relax your muscles. This method alleviates physical tension in the body that frequently accompanies intense emotions.
Somatic Skills
Emotions can turn into physical experiences. Somatic skills use the body to regulate the mind. The most direct method is controlled breathing. By consciously slowing down your exhale so it is longer than your inhale, you directly stimulate your vagus nerve. This activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which acts as the body’s natural braking system, calming the physiological arousal of an intense emotion.
Somatic skills can be greatly enhanced by practicing the Psychosomatic Training method—my own mind-body intervention that connects modern mental coaching techniques with ancient meditations. It allows its adepts to control their minds by working with their bodies and vice versa.
How to Practice and Develop These Skills
Developing emotional regulation is a process that requires consistent practice.
- Start Small: Choose one skill, like mindfulness of the breath, and practice for just a few minutes each day.
- Practice in Calm States First: It is easier to learn these skills when you are calm. Practice them daily so they become an accessible resource when you are actually distressed.
- Use a Journal: A thought diary can be an effective tool for practicing cognitive reappraisal. Write down triggering situations, your automatic thoughts, and then work through the process of generating a more balanced perspective.
- Practice Self-Compassion: Learning a new skill involves setbacks. Treat yourself with kindness and understanding throughout the process. Acknowledging the difficulty of the work is an act of emotional regulation in itself.
