Learn How to Manage Your Emotions – Easy Techniques You Can Use

The world is full of wonder and terrible things and events. While you cannot always control what happens, you can control how you react to it. Simply learn how to manage your emotions. Easier said than done right? 

Is it possible to control emotions and is it necessary? Should you control your emotions in the first place? We’ll explore all that and more in this guide today. Learn everything you need to know about the pros and cons of emotion regulation, including how to manage your emotions so they don’t take control over you. 

Picture This

Think of a situation where you felt disappointed, hurt, or helpless. Are you dreading going to a family dinner? Maybe you studied for a test and still got a bad grade on it. Perhaps you tried for a job interview and didn’t get the job. 

The same event can happen to two different people and they can have two different reactions. You feel terrible about not getting the job you wanted but your friend doesn’t seem too devastated he didn’t get the job. Is he just better at controlling his emotions?

Is it healthy to try and control our emotions?  Can you even learn to control your emotions? It can be healthy or unhealthy, honestly, but you can absolutely learn to control them. Here’s how.

Process Model of Emotion

The process of emotions model is a method scientists use to break down emotions to study them. There are four parts to this framework.

First, a situation or event happens. It draws our attention. The situation is then evaluated, mostly based on whether it helps us or hinders us. This relates to our goals, wants, and needs. Finally, there is a reaction, changes in how we feel, behave, and think.

Many techniques offer an opportunity to intervene at different steps in this model. There are different methods you can use and ways to manage your emotions effectively. 

Manage Your Emotions: Techniques to Use

These techniques can help you overcome adversity, conquer challenges, and deal with adverse situations. As stated, these go hand in hand with how an emotional response occurs in the first place, the process model. Different strategies require intervention at different steps in the model, and some may be healthier for you, so it all comes down to individual experience and preference.

Some techniques can help and others can create more negative emotions, so make sure you read through all the strategies to find the best ones for your situation. 

Avoid the Situation

If you know a situation is going to make you feel a certain way, something you can do is simply avoid the situation altogether. This may work in some cases but not all. For example, maybe you can skip out on a family dinner because you don’t want to see your jerk cousin once or twice, but constantly using this strategy can lead to you losing out on things you want to experience. 

This technique may work if it is an event in your life you deem unnecessary and avoidable while noting that it does not interfere with your life in the grand scheme of things.

Avoid interaction

Another way to handle emotion is to go to the event and avoid interacting with whatever is going to make you feel negative emotions. Back to the family dinner party example. Using this technique, you would go to the dinner and simply avoid your cousin. Again, this technique is fine as long as it does not stop you from living your life.

Shift Attention

If it seems a bit difficult to handle a certain situation or event, it may be helpful to shift attention to something else. Focusing on something else can help you reduce the train of thoughts that lead to negative emotions. 

Reevaluate Situation

One of the best techniques involved some reevaluation and analysis on your part. Think about the situation and why it causes you to think and feel a certain way. Did your cousin hurt you in a way that warrants cutting them out of your life or was it something silly you are holding a grudge over that happened years ago? Have you had a conversation to clear the air? 

Giving yourself a chance to reevaluate and reappraise may let you find out you no longer hold negative feelings towards a situation at all.

Smother Your Emotions

Tempering your emotions is another way of managing feelings, but it is not always the best. It tends to feel like you are covering a mark on the wall with a poster. You aren’t repairing the damage though. This doesn’t solve the issue, simply hides it, and can lead to more negative thoughts, substance abuse, and psychological damage. 

Simple Strategies To Manage Your Emotions

Here are some simple strategies that don’t focus on any step of the process model of emotions. Try them out and see if they help!

Go on a Walk

Going for a long walk can boost mood exponentially. In part, it is due to the boost in happiness chemicals that get released when you exercise, but also a change in scenery does wonders for the mind.

Breathe Deep

Breathing deeply can instantly raise health, mentally and physically. This is because deep breaths flood the body with chemicals to calm the mind, relax the muscles, and decrease heart rate. This can help you reduce negative emotions to reach a more neutral place.

Talk to Someone

Talk to someone you care about and that cares about you. They may be able to offer advice as an outside party. This different perspective can help you process emotions and manage them effectively while still feeling heard and validated.

Quick Tips 

Here are some quick tips that are important to know. You can regulate emotion, but it can be negative if done incorrectly. Use good strategies and remember these important tips.

• Know where feelings are coming from – being able to evaluate a situation is half the battle. Knowing where emotions come from can help you take steps to control them in a healthy way
• It’s okay to express emotions –  bottling things up has never helped anyone. Know it is okay to feel things and let yourself do so.
• Don’t force positivity – there is such a thing as toxic positivity. Forcing yourself to smile when you want to cry is bad for your health, so just let yourself feel and use techniques to help calm yourself if you can.
• Find a balance – emotions can be helpful and they can be hurtful. They let us know information about the world around us. We can notice, evaluate, change, and grow as long as we allow emotions to work with us, not against us.

The Takeaway

You can effectively learn how to manage emotions so that you can go through life with more stability. Emotions are not good or bad, they are helpful or unhelpful. The processing model of emotions can help you break down any situation and intervene to help you control your emotions. Make sure to try out the healthy techniques as opposed to the unhealthy ones to truly solve issues and overcome challenges effectively.

Remember that health comes from within, so eat nutritious food, exercise daily, and care for your mental health. Daily habits become building blocks for overall health. Plus, try to take care of microbiota health. Learn everything you need to know about gut microbiota today for free here.