How to Regulate Emotions

The Importance of Emotions

What are Emotions?

Emotions are signals within your body that tell you what’s happening in any given situation. Think of your emotions like an instant news service that gives you constant updates about how you’re doing and what you’re experiencing. They motivate us for action and help us overcome obstacles. 

Why are Emotions Important?

Emotions often begin with your senses – sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste. They are important for survival. Consider this example: a bus is coming towards you at a rapid rate of speed, an emotional signal (fear) is sent from your eyes and ears to your brain. Your response? Move fast and get to safety! Phew!

Our emotions serve many purposes: survival, remembering people and situations, coping with everyday situations, communicating with others, avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. But what do we do if we have emotions that are overwhelming and distressing? This is where emotional regulation helps us. Emotional regulation skills are critically important to learn so you can cope in healthy ways to avoid prolonged distress as much as possible.

What are Emotional Regulation Skills?

Emotional regulation skills involve learning how to recognize emotions and their effect on your life. We typically spend very little time paying attention to how we feel. As a result, when we are struggling, we may experience strong emotions that feel difficult to manage. These strong emotions often contribute to overwhelming emotional reactions. To help better control reactions, it is necessary to learn how to identify our emotions. Make no mistake - learning this is a skill, and it takes practice! Let’s look at the Emotion Wheel:

Image

This is a great resource to build your vocabulary and to accurately label what you are experiencing. For example, you may say, “I’m so angry,” when in fact, beneath that anger, you may be feeling sad, hurt or embarrassed. Identifying how we truly feel in any given situation better equips us to manage our emotions.

Learning how to identify and regulate our emotions takes daily practice.

Here are 10 strategies to help you regulate difficult emotions:

Image

1. Deep Breathing: taking deep breaths will help send signals to the brain to begin to calm the body and mind. Take a deep breath in slowly and count to 4. Hold for 4 seconds then slowly release the breath for another 4 seconds.  Repeat this process until you feel calm.
2. Use of Imagery: Did you know that our brain has the ability to create emotional reactions based entirely on our thoughts? Think of a favourite place and really try to think about what it’s like there, and you may begin to have feelings you associate with that location.
3. Body Awareness: This strategy is a way to help ground you in the present moment.  Take a moment to notice how your body is feeling from head to toe. Tight jaw? Relax those muscles! Tense shoulders? Take a deep breath and allow the shoulders to relax. Where else do you notice you may hold some tension in your body? 
4. Mental Exercises: These can be used to take your mind off difficult thoughts and feelings. One great way is to make use of your senses – name 5 things you see, 4 things you hear, 3 things you can touch, 2 things you smell, 1 thing you can taste.
5. Acknowledge: It is helpful to acknowledge your feelings rather than trying to suppress them.
6. Relaxation: It is important to incorporate activities or hobbies that help your body experience relaxation and reduce physical tension.
7. Opposite Emotions: It may be helpful to read, watch or listen to things that bring about the opposite emotion that you are experiencing. Feeling sad? Watch a funny TV show or YouTube video. Feeling anxious? Listen to some calm, soothing music.
8. Time Out: When feeling overwhelmed, take a 15-minute break and try any of these strategies.
9. Seek counselling support: Learning to manage and regulate difficult emotions takes work. If you would like to connect with a counsellor for additional support, Counselling Services at Fanshawe College is available free of charge to all registered students!
10. Attend a group through Fanshawe Counselling Services: All groups are facilitated by highly qualified counsellors. Current students can check out the many groups we offer including peer groups, workshops & connections.