Good emotional regulation is essential for maintaining mental wellness and overall well-being. If we do not regulate our emotions we are predisposed to emotional thinking (see emotional thinking in common thinking errors) and acting impulsively or automatically — that is, acting without thinking rationally, and without considering our values, and our long-term goals. Further, when we act impulsively we do not have enough time to consider the potential consequences of our actions / speech.
Here are some ways to practice good emotional regulation when you are feeling overwhelmed by emotions:
- Practice mindfulness.
- Do a grounding exercise.
- Look at your thinking and your beliefs and see if you can spot any thinking errors or irrational beliefs that lead to problematic emotions or behaviors. Challenge any irrational beliefs or thought process errors you identify.
- If you are not in a good place to deal with your emotions in the moment, see if you can delay your response. Remember the HALT acronym — if you are hungry, angry / anxious, loopy / lonely, or tired, you should try to delay any important action or conversation until you are in a better mental state. You might use a healthy distraction to calm yourself down and get some rest (consider “sleeping on it”), so you can return to the problem later.
By doing the above we are not suppressing our emotions. We want to pay attention to our emotions because they often signal valuable information. Consider what your emotions are telling you, and why you are feeling them. If we are frequently experiencing distressing emotions it could be because we are engaging in unhelpful or irrational ways of thinking, or perhaps it is because we are not living in a way that aligns with our values or we are living in a way that directly contradicts our values (see existential therapy introduction…coming soon).
In summary, when we practice emotional regulation we are still taking our emotions into consideration (what are they signaling and why are we feeling them?) — but we are delaying our reactions in order to think rationally and consider the best course of action. In other words, we are using both our emotional mind and our rational mind. Most importantly, we are no longer sleepwalking through life, reacting in automatic ways.