Emotional Regulation: Managing Emotions Effectively

Emotional regulation is key to managing emotions effectively, enabling us to be in tune with our needs, manage situations, and feel happier! Emotional dysregulation can cause anxiety and impact relationships. We can overcome emotional dysregulation by choosing situations intentionally, responding instead of reacting, changing focus, environment, and reframing negative thoughts. With a therapist's support, we can manage emotions better and unlock our full potential. Let's take the first step today towards emotional regulation and a more fulfilling life!

Exploring Emotional Regulation

In recent years, across social media platforms, emotional regulation is a buzzword/term that we hear and see referenced more and more. Emotional regulation is an important concept to understand and be able to do within ourselves. To put this into action, improve it, and work on it with our therapist…we need to know what it is!

Emotional regulation is the ability to manage and respond to emotional experiences effectively. Can you regulate or control your emotions appropriately to keep yourself safe? For example, if you are experiencing anger, can you identify, understand, and appropriately respond to it? By being emotionally regulated, we can be more in tune with our needs, manage various situations, and feel happier and calmer overall!

So first—what are some signs you are an emotionally regulated person?

• You are aware of your emotions and their impact on you and others

• You can recognize when you are feeling intense emotions, like anger, and not be destructive

• You can express yourself and your needs clearly

• You can adapt to unexpected changes easily

• You engage in self-reflection

• You set boundaries with yourself and others

On the flip side—what are some signs you are emotionally dysregulated?

• You have a hard time focusing on a task in front of you

• You are always running late

• You are always tense- clenched jaw, shoulders, body

• You have temper tantrums easily

• You hold grudges or ruminate

• You cannot identify your emotions or what you are feeling

• You ignore accepting your emotions and may distract or attempt to ignore your behaviours

It's essential to notice red flags of emotional dysregulation because it will help you with your journey to manage your emotional state. Living in emotional dysregulation will cause you to live in a state of anxiety or dissatisfaction. It can impact your relationships and ability to feel connected to others and prevent you from feeling calm and at peace or accepting yourself.

So, if you notice emotional dysregulation, how do you become more emotionally regulated?

• Be intentional about choosing the situation you put yourself in. Not to avoid a problem but instead, anticipating how circumstances or situations are going to impact you or make you feel a particular feeling will help you manage the overwhelm and dysregulation that comes with situations

• Choose how you want to respond instead of reacting to a situation. The more you practice pausing when you feel overwhelmed or taking the time to notice how you’re feeling, the easier it will be to sit with your emotions and manage the feelings and subsequent reactions that come up

• Change what you pay attention to in a moment of overwhelm or when you feel you are experiencing a range of emotions. Where you focus your attention dictates how you will feel. It might be helpful if you are feeling overwhelmed or cannot respond the way you would like to a situation to calm yourself down by changing the task, removing yourself, or learning a coping skill such as deep breathing, a mindfulness practice, or something enjoyable.

• Change what you can about your emotional experience or environment. Do you need to change the atmosphere by going for a walk? Lying down? Or change your temperature, such as a show, or turn off overly stimulating activities, such as TV, put your phone down, or turn off music.

• Learn to re-frame negative thoughts. Reframing negative thoughts can be helpful to learn in therapy to manage negative emotions better and stop yourself from becoming overwhelmed, which can lead to emotional dysregulation.

Understanding what emotional regulation is and how it shows up or doesn’t show up for you can be hard to do alone! If you have it managed, are looking for more coping skills, feel you are in a place of dysregulation or want to learn more about it, this can be a great topic to explore with your therapist today!