Science-Based Emotion Regulation Skills You Need to Know.

When we can be effective with regulating our emotions we just feel better–in that moment and in the future too. Ah, but when we don’t do such a great job managing our emotions, we may rely on unhealthy strategies like avoidance, substance abuse, or overeating. While that strategy may make us feel good in the short term it will feel worse in the longer term.

With a little energy directed at our emotion regulation skills, we manage our emotions with healthier strategies and feel better about ourselves and our relationships with others.

Ready to get started? Here are some skills to focus on:

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is most definitely an emotion regulation skill. If we are not self-aware, of our emotions how the heck are we supposed to recognize and manage them until they get out of hand? When we are more aware of our emotions early, we can take a breath and choose our response to the emotion more intelligently.

Emotional acceptance

Emotional acceptance is a skill that involves experiencing negative emotions without judging them or yourself. This one’s important because the judgment of our negative emotions just amplifies them making them stronger, last longer, and become harder to regulate. To accept your emotions, practice putting judgment and self-blame aside. The emotion that is present exists, right? Now that you’ve recognized it you can make a choice or make a plan to manage it.

Emotional cognition

Sometimes when we interact with someone we can sort of latch onto the emotions they’re expressing. This is called emotional contagion, which is exactly what it sounds like (You’re MAD, so I’m MAD! You’re EXCITED so I’m EXCITED!). Seeing that another person is experiencing an emotion helps us to relate to them better and consciously choose our next steps. We don’t have to absorb it. We may choose to not engage with it or to offer compassion if needed. It’s the stepping back and observing what’s happening that gives us the space to choose.

Emotional attention

How many times have you been told “We get what we focus on”? It’s so true you know. Focusing on the negative things makes us feel worse; shifting attention to the positive helps us feel better. One study trained participants to focus on neutral instead of threatening faces in a computerized task, and this training resulted in reductions in social anxiety. Build this skill by focusing your attention on the positive.

Reappraisal

When we get caught up in a negative mindset like “I just can’t get ahead!” or “Life just isn’t supposed to be so hard.” It can be good to get a better look at the subject. Reappraisal is an emotion regulation skill that involves cognitively reframing an experience as more positive or less negative. Building this skill can both increase positive emotion and decrease negative emotion simultaneously. We can replace negative thoughts with more productive ones. For example: What am I learning here? Or looking at the issue as a challenge to overcome instead of a problem that is weighing you down.

Temporal distancing

When things just suck, and that happens from time to time we can use temporal distancing to feel better about it and shift the way you think about your present situation by thinking about it from a time in the future. This technique helps regulate our emotions if we can see that these emotions won’t be so bad after some time. Basically, we remind ourselves that “I’ll get through this in time and feel better”

Self-distancing

Self-distancing is an emotion regulation skill that involves looking at your situation as “a fly on the wall.” Emotionally distancing yourself from your experience and looking at it from an outsider’s perspective helps you disconnect from your negative emotions and see them in a new way. You can get out of the emotion and into seeing the experience from a different point of view. Getting out of our own head, as it were.

Gratitude

​Gratitude helps us feel good and makes others feel good too. Gratitude can increase positive emotions while also improving the quality of our personal relationships. We can practice gratitude with gratitude lists, gratitude notes, and gratitude letters. When we are grateful, take a moment to really soak in the feeling of gratitude. Gratitude has so much power to open our hearts and minds to better relationships with ourselves and others, better health, and resilience.

If you’d like to learn more about emotional regulation strategies, reach out, and let’s talk. I have open office hours available every week just to chat!