How to Be Less Emotional at Work
In my last post, I talked about how to manage your emotions at work. But what if you’re thinking, “I’m tired of managing my emotions at work! Can’t I just be less emotional?”
I get it. And yes, that would be nice. The good news is that there are things you can do to bring that emotional water level down so that you don’t feel like you’re constantly bailing the boat to keep up. Let’s talk about a few ways you can be less emotional at work.
1. Add Transitions to Your DayWhen we used to go into the office every day, we used to have these commutes, these great transitions between the kid who was driving us freaking crazy by wasting the milk in their cereal, and we would have 15, 20, 30 minutes of commute where we were listening to the radio and looking at things going by in the window, which would allow some of those emotions to dissipate. This meant we didn’t have the same emotional bleed into the next thing we did. But if you’re dumping the milk down the sink and then clicking on a Zoom call, that emotional contagion and spillover will likely be high. It’s the same with leaving a physical meeting, walking down the hall, grabbing coffee, and making other transitions that prevent leakage from one situation to the next.
Try to bring some of those back.
I’m a big advocate for the 50-minute meeting to ensure we have 10 minutes to recalibrate afterward. I also have a Spotify playlist. It’s my dance-break playlist with a bunch of songs that I cannot a) sit still or b) feel cranky when I’m listening. I put them on for three or four minutes, and then I’ve had a transition that prevents the emotions from the compounding that happens if we go straight from one thing to the next. So, add more transitions.
2. CompartmentalizeSecond, compartmentalize. It’s the same idea that if we’re worried or thinking about a bunch of things at once, what I call having a heavy thoughtload, we are more likely to have our emotions jumping in. Instead, we want to focus on one thing at a time, turning off all notifications and shutting every window on our computer that isn’t the one we’re using. That focus can help us have something constructive and useful to get into focus and flow. And when you’re in flow, you’re much less likely to have that intrusive thought of the emotional reaction. So compartmentalize.
3. Communicate OftenThird, communicate earlier. When we’re unsure about something, or we don’t like it, we stay quiet because we haven’t got the perfect response or the perfect thing to say. But then our concerns start to build and snowball. And then, by the time we’re talking about it, we’re emotional about it.
If, instead, you communicated early, you could indicate whether you were still having an intellectual or logical reaction to the issue. When you feel something in your plan isn’t right, communicate it. For example, you could say, “I’m worried. Let’s take a minute and figure out who we should be talking to.”
When you can do it early, you’ll communicate from a constructive place and not let it become an emotional conversation. So communicate a lot earlier than you think you should.
4. Healthy RelationshipsNext, healthy relationships. In the Framingham study, the extensive longitudinal study of what makes us healthy in the world, healthy relationships win. They win over everything else in the study. Where are your healthy relationships in your week and your month? Think about who are the five people you could connect to in any given month that would help you feel seen, give you a place to feel safe and connected, and be deliberate about getting those in your week and in your month. They will create that natural place to bring in many positive emotions and vent some negative things that may be building up. Invest in healthy relationships regularly.
5. Self-RegulationIf there’s one thing the research says about bringing down your general emotional load, self-regulation is very high on that list. And the number one self-regulation strategy is effective sleep.
Make sure you prioritize your sleep and address problems that are affecting it. Don’t put up with poor sleep. That’s something you should discuss with your physician. Get into your sleep hygiene. Make sure you prioritize sleep and the fuel you put in your body. If you have wild insulin swings, it is not going to be surprising if your emotions start to get out of control.
Also, make sure you’re moving your body and getting out into nature. There are many studies about how emotional regulation improves when we spend time physically in trees.
Find joy. What are your hobbies? Where do you nerd out? Nothing is better for creating positive emotion than doing something you nerd out on. One of my favorite questions to ask my clients is what kind of nerd are you? Even as they start talking about it, it’s incredible how they light up. And you can see the positive effect that it brings to the room.
6. Practice MindfulnessMindfulness is another extremely effective thing. You hear about it everywhere, but you know what? It works. It works because it helps us to understand that our emotions are not us. We can observe our emotions from over here. We can put ourselves on the couch and be the therapist. As we learn to do that, our emotions hold less sway over us. We are more fluent in what our triggers are. It’s an effective thing. If you are serious about being less emotional, bringing down your general emotionality, you can’t do much better than that.
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These strategies have lots of research evidence that we know works, but you may need more than that. There are many folks for whom there are mental health reasons why these strategies are not enough: hormone imbalances, the way your neurotransmitters work, and past traumas. All sorts of things may mean that these strategies are insufficient to help you bring that emotional waterline down far enough. In that case, your best bet is to seek professional help.
There’s a lot of help these days. Talk with your physician or engage a therapist. There are helplines in every region of the world. Get the support you need if these strategies aren’t enough to help you get on top of that emotional wave that might feel like a tsunami for you.
For most of us, however, the issue is that we don’t invest enough in our healthy relationships, self-regulation, or sleep. We don’t create a day with the proper transitions, focus, and compartmentalization. But, try all of these things first because you’ll find a meaningful decrease in how frequently you get emotional at work and the severity of those emotions.
Okay. Dealing with other messy, emotional, and complicated stuff at work? Check out this post, managing emotions at work.
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