We all experience big, difficult emotions from time to time.
Instead of managing difficult feelings like anger, sadness or anxiety, some of us try to push those emotions down. Others let those feelings out in dramatic or unproductive ways.
But learning how to regulate your emotions can help you build stronger relationships and improve your mental health, said Ariana Orvell, a social psychologist at Bryn Mawr College who studies emotional regulation.
Managing emotions isn’t about learning one single strategy, she said, but rather, pulling from a toolbox of coping skills that can help you get through difficult feelings.
“We’ve also found, in a recent study where we looked at how people coped with their anxiety over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, that using a greater number of healthy strategies was really key to reducing people’s anxiety over time,” Orvell says. “So even just using one strategy might not be enough in a given moment to downregulate intense anger. You might need to mix and match and reflect on if the strategy you’ve selected is working.”
5 questions with Ariana Orvell
How can distraction be a powerful tool in managing emotions?
“We know things like spending time outside can be really powerful. That changes your situation and helps you redirect your attention. It might open up your cognition in ways that make it easier for you to take a step back and reframe.
“Distraction can be a really good, I would say, short-term fix if you are faced with an overpowering emotion. Take your mind off of it. I do this all the time with my young kids. I try to quickly redirect their attention towards something else if they’re starting to get upset about something they want or can’t do.
“But what’s important is that distraction isn’t the only tool or it’s not being chronically used, because if you are habitually using distraction as a means to just avoid that stressor altogether … that’s like avoidance or suppression. So distraction can be good to take a break, lower that emotional intensity, but then it’s important to try to engage with that emotion, and try to understand the root of the problem or to problem solve in ways that are going to be productive and hopefully maybe reduce the emotional intensity that comes on the next time you’re in a similar situation.”
How does exercise help regulate emotions?
“I think that when people are in a state of intense exercise, perhaps they’re entering a state of flow, and we’re just so immersed in what we’re doing that we don’t have the bandwidth to ruminate or chew over whatever it is that’s bothering us. And again, having that kind of space and distance, we know from decades of psychological research, is an active ingredient that promotes emotion regulation and self-control.
“And so exercise might be a way to sort of force yourself to obtain that distance in a way that makes it feel a little less effortful because hopefully if you’re doing something you like at the gym, right, you’re just in it in that moment, and then when you’re finished, you can come back and think about or work through whatever is bothering you.”
How can deep breathing help de-escalate strong emotions?
“Personally, I actually sometimes struggle with diaphragmatic breathing or take a deep breath and hold it in for three seconds and then blow it out. I just find myself getting too distracted. But it can be, breath can be, a really powerful tool for lowering your heart rate, that physiological arousal, and letting your nervous system kind of calm down so you can think.
“A thing that works for me, honestly, and also for my little kids, is pairing deep breaths with physical touch. So there’s a lot of research that [shows] we are fundamentally social creatures who rely on others for lots of things, including regulation. And so, if you’re struggling to catch your breath and take those deep breaths to calm down, try asking somebody you love for a hug or even to hold your hand, and that might kind of help you be able to focus on your breath in a way that’s productive and lowers that reactivity.”
How can parents pass on some of these tips to their kids?
“It’s so important to be able to regulate yourself, and a lot of the same strategies that we are probably trying to tell our kids to use or trying to help them out with, we could benefit from on our own. And so I’ll try to even model that out loud for my kids, even if that means saying, ‘I need to take a break right now,’ or ‘I need to remind myself of the big picture.’
“And I think that that can be powerful for kids to see, but maybe it’s also a good reminder for adults that everybody can struggle with their emotions from time to time, and a lot of the time our emotions are really helpful. They help us meet our goals. They give us really useful information, but there might be times when we want to upregulate even [to] make ourselves feel more excited or happy, but also downregulate the intensity or the frequency of what we’re feeling.”
What’s your advice for people who are struggling to manage big emotions?
“I think we know from the research a lot of what works. So we know that, reappraisal is what we call it, is often thought of as this gold standard, and that at a basic level, just means changing the way you think, to change the way you feel and to change the way you act. But what type of reappraisal works for you might be different from what works for me. So I think taking some time tof introspect and reflect on what that reframing [is] that’s going to remind you of the big picture or the silver lining or the temporariness of this phase that you might be in, and then trying to be sort of strategic about queuing that up.
“So we also know that when people are tired … or when people are stressed, it’s harder to activate those neural networks that help us downregulate our emotions, and it can be easier to lose control or forget that reappraisal. So if you can think, ‘if I’m feeling frustrated,’ then I’ll remind myself that this is temporary or that my kids bring me so much meaning in life or whatever it may be for you that works, that automaticity can make the implementation of that strategy maybe a little less effortful and easier in the moment.”
This interview was edited for clarity.
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Samantha Raphelson produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Raphelson also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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