5 Quick Emotional Regulation Tips for Your Mental Wellness
We all experience a range of emotions; it could be joy, frustration, anger, disappointment, and so on. Regardless of the emotions (positive or negative), learning to regulate them is critical and beneficial to our wellbeing. And although your childhood plays a huge part in your ability to self-regulate, it is possible to learn and adopt the requisite skills for developing emotional regulation.
Essentially, emotional regulation is the ability to alter the intensity of an emotional experience. It allows you to express your emotions properly and in a way that does not compromise you or those around you.
Several reasons can cause someone to lose control of their emotions, including genetic predisposition, lack of emotional regulation of learned skills, environmental triggers, etc. Thankfully, these skills can be developed over time to ensure you achieve optimal mental wellness. Here are a few tips to help you out:
Identify and Reduce Triggers
Every emotion exists as a response to a trigger, and the earlier you identify what triggers a certain emotion, the easier it becomes to control it. Most people make the mistake of suppressing unpleasant emotions, which only makes them more compulsive. To be able to regulate your emotions, you first have to identify and acknowledge them.
Once you identify a situation that triggers an emotion, explore why it affects you the way it does. This way, you can avoid the triggers or, even better, develop effective methods of handling or coping with them.
Engage in Positive Self-Talk
When experiencing emotional dysregulation, it is normal to feel overwhelmed by emotions. And more often, you find yourself harboring negative thoughts and beating yourself up for falling short or failing to achieve an objective. Statements like 'I messed up again' or 'people are always against me' can persistently ring in your head and even affect how you think and relate with others.
Engaging in positive thoughts and being empathetic can work to keep negative thoughts away. It will also help mitigate negative emotions and see things from a positive perspective.
Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the ability to live in the moment without letting emotions take control of you. Ideally, it helps you to perceive your surroundings in a nonjudgmental way. By practicing mindfulness, you can regulate negative emotions and achieve calmness even when you are in the midst of emotional turmoil.
You can engage in and master skills like gratitude, meditation, and focused breathing to help you successfully relax and control your emotions.
Find a Way to Express Your Feelings
Everybody has their way of expressing emotions; some will talk to a friend, others will engage in an activity they can get consumed in, and others will choose to express themselves by writing it out in a journal. Whichever method appeals to you, do not hold in your emotions or try to suppress them because they always have a way of coming back.
Moreover, having a safe way to express your emotions keeps you from taking them out on others or adopting destructive habits in an effort to cope with them. Through practice, you will eventually learn to keep your emotions in control.
Talk to a Therapist
Sometimes emotions can prove hard to control, not because you are not strong enough, but because persistent emotional dysregulation can stem from issues such as family background, health conditions, trauma, and other underlying conditions. If you feel your emotions are becoming too difficult to handle, talk to a therapist to help you understand your emotions better.
At the very least, therapy offers an opportunity for you to explore and explain factors causing dysregulated emotions, teach you how to control your emotions, and help you reframe emotions that cause distress.
Summary
Indeed, being able to regulate your emotions is critical for your mental health and general wellbeing. Through meditation, being in control of your feelings, and talking to a therapist when it proves challenging to control emotions can help you to successfully regulate your emotions and ultimately attain mental wellness.
Want to learn more? Check out all of the courses offered by Aspyn Wellness.
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