Emotions are natural reactions that allow us to become alert in certain situations that involve danger, threat, frustration, etc. The central components of emotions are physiological reactions such as increased heart rate and breathing, muscle tension, and thoughts. It is necessary to acquire certain skills to manage emotions, since excessive intensity can cause people to experience them as unpleasant states or lead them to carry out undesirable behaviors.
Do you want to know what the best emotional control techniques are? In this Psychology-Online article, you will find 11 emotional control techniques that will help you handle any type of situation. These exercises are based on psychological studies and have proven to be very effective.
What are emotional control techniques?
When we talk about human emotions, they can be described by four specific aspects:
- A specific situation.
- A series of specific physiological reactions or sensations such as increased pulse and breathing, muscle tension, etc.
- Some certain thoughts.
- A type of concrete responses appropriate for that situation.
Understand, know and admit emotions It is the procedure to be able to control them. For example, anxiety and anger are natural reactions that are activated by situations considered dangerous, but they can also be activated by harmless stimuli, causing discomfort and inappropriate behavior. The result will depend on the emotional control you have.
If you want to learn strategies to improve your emotional control, the , designed by the SERCA Institute of Higher Specialized Studies, addresses emotions at different levels, intelligence in its different areas, emotional management, emotional improvement techniques, as well as their areas of application. .
The educational program has been created so that students acquire the knowledge, competencies, skills and attitudes necessary to apply emotional improvement techniquesas well as designing intervention strategies from emotional intelligence and developing emotional education programs.
How to control emotions
Out of survival instinct, human beings look for specific ways to eliminate negative emotions. These solutions can be correct, such as playing sports, meditating, and breathing exercises, or inappropriate, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, and responding aggressively. Inappropriate behaviors can often have negative consequences.
Now that you know how emotions can negatively interfere with our lives if they are not managed, it is time to tell you the 11 emotional control techniques that will change the way you direct your feelings.
Technique #1: Deep breathing
One of the emotional control techniques that is very easy to apply and is also very useful for controlling physiological reactions before, during and after facing emotionally intense situations. It is done as follows:
- Breathe deeply while mentally counting to 4.
- Hold your breath while mentally counting to 4.
- Release your breath while mentally counting to 8.
- Repeat the previous process.
Ultimately, it is about do the different phases of breathing slowly and a little more intense than normal, but without having to force it at any time. To check that you are breathing correctly, you can put one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen. You will be breathing correctly when only your hand moves from your abdomen when you breathe. Some also call it abdominal breathing.
Technique #2: Thought Stopping
If we talk about techniques to control emotions, this can also be used before, during or after the situation that causes us problems. Specifically, it focuses on the thought control. To put it into practice you must follow the following steps:
- When you start to feel uncomfortable, nervous or upset, pay attention to the type of thoughts you are having, and identify all those with negative connotations (focused on failure, hatred towards other people, blaming, etc.). )
- Say to yourself “Enough!”
- Replace those thoughts with more positive ones.
The problem with this technique is that it takes some practice to identify negative thoughts, as well as to turn them around and turn them into positive ones.
Technique No. 3: Muscle relaxation
This emotional self-regulation technique can also be applied before, during and after the situation, but for its effective use requires prior training. If you want to put it into practice, follow the following steps:
- Sit quietly in a comfortable position. Close your eyes.
- Slowly relax all the muscles in your body, starting with your toes and then relaxing the rest of your body until you reach the muscles of your neck and head.
- Once you have relaxed all the muscles in your body, imagine yourself in a peaceful and relaxing place, for example, lying on a beach. Whichever location you choose, imagine yourself totally relaxed and carefree.
- Imagine yourself in that place as clearly as possible.
Practice this exercise as often as possible, at least once a day for about 10 minutes each time. If you have been convinced of the usefulness of the exercise, remember that you must practice it to automate the process and relax in a few seconds.
Technique #4: Mental rehearsal
Another of the emotional control techniques designed to be used before facing situations in which we do not feel safe. It simply consists of imagining that you are in that situation, for example, asking someone to go out with you, and that you are doing it well, while feeling totally relaxed and safe.
You must mentally practice what you are going to say and do. Repeat this several times, until you start to feel more relaxed and confident.
Technique #5: Thought regulation
When we are faced with a moment of mental discomfort and we do not know how to manage our emotions, we usually experience something known as a “thought stream.” Many times, these uncontrolled thoughts are negative and do not allow us to find a solution to the stressful situation.
For that same reason, regulating thought can be an effective emotional control technique. How can we do it? The first step will be detect the torrent of thoughts and identify what type of ideas come to our heads. Next, we can try writing them down in a notebook if we are alone and then work on those affirmations.
Technique #6: Logical Reasoning
Closely linked to the previous technique of emotional control, logical reasoning consists of analyze one by one the thoughts that cause us emotional discomfort and reason them logically. Here is an example of how to do it:
- Thought: “I am useless and of no use“
- Emotion: sadness and crying
- Logic reasoning: “To what extent is that statement true? What good is it for me to think that about myself? What can I do to change that thinking?“
Technique #7: Distraction
Techniques for managing emotions also include methods for moments of emergency, that is, when we cannot control feelings in any other way. When we feel overwhelmed by our emotions, we can try to distract ourselves with some stimulus that comforts us such as a song, a book, a movie, etc.
Technique #8: Self-regulation
Emotional self-regulation is a technique to control the emotions that requires some practiceHowever, it is very effective. To achieve self-regulation, we must follow the following steps:
- Detect and point out the moments in which we lose control.
- When we are calm, think about the triggers of the situation (what we were thinking when we lost control of our emotions).
- Identify triggering thoughts before they lead to uncontrollable emotions.
- Learn to regulate our emotions during moments of crisis by helping ourselves from others.
Technique #9: Emotional education
This is one of the exercises to control emotions and prevent emotional crises. Emotional education consists of learn to detect feelings and value them without judging them negatively. All of our emotions are necessary on some level and help us adapt to the world around us.
Technique No. 10: Assertive Training
Assertive training is one of the emotional control techniques that requires a specialist to be completed satisfactorily. This group of psychological exercises aims learn to respond assertively in the face of conflict. Some of the assertive training techniques are:
- Identify the situations in which we want to be more assertive.
- Describe problematic situations.
- Write a script to change our behavior.
- Put said script into practice.
If you want to know more, you can take note of this article about .
Technique No. 11: Mindfulness and meditation
Finally, to conclude this article on the best emotional control techniques, we are going to talk about mindfulness therapy. This emotional regulation technique is based on the principles of meditation and is highly effective in relaxing anxiety levels in moments of emotional crisis.
Specifically, it is about stopping our torrent of thoughts and Focus your mind on the “here and now”, in our present sensations and in what surrounds us at that precise moment. Discover here how to apply the .
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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