How to manage emotions

We not only experience emotions, but we can control them. So, even John Milton wrote that emotions can be “ruled”, and Oscar Wilde’s hero Dorian Gray wanted to “use them, enjoy them and dominate them.” True, Vincent van Gogh spoke of “submission” to emotions as the captains of our lives. Which of them is right?

What is “emotion regulation”?

When we lack the genuine experience of emotions—the heavy burden of sadness, maddening anger, soothing serenity, all-consuming gratitude—we spend a lot of resources creating emotional storylines.

We choose a favorite (for example, joy) and use every opportunity to experience this emotion. And at all costs we avoid unpleasant emotions (for example, fear). As soon as the “enemies” appear on the doorstep, we try to keep them out, resist them, deny them, try to negotiate with them, redirect and modify them. Eventually they disappear.

The processes by which we influence emotions can be automatic (closing our eyes when watching a scary movie) or conscious (force ourselves to smile when we are nervous). All methods of managing emotions have common features. First of all, the presence of a goal (we watch a comedy to cope with sadness), as well as the desire to influence the dynamics and trajectory of emotions (we reduce the intensity of anxiety by distracting ourselves with some activity).

Sometimes it seems to us that emotions appear suddenly, but in fact they develop over time, and with the help of different strategies we can interfere with emotional processes at different stages of their development. For example, before an emotional response is activated, we can deliberately avoid unpleasant situations, modify them, not take them seriously, and downplay them. When the emotion is already “on the way”, you can change the behavioral or physiological response (for example, smile, experiencing fear).

Emotion regulation strategies

Most often, we use one of the two most popular strategies: overestimation and suppression. They affect emotional balance in different ways.

Revaluation– cognitive strategy. It has to do with how we perceive the situation. You can consider it scary and hopeless, or you can perceive it as a difficult but rewarding experience. This is a positive type of emotional regulation, which allows you to transform the entire emotion, and not just part of it. Overestimation is associated with low levels of anxiety and high levels of emotional balance.

Suppression – experience of emotion with the suppression of its manifestation in behavior. We are tired, we feel bad, but we show everyone that everything is in order with us. This is a negative type of emotional regulation. Such a strategy creates an asymmetry between what we feel and what other people see, and can lead to negative social processes.

Studies have shown that people who use the reappraisal strategy are able to “reframe” stressful situations. They reinterpret the meaning of negative emotional stimuli. Such people deal with difficult situations in a proactive manner and experience more positive emotions as a reward for their efforts, as well as gaining psychological resilience, better social connections, higher self-esteem, and overall life satisfaction.

Suppression, in contrast, only affects the behavioral expression of emotion, but has little to no effect on how we feel. It is cognitively and socially costly and unnatural to control and suppress emotions for a long time. According to research, people who practice suppression are less able to cope with bad moods and only mask real feelings. They experience fewer positive emotions and more negative ones, are less satisfied with life and suffer from low self-esteem.

Effective emotion regulation skills are not easy to train – it is not enough to learn a couple of tricks and use them to change circumstances. The choice of strategy depends on various factors, including cultural ones. Attitudes regarding emotions also have a huge influence. Do you think you can control your emotions? If yes, then you are more likely to use strategies based on overestimation than the person who answers “no”.

However, in addition to overestimation and suppression, there is a third strategy for regulating emotions.

Emotional acceptance – awareness of emotion without any action in relation to it. We may admit that we are feeling an emotion, but we may not want to get rid of it. Paradoxically, acceptance leads to a decrease in negative emotions and an increase in psychological resilience.

It turns out that it is the lack of emotional regulation that regulates emotions best. Accepting our negative emotions in a state of stress, we feel better than someone who does not accept these emotions. On the one hand, we are aware of our emotional and psychological state, on the other hand, we practice non-reactivity and acceptance. Perhaps this is exactly what we need in order to gain true wisdom – “the harmony of reason and passions.”