7 emotional management techniques

Emotional management techniques provide us with appropriate mechanisms to channel daily tension, the pressures and stress that completely reduce our potential, as well as calm and creativity. Let’s not forget that, although emotions are part of our lives, knowing how to regulate them is key to shaping a more satisfying reality that grows in opportunities.

Neuropsychologists explain to us that people We have on average about 6,000 thoughts a day, of which 95% are the same as the previous day and only a little less than last week. Learning to think differently and change your attitude towards certain people, ideas, situations or objects is not an easy task, we know it. It is not because no one comes into this world knowing what emotions are and how to control them.

We all land in this life crying, and that will be our only language until someone tells us “enough”, until they explain to us that “crying is not for adults (for heroes, for fascinating and strong people)”. And so we do it. This is how we let the years pass, containing the rage because we have been told that this is not how it is expressed, but without telling us how it is done. Because heroes do not get angry or afraid, in this way there are very few models, for children and not so children, in which truly effective emotional management is represented.

James Gross, director of the psychophysiology laboratory at Stanford University, explains to us that knowing Applying appropriate emotional management techniques on a daily basis is key to preventing diseases such as depression or borderline personality disorder. In this sense, controlling the tangle of our negative thoughts and emotions is synonymous with well-being and health.

Emotional management techniques

There are many emotional management techniques. However, before starting to investigate and exposing ourselves to the risk of feeling overwhelmed by the large number of approaches, dynamics and proposals that the publishing market offers us, it is important to be clear about something. Emotional management is a personal learning, hence we have to get our personalized toolbox: not all of the tools that work for others will work for us and vice versa.

On the other hand, it is common for many to choose to start, for example, Mindfulness, hoping that by itself it will solve a large part of their vital puzzles. However, not everyone learns to meditate, not everyone finds that physiological and mental calm with which to better manage their worries and anxieties in a fashionable technique or one that works for the majority.

Ideally, it is most advisable to use a multidimensional approach. That in which both the cognitive, the physiological, and the behavioral and emotional harmonize with the same purpose: to offer us well-being, calm and better mental approaches. Let’s see below the 7 emotional management techniques that have proven to be most effective: our recommendation is that you try them all and stick with the most effective ones.

1. Situations to avoid, situations to face

It is clear that we cannot always control everything that happens in our days. However, There are situations that are under our control and that we could avoid to gain well-being and personal integrity.

For example, if leaving home at the right time is going to make me go in a hurry and arrive at work in a bad mood, I will try to get up earlier to go calmly. If those Sunday meals with the family generate anxiety and situations of great tension, it is best to propose other options and avoid that situation for health reasons. Likewise, there are also things and situations from which I cannot and should not escape. Doing so, for example avoiding public exhibition of my work or taking that plane trip will only accumulate greater anxiety in me. There are times when it is necessary to face our fears to overcome them.

2. Direct your attention elsewhere

My coworker is doing more contracts than me. My neighbor managed to lose weight before me. This train is going too fast, we are sure to have an accident, the newspapers only bring bad news, something bad is surely going to happen…

All these thoughts do is put more tension, feed fear, increase our low self-esteem and make us lose control of our reality. We must learn to shift our gaze from the immediate environment and its complexity to direct it inward..

Once we are there for a while to care for each other, take care of ourselves and listen to each other, everything will have balance again. This is another of the emotional management techniques that we must learn to apply on a daily basis.

Without a doubt, the best technique to learn to control our attention is through mindfulness. As stated by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a world leader in this technique, “mindfulness is awareness, it is relationality… and my definition is the awareness that emerges from paying attention to the present moment, with purpose and without judgment“.

Through control of our attention, we will be able to divert our attention from those harmful thoughts to bring it inward. An interior that we will increasingly learn to observe with more calm and distance. Thus, It will provide us with a completely new way of relating to ourselves and our environment..

3. Improve your self-control by placing your gaze on the immediate future

We know that the proposal that we focus our attention on the here and now, on the present, is very topical. Well, this time we are going to propose something different: Think about your immediate future, think about tomorrow, next week.

Sometimes, our present is inhabited by fear, stress and that chaotic ball where frustration lives. Starting today, think about what you want for your nearest future. “I want to feel good, I want to achieve this, I want that to happen and feel more valid, more sure of myself.”

Make use of reaffirmation, Remember your virtues and your past successes to place all your hopes in that immediate future.

4. Note to self: worries are relegated to a single moment of the day

Nietzsche already said it on one occasion: Thoughts come when they want, and not when we wish. The same thing happens with worries, they are like those crows that sit on the power lines of our fears and anxieties to intensify them, to turn off our optimism and potential and leave us in the dark.

Do not let that happen. Every time a worry appears in the “inbox” of your mind, postpone it. Leave it for later and choose to establish a time of day when you are calm and relaxed, a time where, with paper in hand, you can reflect and solve those problems.

5. Question with answer: What is the worst that can happen?

It happens to all of us. Sometimes we become obsessed with certain events to the point of banging our heads against the wall without finding a way out.. Thoughts like “They are going to fire me from work”, “my partner no longer pays attention to me”, “I am not going to save enough to pay that debt….” They plunge us into a meaningless labyrinth, into an exhausting spiral.

So, instead of feeding these thoughts, we are able to go a little further. Let’s ask ourselves what can happen if our fear happens, but let’s do it the right way, adding a solution:

“If I get fired from work, I might finally decide to start that personal project.” “When my partner doesn’t pay attention to me, I’ll ask him what’s going on. If our relationship is no longer working, I will have to accept it, grieve and move on.” “Since I cannot pay my debt, I will have to sell this or that or ask my family for help.”

6. Meditation as a way to relax body and mind

Meditation is another good emotional management technique; However, to bear fruit it is a strategy that requires frequent practice. We will not see results in the first week and perhaps not even in the first month, but practiced regularly it will end up offering them. The key to seeing them is patience, from which perseverance is derived.

7. Find your escape route, your channel of expression

There are those who find their refuge and channel of emotional expression through writing.. Others draw or paint mandalas as emotional management techniques. There are those who go out for a run, those who need to embrace silence or a natural environment. There are those who find improvement by having a coffee with good friends, others read books, listen to music, walk with their pets or seek precious moments of solitude.

The best emotional management techniques sometimes don’t come in books. Sometimes we find them on our own, and we do it when we least expect it when we find that activity that allows us to harmonize with the world and with ourselves. It is a space where we meet again to discover the root of our problems. They are palaces of peace and satisfaction where our courage finds nourishment.

Let us therefore find these universes of personal expression where we feel better, let us dedicate quality time and apply several of those strategies described here to invest in health and well-being. Any effort will be worth it.
Bibliographic references

Gross, J.J. (2001). Emotion regulation in adulthood: Timing is everything. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, 214-219. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8721.00152.

Gross, J.J., & Jazaieri, H. (2014). Emotion, emotion regulation, and psychopathology: An affective science perspective. Clinical Psychological Science.

Goleman, Daniel (1996). Emotional Intelligence. Kairos.

Bradberry, Travis. Greaves, Jean (2012). Emotional Intelligence 2.0. Connect.

R. Covey Stephen (2015). The 7 habits of highly effective people. Free Press.