7 Techniques Of Emotional Management

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

Neuropsychologists tell us that people have an average of 6,000 thoughts a day, of which 95% are the same as the day before 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 they are and how to control emotions.

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 grown up (heroes, fascinating and strong people)”. And so we do. So we let the years go by, containing our anger because they have told us that it is not expressed that way, 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 a really effective emotional management is represented.

James Gross, director of the psychophysiology laboratory at Stanford University, explains that knowing how to apply adequate 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

Emotional management techniques there are many. However, before starting to investigate and expose ourselves to the risk of feeling overwhelmed by the large number of approaches, dynamics and proposals that the publishing market offers us, it is convenient to be clear about something. Emotional management is personal learning, hence we have to get hold of our personalized toolbox: not all those that serve others will serve us and vice versa.

On the other hand, it is common for many to choose to start, for example, in Mindfulness, hoping that it will solve a large part of their vital puzzles by itself. 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 technique that is fashionable or that works for the majority.

Ideally, it is best to use a multidimensional approach. That in which both the cognitive, the physiological, the behavioral and emotional harmonize in 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 within our control and that we could avoid to gain personal well-being and integrity.

• For example, if leaving the house on time is going to make me rush and get to work in a bad mood, I will try to get up earlier to calm down.

• If those Sunday meals with the family generate anxiety and situations of great tension, the most appropriate thing is that I 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, avoiding, for example, exposing my work in public or taking that plane trip will only accumulate greater anxiety in me. There are times when it is necessary to face our fears in order to overcome them.

2. Direct your attention elsewhere

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

All these thoughts the only thing that they achieve is to 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 towards ourselves.

Once we are there for a while to attend to each other, take care of ourselves and listen to each other, everything will be balanced again. This is another of the emotional management techniques that we must learn to apply on a day-to-day 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 reference for this technique,  “mindfulness is consciousness, it is relationality … and my definition is the consciousness that emerges from paying attention to the present moment, with a purpose and without judging “ .

Through the control of our attention, we will be able to divert our attention from those harmful thoughts to bring it within ourselves. An interior that each time we will learn to observe with more calm and distance. In this way, 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, in 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, by stress and that chaotic ball where frustration lives.
• Starting today, think about what you want in your near future

• 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 once: thoughts come when they want them, and not when we want them. The same thing happens with worries, they are like those crows that stand on the electrical 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. Whenever a concern pops up in the “inbox” of your mind, put it off. Save it for later and choose to establish a time of day when you are calm and relaxed, a time where, paper in hand, you can reflect and solve those problems.

5. Question with an 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 “I’m going to be fired from my job”, “my partner doesn’t listen to me anymore”, “I’m not going to save enough to pay that debt … ” they plunge us into a meaningless labyrinth, in an exhausting spiral.

Thus, 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 my job, I may finally decide to start that personal project”
• “When my partner ignores me, I will ask him what happens. If our relationship no longer works, I will have to face 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 maybe not in the first month, but practiced regularly it will end up offering them. The key to seeing them is in patience, from which perseverance is derived .

7. Find your way of escape, 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 hug themselves because of the silence or a natural environment. There are those who find improvement when having a coffee with good friends, others read books, listen to music, take a walk with their pets or seek precious moments of solitude.

The best emotional management techniques sometimes don’t come on the books. Sometimes we find them on our own, and we do it at the least expected moment 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.

So let’s find these universes of personal expression where we feel better, let’s 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, JJ (2001). Emotion regulation in adulthood: Timing is everything. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, 214-219. DOI: 10.1111 / 1467-8721.00152.

Gross, JJ, & 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.