Emotional Highs and Lows: Why does it happen and how do we manage them
Everyday we experience the highs and lows of many emotions. It is how we handle these emotions that determines how we get along with others, how we handle the situation at hand, and how we internalize what’s going on around us. All of that is to say that the way we handle our emotions has a really big impact on the quality of our lives and so it’s important to learn more about it and how we can improve it.
What is emotion regulation?
Emotion regulation is the process that enables us to influence our emotions in a way that controls when and how we experience and express them. It’s basically how much control we have over our own emotional reactions, both the reactions we have externally and internally. Let’s use an example situation to demonstrate how important emotion regulation is.
Scenario: Your partner forgot to take out the garbage even though they said they would earlier that day.
Outcome: Someone who struggles with emotion regulation may feel frustrated and allow it to consume them, ultimately yelling at their partner and no longer being able to hold space for empathy, compassion, or alternative possibilities, in their reactions.
Outcome: Someone who regulates their emotions well may get frustrated but would calm themselves down enough to know it probably was an accident and to communicate their feelings calmly to their partner.
Even in a scenario as simple as this, you can see that the influence we have over our own ability to regulate can change the outcome of a situation in a major way.
Factors that make regulating emotions difficult
You may think to yourself now, “I logically understand the difference but why is it so hard to do in the moment?” Well, there are a few factors that may influence your ability to regulate your emotions. Marsha Linehan, creator of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) outlines it as follows:
Biology: This includes being born with more reactive or emotional temperaments, mental health issues that affect emotion regulation, chemical or hormonal imbalances, or just being hungry and/or tired.
Lack of skill: This includes the many of us who were just never taught how to regulate our emotions. Maybe you grew up around parents that yelled or hit when they were angry so you do the same.
Reinforcement of emotional behavior: This consists of all the times having an inappropriate emotional reaction received a response that filled a need, whether it be conscious or subconscious.. For example, you may have found yelling helps you get what you want or that the silent treatment gets people to apologize to you faster. There's lots of ways that the people around us have unknowingly reinforced our reactions, especially as we developed as children.
Moodiness: This includes when we wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or when we’re overstimulated from lots of noise, feeling hot or uncomfortable in our clothing, over-tired, sticky, and touched out that we feel like we just want to explode. We all get moody and that is totally normal, but it does make it a bit harder to regulate our emotions.
Emotional overload: This includes when we are dealing with a lot of other big emotions that take up all of our energy and we just don’t feel like we have the space to make other good emotional decisions. It’s more difficult to regulate new incoming emotions when we are already sitting with grief, sadness, or anger.
Emotion myths: This includes all the lies we have been told about what emotions are good or bad, what types of reactions are feminine or manly, what emotions are weak to have, or even that you are less worthy if you have certain emotions.
Who may be more prone to struggling with emotion regulation?
Similarly to the list above, there are a few of us who may struggle a little extra. For example, individuals with ADHD and other neurodivergent brains tend to struggle a lot more than people with neurotypical brains when it comes to emotion regulation. This is because the frontal lobes of the brain, which are responsible for executive functioning and emotional regulation works differently for neurodivergent people.
There are also many mental health disorders that can affect your emotion regulation skills as well. Some include Bipolar 1 and Bipolar 2, Borderline Personality Disorder, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, although there are more. Some of these mental health disorders may make us more reactive, distort the way we perceive signals from others, heighten our emotions, and imbalance the chemicals in our brains that are supposed to help us keep calm. This in no way means emotion regulation is a hopeless cause for you, it just means you may need extra support and better skills to make the improvements you want. And that’s what Sunlight Psychotherapy is there for!
How can I improve my emotional regulation?
No matter who you are, there are many tips and tricks to help you improve your emotion regulation skills. DBT is a form of therapy that was developed specifically to provide individuals with the skills they need to regulate their emotions in a way that makes living your life and interacting with others more calm and enjoyable.
Here are some skills you can give a try:
STOP. This stands for Stop, Take a step back, Observe, and Proceed. Sometimes we need a minute to evaluate the situation before we react. Using this skill allows you to take time to calm down before reacting on emotional impulses.
Opposite Action. This is the idea that we should react the opposite of how our brains are initially telling us to. Maybe instead of following the impulse to yell when angry, you show kindness or walk away.
ABC. A stands for Accumulating positive emotions, B stands for Building mastery at the things we enjoy, and C stands for Coping ahead by rehearsing a dialogue for an event you know may trigger big emotions. This method works to help us have more positive emotions in our emotional bank so that new negative ones have a bit less sway.
Breathe. A skill that many offer as the most important and effective of them all, is breathing. Take deep inhales in through your nose and even longer exhales through your mouth for at least a minute. This is the best way to calm yourself down and give your emotions a chance to regulate before reacting. If you are able to calm your body, your brain will follow suit.
While there are many factors that influence our ability to regulate our emotions, there are many more skills that you can use to help. If you feel like you struggle with emotion regulation and are noticing its negative impact on your life, Sunlight Psychotherapy is here to help. Schedule a free consultation to learn more about how DBT skills and emotion regulation can make a positive difference for you!
Written by Samantha R. Kishner, MHC-LP for Sunlight Psychotherapy.
Reviewed by Jenice Acosta, LCSW
