Emotional Regulation Daily

The core of emotional regulation has never been "eliminating negative emotions", nor is it to force yourself to be emotionally stable forever, but a set of daily small actions that have no standard answers and are suitable for different scenarios - you don't have to wait for a breakdown to put out the fire, you can do it casually, and your own comfort is more important than conforming to any theory.

Last Wednesday, the plan I had been working on for three days was rejected by the client. Just after answering the phone, my elbow swept over half a glass of iced Americano. The gaps between the keyboard were full of coffee liquid. At that moment, I felt blood rushing to the top of my head. I even thought about the wording of my resignation report. As a result, when I reached into my pocket for a tissue, I found half a bag of orange hard candies left over from eating oranges the day before. I peeled one off and stuffed it into my mouth. I frowned because of the soreness. The fire in my butt had somehow dissipated by half first.

In the past, I would have scolded myself for being useless for losing control of my emotions over such a trivial matter. After all, in the past few years, the Internet was full of chicken soup about "being the master of your emotions." I also bought a book on emotional regulation, followed the method of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to write an emotional diary, and reviewed each item "whether there was a cognitive bias in my previous thoughts." Does it work? It also works. If I fall into the rumination of "the client's denial of the plan is to deny me as a person", and list three pieces of evidence that "the customer has praised the framework I wrote before" and "this revision only mentions the data part", I can really get out of the self-denial quickly. But if it catches up to that day and I have stayed up for two consecutive nights, and I can’t think straight, and I have to force myself to review the test one by one, it is just causing trouble for myself, and it is often even more annoying to write two lines.

Later, when I came into contact with related research on embodied cognition, I realized that at this time, there is no need to take the path of "adjusting thoughts". It is faster to move the body first. Just like my orange candy that was so sour that I frowned, it actually used strong sensory stimulation to pull me back to the present moment from the emotional whirlpool. There are many similar methods: if you feel like you are about to explode, wash your face with cold water. The moment the ice water is slapped on your face, your vagus nerve will relax. ； When your chest feels tight from sitting, go to the corridor and stand for two minutes, looking up at the trees in the distance. It is 10 times more effective than sitting at your desk and thinking, "I don't want to be angry."

Of course, some people don't agree with this "slow it down" method. They feel that emotions have to be vented, and holding them in can easily lead to knots. I have believed this before. When I’m not happy, I sing karaoke for two hours, or punch a doll a few times. It’s really cool. But then I read a neuroscience study that said that venting too intensely will strengthen the brain’s emotional pathways, which will make it easier to trigger an angry reaction when encountering the same thing next time. I have a friend who used to be obsessed with smashing bowls to vent, but later developed to the point where he wanted to throw his phone ten minutes late for takeout, but his emotional threshold was lowered and lowered.

Another school of thought that has become more popular in recent years is another way of thinking: You don’t have to force yourself to adjust your thoughts, nor do you have to vent deliberately. Just be a "bystander" and watch your emotions unfold. I tried it once. I had an argument with the courier last time about missing a package. I hung up the phone and my chest became tight with anger. I leaned against the entrance and didn't think about anything. I just silently felt, "Oh, my heart is beating very fast now, my chest is a little tight, and my back teeth are clenched tightly. This is the feeling of anger." After standing like this for less than three minutes, the anger slowly dissipated. Before, I would have spent half an hour on the sofa scrolling through the complaint page and getting more and more angry.

In fact, these methods are not some lofty theories. When applied to daily life, they are all trivial matters. I still have a raised anti-stress ball in my desk drawer. It’s not the soft kind, and it’s a bit irritating to hold. When I get irritated during a meeting, I squeeze it twice. The pain when I touch it pulls me away from the impatience of “Why isn’t it over yet?” ； When you were on the subway while commuting and someone stepped on your foot, you were about to frown. When you looked up, you saw that half of the lunch box the other person was carrying was spilled, and the soup was dripping down the plastic bag. The person was more panicked than you, and the unhappiness was gone in an instant. ； I even have a "little happy folder" now, which is full of silly photos of my cat, the sunset I took last time at the beach, and funny jokes sent to me by my friends. When I really can't muster the energy, two minutes of browsing is more effective than drinking three cups of coffee.

After all, there is no universal formula for emotional regulation. My friend now goes for a five-kilometer run whenever he feels unhappy. He is sweating all over while running in the wind, and nothing happens after he goes home and takes a shower. If I am out of breath after running even two steps, it would be more suitable for me to hold an orange candy in my mouth. You really don’t have to force yourself to learn other people’s “emotional stabilization methods”, and don’t regard “being able to regulate emotions” as another KPI to be completed - after all, regulating emotions is to make yourself comfortable. If you create a new layer of anxiety in order to learn the method, then you are really putting the cart before the horse, right?