Basic strategies for emotion regulation

In current mainstream psychological research and clinical practice, the core strategies for emotion regulation that can truly withstand repeated verification can be divided into three major directions: acceptance, cognitive adjustment, and action intervention. There is no universal optimal solution. Only choices that adapt to personal characteristics and current emotional intensity are effective.

It sounds abstract, but you might as well think about the last time you were robbed of your lane on the way to work, or the state you were in when you stayed up late and revised three versions of a plan but was dismissed by your leader with just one sentence - at that moment, blood rushed to your head, your mind went blank, and you couldn't think of anything important. The first thing to do at this time is not to "adjust your emotions" at all, but to "catch" it first. Many people used to think that "accepting emotions" meant "tolerating" and suppressing oneself. This is actually a big misunderstanding. The traditional school of psychoanalysis emphasizes that suppressing emotions can lead to subconscious conflicts, but "acceptance" in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is not to hold it back at all, but to see the existence of emotions without judgment - just like when you see it raining outside the window, you don't need to curse "what the hell is the weather" or force yourself to stop the rain immediately, you know that it will stop after a while, that's all. I met a sales girl before. She used to scold herself for being useless every time she was rejected by a customer. Then she expressed her emotions every time she was sad: "Oh, I feel aggrieved now and a little embarrassed. It doesn't matter. It's normal to feel uncomfortable after being rejected." With such a small move, her internal friction was reduced by nearly 70%. In fact, emotions are like an uninvited guest that suddenly breaks into your home. Don't rush it out with a broom as soon as you come up, and don't lock it in the storage room. Give it a glass of water first and ask it why it's here. If it's just here to hide from the rain, it will leave when the rain stops. If it's here to deliver something to you, you accept the thing and it will leave.

Of course, acceptance alone is sometimes not enough, especially when some emotional stucks arise repeatedly, mostly due to unresolved cognitive knots. There has always been a lot of controversy here: Practitioners of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) will advocate finding out the "irrational beliefs" in the mind first - for example, if the leader says something like "I'm going to be fired" or "I can't do anything well", and get rid of these absolute and catastrophic thoughts, the emotions will naturally go smoothly. ； But postmodern narrative therapy doesn't see it that way. They think that no idea is "unreasonable", it's just that the version of the story you tell yourself is too narrow. When being scolded by a leader, you don't have to force yourself to say, "I can't feel that the leader is targeting me." Just change the story to another version: "The leader held a three-hour meeting this morning, and just after being scolded by his leader, I happened to get caught in the crossfire." I have a friend who is a teacher. She was anxious for half a month because of a parent complaint. She used CBT to find a bunch of evidence that "I will not be fired." It was useless. Later, she made up a story for herself: "I am a new teacher who has just been in the industry for two years. It is normal to make mistakes. If I were perfect, would I still be working here? ”On the contrary, it suddenly cleared up. Who do you think you can talk to to reason with me?

Not everyone likes to fight with the thoughts in their head. I have seen many people who get more and more annoyed the more they think about it. It is better to take action and get quick results. There are even more controversies about action strategies: "Emotional vent rooms" were particularly popular in the past few years, which advocated smashing bottles and hitting sandbags when you are angry, thinking that it is good to "vent" your emotions. However, many studies later proved that aggressive venting will actually raise your anger threshold, making you more likely to explode next time you encounter something trivial. I have a programmer friend who used to do this. Every time he had an online accident, he would go boxing for an hour. Later, he found that he couldn't help but get angry when communicating with the product. Later, he changed it to playing Lego for 10 minutes every time he was in a bad mood, or going downstairs to buy an iced American and go for a walk. The effect was much better. In fact, the core of action is not to "vent" at all, but to pull your attention away from the emotional whirlpool and give your brain a buffer to switch channels. Soaking your feet, petting the cat, or even washing the dishes that have been saved for three days is more effective than holding it in or venting blindly. Of course, there are exceptions. If you really encounter something particularly difficult to deal with, there is nothing wrong with finding a place where no one is and crying, or yelling at friends for two hours. There are no absolutely correct rules.

Harmful, to be honest, I have been doing psychological counseling for almost five years, and I have seen too many people struggle with "Is my method of regulating emotions right?" Some people even have an extra layer of anxiety because they cannot regulate their emotions. It is completely unnecessary. Contents that teach you "three steps to control emotions" and "always maintain emotional stability" essentially treat emotions as enemies that need to be eliminated, but in fact emotions themselves are part of you, and they are here to send you messages: anger tells you that someone has crossed the line, anxiety tells you that you care about this, and sadness tells you that you need to rest. You beat the messenger away, and he will come again next time with more people.

If I really want to talk about the most basic strategy, there is actually only one: don’t fight with yourself. You can do whatever you want at the moment. As long as it doesn't hurt yourself or affect others, it doesn't matter whether you cry, laugh, be in a daze, or curse, all are good methods. There is no standard answer. Whatever makes you feel comfortable is the right one.