What are the lower limits of emotion regulation?

I have been doing emotional intervention for almost six years. When it comes to lower-limit adjustment methods that can help people when their emotions reach the lowest point such as collapse and numbness, the most practical ones are actually the method of first relying on physiology, then connecting with reality, and finally setting up a small anchor point. There are not so many fancy theories at all.

At the most urgent moment, such as when you have just received a call that a loved one is in trouble and you are completely frozen and unable to move, or you are crying until you can’t breathe and you are confused. Don’t engage in emotional counseling such as “you have to be strong” or force yourself to think of solutions. First, find something that stimulates your senses. Just push yourself - grab a piece of iced Coke just taken out of the refrigerator, take a bite of a sour plum that makes you frown, or even slap your face twice with cold water. Strong sensory stimulation can instantly interrupt the vicious cycle of emotional decline and bring people back to a state where they can act independently. Some colleagues have discussed the controversy before, asking whether this kind of strong stimulation will form a new stress reflex? But anyone who has been involved in front-line emergency intervention knows that at this time, the first priority is to ensure that the person concerned does not do anything to harm himself and can regain his basic mobility. Those very minor side effects can be basically ignored as long as follow-up guidance is provided. It is better than being trapped in an emotional whirlpool and triggering extreme behavior.

Once you have calmed down and are able to stand firm and speak a full sentence normally, you won't need to use such violent methods. The next thing to do is to bring your attention back to the present moment from the bad things that are going over and over in your mind. You don’t need to engage in too complicated mindfulness exercises. Just look up and count the specific things you can see in front of you that are related to the current scene - such as the three yellow shared bicycles parked on the roadside, the fragrance of taro paste wafting from the milk tea shop, and the rustling of the sycamore trees. If you count, you will find that you will not always be stuck in the dead end of "I am finished" and "I am so miserable." Last month, a girl was optimized by the company. She sat in the garden downstairs for two hours and couldn't move. When she called me, she couldn't speak well. I asked her to count the roses blooming around her. When she reached the 12th one, she suddenly realized that last week she was thinking of cutting one and putting it in a vase in the office. Now, although she doesn't need to put it in the office, she can cut it home and put it on the dining table.

In fact, at this point, your emotions have basically left the lowest danger zone. If you want to support yourself again and are afraid that you will not be able to fall into negative emotions when you are free, just find yourself a special small thing that you are sure to do. It doesn’t have to be such grand goals as “I want to cheer up and find a new job right away” or “I want to get out of a broken relationship within a week”, just small things like “I’m going to buy the sausage-filled pancakes downstairs later” or “The cat at home is still waiting for me to go back and open the can of salmon”. These small expectations that are small and tied to your real life are like cushioning the dangling emotional bench, and it won’t hurt even if it slides down further.

Many people have misunderstandings about emotional regulation. They think that it is only useful if you eliminate all negative emotions and become positive. However, lower limit regulation is like an emergency power bank. It does not need to be fully charged for you. It only needs to allow you to turn on the phone and take two steps forward normally. It is not too late to talk about the rest after you have recovered.