Do You Know How to Manage

Your Emotions and Why It

Matters?
simplypsychology.org/emotional-regulation.html

Emotional regulation refers to the processes individuals use to manage and respond to
their emotional experiences in appropriate and adaptive ways. It encompasses
strategies to amplify, maintain, or decrease one’s emotional responses.

It involves a range of strategies, from cognitive reappraisal to mindfulness practices, that

help individuals cope with difficult situations and have emotional control.

Effective emotion regulation has been linked to a range of positive outcomes, including
improved well-being, better interpersonal relationships, and enhanced resilience in the face
of stress and adversity.

Being able to regulate emotions is a skill, meaning that people often learn emotional
regulation as they grow up. Some people may find it easier than others to regulate their
emotions.

Emotional regulation reflects a set of processes that influence:

Which emotions someone has

When they have these emotions
How they experience and express these emotions

Emotional regulation is not to be confused with eliminating or controlling emotions but with
moderating the experience of the emotions being experienced. This includes the ability to
alter the intensity or duration of an emotion rather than changing it completely.

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Being able to moderate the intensity of the emotion can help to control behavior and
emotional reactions.

When an emotion is felt, for example, anger, this can be triggered when feeling threatened or
powerless.

Why is emotional regulation important?

Being able to regulate emotions is important since our emotions are closely connected to
how we think and feel. Our thoughts and feelings help us to decide how best to respond to a
situation and what action we should take. Essentially, emotional regulation can influence
behavior.

Learning skills to regulate our emotions means that, instead of acting impulsively and doing
something that may be regretted later, we are able to make thought-out choices.

This can mean that we can learn to manage relationships with others, problem-solve, and
have better control over our mental health.

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If our emotions are shut down or avoided, we may struggle with powerlessness, negative
thinking, ruminating, resentment, and increased frustration. This could result in the
development of anxiety, depression, or physical complaints.

Examples of common emotion regulation strategies

Below are some of the common healthy and unhealthy emotion regulation strategies that
people use:

Healthy strategies

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These can include the following:

Practicing meditation or mindfulness

Engaging in therapy
Talking through emotions with friends
Develop emotional intelligence skills
Writing in a journal
Noticing when a break is needed – having some space from others
Having good sleep hygiene

Unhealthy strategies

These can include the following:

Self-injurious behaviors
Alcohol and substance abuse
Emotional eating
Avoiding or withdrawing from difficult situations
Excessive use of social media to the exclusion of other responsibilities
Withdrawing from others – social isolation

What is emotion dysregulation?

Emotion dysregulation is the inability to use healthy strategies to diffuse or moderate

negative emotions.

It is common for people to occasionally use less-than-ideal emotional regulation strategies.

However, individuals who regularly experience overwhelming, intense, negative emotions are
much more likely to rely on unhealthy strategies.

Imagine a scenario where one of your friends does not turn up for a pre-arranged lunch with
you. Instead of considering the many reasonable explanations for why this happened, this
event can trigger feelings of hurt or abandonment for someone with emotional dysregulation.

They may feel intense anger or resentment, resulting in acting on these emotions, such as
shouting at the friend, accusing them of being a bad friend, or withdrawing from the
friendship.

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In a distressing situation, someone with inadequate emotion regulation skills experiences
distress related to negative emotions and a lack of control over their emotions.

When acting on our dysregulated emotions, we can end up behaving in ways that overwhelm
us further, meaning we can get stuck in a vicious emotional cycle.

Dysregulation lies on a spectrum between underregulated and overregulated styles. Both

make it hard to self-soothe and return to baseline emotional states.

Someone with dysregulated emotions may:

Have reduced awareness and understanding of their emotions

Have the inability to inhibit impulsive behaviors
Have heightened, labile negative emotions
Have a high sensitivity to emotions in a social context

Some of the common behaviors of someone with emotion dysregulation include:

Dissociating
Numbing
Rage
Violent outbursts
Impulsive, reckless behavior
Substance abuse
Avoidance
Self-injurious behaviors

What causes poor emotional regulation?

Having poor emotional regulation often comes from childhood. Below are some possible
causes for why someone may struggle with regulating their emotions:

Temperament

A temperament is mainly determined by genetic inheritance and is usually stable across time
and situations. It may be possible that some children develop poor emotional regulation due
to their temperament.

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Differences in temperament can be observable very early in life. Some infants are calm and
even-tempered, while others tend to have more intense and longer stress reactions which
may contribute to poorer emotional regulation.

Trauma

Trauma is described as the experience of catastrophic affect an individual cannot process,

understand, and/or integrate. The overwhelming intensity of feelings can automatically freeze
or shut down consciousness.

Many people who experience trauma, especially as a child, are likely to have poor emotional
regulation. Someone who experiences trauma may have inflexible strategies to help with
emotions – often one way of reacting to negative emotions.

The more trauma someone has experienced as a child, such as experiencing or witnessing
abuse, the more likely they are to have severe emotional dysregulation.

Attachment styles

Early attachment experiences shape emotion regulation abilities. Infants need caregivers to
help modulate their affects through attuned bonding.

Without this, children fail to develop self-soothing capacities and instead rely on external
regulation.

Insecure attachment styles involve suboptimal parental attunement. Caregivers may be

inconsistent, unavailable, extreme, or invalidating.

Children internalize these dynamics, learning unhealthy regulation habits like suppression or
dramatic emotionality. The encoded patterns persist into adulthood as emotion dysregulation.

Low emotional intelligence

Low emotional intelligence (EI) can lead to poor emotion regulation in several ways:

1. Limited Recognition: Those with low EI may not accurately recognize their emotions,
making it hard to address them appropriately.
2. Misunderstanding Emotions: Without understanding the causes or triggers of
emotions, it’s difficult to strategize how to handle them.

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 3. Impulsive Reactions: Low EI can result in knee-jerk emotional reactions without
thoughtful response or self-reflection.
4. Difficulty in Expression: People with low EI might struggle to express their emotions
constructively, leading to miscommunication or conflict.
5. Reduced Empathy: A lack of EI can mean reduced empathy for others, making
interpersonal conflict more likely and harder to resolve.
6. Ineffective Coping Strategies: Without the insight provided by higher EI, individuals
might resort to maladaptive strategies like avoidance, substance abuse, or aggression.

Related disorders

Poor emotion regulation in childhood may increase the likelihood of developing other mental
health disorders.

Likewise, having a neurodevelopmental condition may come with symptoms associated with
poorer emotional regulation.

The following conditions can involve some difficulties with emotional regulation:

Borderline personality disorder (BPD)

People with this disorder often have emotional sensitivity, heightened and changeable
negative moods, a deficit of appropriate regulation strategies, and a surplus of maladaptive
regulation strategies.

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD)

This condition is often diagnosed in adults or children who have repeatedly experienced
trauma such as violence, neglect, or abuse. In CPTSD, emotion regulation involves difficulty
self-calming when distressed and chronic emotional numbing.

Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD)

This childhood condition can involve experiencing extreme moods and intense temper
outbursts. There is often a lot of anger with this condition, irritability, and strong behaviors in
response to negative emotions.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD)

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Poor emotional regulation is a common symptom of autism. Individuals often have greater or
more intense baseline levels of negative emotions or irritability, have poorer problem-solving
skills, can become easily overstimulated, and may find it harder to detect other people’s
emotions.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Poor emotional regulation is a key symptom of ADHD. Individuals with this disorder may
have strong reactions to small setbacks, feel their emotions more intensely than others, have
difficulty calming down, and have a low tolerance for frustration or annoyance.

The cycle of distress

Wanting to minimize or avoid strong and negative emotions is part of what is often called a
‘cycle of shame.’ This pattern often looks like the Experimental Avoidance Model by
Chapman, Gratz, & Brown (2006).

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This model explains that self-harm is primarily maintained by negative reinforcement in the
form of escape or avoidance of unwanted emotional experiences.

This effectively levels out the rollercoaster of emotions until the next time. This can be
applied to any unhelpful coping strategy that people use instead of regulating their emotions.

When people use these unhelpful strategies, they do not feel good about using them despite
their short-term effectiveness. These tend to add to a larger sense of shame or failure that
sets the stage for the whole process to begin again. This is how it can become a vicious
cycle.

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Breaking the distress cycle
Changing any part of the cycle can interfere with the pattern and lead to more positive
thoughts and feelings.

Techniques such as those employed in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help you
learn how to understand and work with the relationship between your thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors.

Learn to pay attention to the way the thought-emotion-behavior relationship works for you,
then ask yourself some questions:

What particular ideas or thought patterns are causing a reaction in your mind?
Which emotions do you find most difficult to endure or handle?
What methods or actions do you take to ease your anxiety?
To what extent do these techniques provide relief in both immediate and long-term
situations?
Are there any fundamental convictions you hold about yourself, others, or the world
that have a bearing on the negative spiral?
Alternatively, what are the thoughts and convictions that contribute the most to
generating positive emotions for you?

It is important to note that there can be a variety of strategies that are used to deal with
emotions, even overwhelming ones.

What happens most often is that these strategies are not applied flexibly, and someone may
use the same unhelpful strategy in every negative situation.

Putting effort into questioning what thoughts you have and what coping strategies you
gravitate towards is an essential step toward ending the distress cycle.

Skills for regulating emotions

Learning emotion regulation skills will help us learn to effectively manage and change
the way we feel and cope with situations.

1. Name the emotion

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Attempting to avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings can actually result in more unwanted
negative thoughts and feelings.

Rather than avoiding unpleasant emotions, acknowledge their presence and name them
specifically. It can be helpful to say out loud or think to yourself, ‘I am feeling
sad/angry/afraid.

If you are uncertain about what emotion you are feeling, you can use a ‘Feelings Wheel,’
which displays many of the primary and secondary emotions one may feel.

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Naming the emotion often leads to the emotion losing its power. It can allow us to let go of
some of the pain and discomfort that accompany the unpleasant emotion.

2. Recognize and understand the emotion

It makes sense to believe that people who are unclear about their emotions are also less
aware and less clear about their psychological needs.

A way in which you can become more aware of what you are feeling is to pay attention to
what you are experiencing physiologically in your body.

For instance, you may have an unsettled feeling in your stomach when feeling anxious, or
you may feel a tightness in your chest if you are feeling sad.

3. Validate the emotion

It is key to recognize that your emotions are present for a valid reason and that they are
telling you something.

Practice self-compassion and give yourself support for the unpleasant emotions you are
experiencing. Understand that feeling strong negative emotions are a normal part of life.

Try to breathe into the experience of your emotions. You can soothe hurt feelings by placing
a hand over your body where you feel this experience, then breathe slowly into this area.

Inquire within as to whether there may be something you can do to address this feeling
without any expectation that something needs to be done.

4. Identify and resolve emotional triggers

Often, we may have an interpretation of a situation that can trigger a strong emotional
reaction. To help with regulating our emotions, it is key to learn to recognize emotional
triggers.

By identifying triggers, you can address the underlying issue and change your emotional
response.

Remember that you always have a choice on how to respond and what to do with the
information you have.

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5. Use chair work dialogues

Another technique that can aid emotion regulation is chair work dialogues (Greenberg,
2021). This involves imagining a conversation between different parts of yourself.

For example, you can externalize an internal critical voice by giving it a chair. Notice when
this part attacks vulnerable emotions, making you feel flawed. Dialogue with the critic,
expressing the pain it causes. Work to uncover the unmet needs or shame driving its
harshness.

Chair work also allows compassionately soothing distressed parts of yourself. Comfort a
scared inner child and provide the safety it lacked. Or encourage an angry part to express its
frustration adaptively.

By making inner dynamics explicit through role play, you gain awareness of what triggers
painful states. The parts can then integrate, resolving inner conflicts that dysregulate
emotions.

6. Use imagery to transform emotions

Imagery is another effective strategy for modulating emotions (Greenberg, 2021).

Visualization accesses right-brain processes, evoking feelings rapidly.

Imagine revisiting a scene where you felt overwhelmed, like childhood mistreatment or
rejection. See yourself as a vulnerable child in this situation. What emotions arise? Fear,
loneliness, shame? Stay with these painful feelings briefly.

Now visualize your current self entering the scene, ready to intervene. Offer the child
protection and meet their unmet needs. Provide the safety and comfort they lacked. Dialogue
with the child to understand their distress.

This imaginal process transforms difficult memories by accessing core hurts then
symbolically resolving them. New empathy and care emerge, encoded as healthy emotional
responses. Old triggers lose their power.

With practice, vividly revisiting scenes activates self-compassion automatically. Past wounds
heal, and present emotions become more regulated.

References

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Aldao, A., Nolen-Hoeksema, S., & Schweizer, S. (2010). Emotion-regulation strategies
across psychopathology: A meta-analytic review. Clinical psychology review, 30(2), 217-237.

Chapman, A. L., Gratz, K. L., & Brown, M. Z. (2006). Solving the puzzle of deliberate self-
harm: The experiential avoidance model. Behaviour research and therapy, 44(3), 371-394.

Dunn, E. C., Nishimi, K., Gomez, S. H., Powers, A., & Bradley, B. (2018). Developmental
timing of trauma exposure and emotion dysregulation in adulthood: Are there sensitive
periods when trauma is most harmful?. Journal of affective disorders, 227, 869-877.

Greenberg, L. S. (2021). Emotion regulation. In L. S. Greenberg, Changing emotion with

emotion: A practitioner’s guide (pp. 279–307). American Psychological
Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000248-012

Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation: Current status and future prospects. Psychological
inquiry, 26(1), 1-26.

McRae, K., & Gross, J. J. (2020). Emotion regulation. Emotion, 20(1), 1.

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