Emotional Regulation: Six Steps to Your Human Superpower!
We’ve all heard that good mental health is about our emotional regulation—but what does that really mean?
Emotional regulation is our human superpower—the bedrock of our well-being, self-esteem, and resilience. It’s a way of being that allows us to navigate the ups and downs of life without becoming overwhelmed. Instead, we can still stand up as the waves crash over us! In contrast, emotional dysregulation can feel like being tossed around in the sea and is the source of most personal and family mental health issues, including anxiety, depression, and ADHD.
Emotional self-regulation has two core elements. The first is about managing our emotions through our body, which is the subject of this blog. The second is about regulating our emotions through connection with other people, which is also discussed in this blog.
Managing our own emotions in our own bodies.
We typically associate emotional management with stressful situations. Most of us are familiar with the fight/flight/freeze/fawn response and associate it with big traumas. However, the same physiological response, but maybe less pronounced, is also activated in day-to-day human experiences, typically connected with interpersonal relationships. You have probably experienced the freeze response: when your mind has gone blank (maybe a colleague challenged you), or the fight response: when you lost your temper unexpectedly (because someone jumped ahead of you in a queue), or the flight response: when you back off (to avoid that nosey neighbour), or the fawn response: when you don’t say ‘no’ (and end up doing something that you don’t want to do). These responses are active in our everyday lives, so we need nature’s survival toolkit to calm ourselves and respond in our best interests.
Because stress happens in real-time, our response must also be in real-time. But because stress impacts our minds (and our thinking), it is very hard to respond in the moment with those impacted minds. So, instead of our usual top-down approach to dealing with issues, we have to go bottom-up and use our bodies to cope with stress. Fortunately, nature has designed a bottom-up physiological stress response that is quick and always available to us in real-time - and that is through our breathing.
Stress release through our breathing can be done silently throughout the day, for example, when we are alone, in meetings, or waiting for a date to show up. No one notices us doing it, so being relaxed and chilled can become a daily habit and part of who we are. Here are the suggested steps:
Ground Yourself
Pay attention to your body. Sit with your feet firmly planted on the floor. For people in wheelchairs, feel your bottom on the chair beneath you and notice how it supports your back and your arms. Place your hands comfortably on the armrest or your lap. Close your eyes (if possible).
Exhale
Focus on feeling your stomach pulling in to fully engage your body’s natural breathing movement.
Inhale-Exhale Exchange
Take two to three deep breaths, but focus on breathing out for longer than breathing in. If possible, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth (this won’t always be possible if you’re very stressed or have a cold).
Notice Your Body
As you do this, practice over time, and if you can close your eyes, try to tune in to how your body is responding. Over time, it might seem like the stress trickles from your head into your body or down your arms.
Up the Ante
Sometimes, you might feel particularly stressed, and engaging in the ‘physiological sigh’ described above can enhance this feeling.
Get to Know Yourself
Over time, as you notice how your body responds, you may connect more with your body and understand the cues it gives you about what is happening for you at the moment. This bodily awareness is essential if we notice our boundaries when someone oversteps them and, crucially, empower us to reinforce them. How many times have you felt that twist in your stomach that told you something was wrong, but you didn’t hear it loud enough or just ignored it? It’s so much easier to say, ‘No, I’m not ok with that / that doesn’t work for me / that’s not comfortable for me’ when you speak it from your body than when you think it in your head!
Hope & Empowerment
Above all, this is a message of hope and empowerment. Most of us already have the critical resources for self-regulation and mental health - we just need to learn how to access them. And because stress happens in real-time, our best response is also in real-time with a bottom-up approach that uses our breathing to effectively calm our mind.
