Emotion Regulation
- Emotions influence cognitive behavior. You'll likely be thinking quite differently depending on your emotions.
- Being able to control emotions is necessary for human adjustment and adaptation.
- Emotion regulation refers to the processes used to control emotional expressions, identify and interpret emotions and modification of emotional valence and intensity.
- For example you might be annoyed with a friend who is late on time, but emotion regulation allows you to show compassion instead of anger when they provide a reasonable explanation.
- The situation alters your emotions.
Learning Emotion Regulation
- To have good emotion regulation skills, it should be learned starting from childhood according to research.
- Mental imagery, thinking of happy memories or planning the future allow for emotional regulation.
- People who use substances or have mental health problems often cannot regulate their emotions.
Self-Regulation
- Self-regulation is necessary to handle disappointments.
- It is a central goal in human behavior to achieve or maintain positive experiences.
- When we encounter failure, it can cause strong negative emotions.
- Everyone faces disappointments, failures, obstacles and even crises.
- Self-regulation is required to deal with the emotions caused by negative events.
- Lack of proper self-regulation can lead to mental health problems.
- Difficult emotions redirect motivation and behavior as we look for a way to get rid of negative emotions and get over our wounds.
Conscious and Unconscious Self-Regulation
- Self-regulation involves conscious coping strategies and unconscious defense mechanisms.
- Everyone uses a mix of both, but generally conscious coping strategies are more effective.
- Better self-knowledge allows individuals to pick better coping strategies.
Coping
- Dealing with disappointments requires coping.
- Conscious coping strategies to deal with negative emotions include mental work, social relationships and physical activities.
- Coping strategies include mental work, supportive social relationships and physical activity.
- Mental work uses mental processes such as thinking, mental imagery, processing emotions and goal setting.
- Social relationships can also be used to cope if mental work isn't enough.
- A good friend or family member can provide perspective and support. A psychologist can also provide professional help.
- Physical activity such as eating or exercising could also assist with coping. Exercising calms the nervous system and emotional arousal and allows the person to perceive the situation differently or more clearly.
Defense Mechanisms
- Individuals cannot use conscious coping strategies if they cannot acknowledge the negative emotions or the situation.
- This leads to the use of defense mechanisms.
- Defense mechanisms are unconscious processes that protect ourselves from negative emotions.
- Defense mechanisms aren't healthy and postpone or prevent proper coping, often distorting the perception of reality and ourselves.
Positive Thinking
- Positive thinking also helps us overcome dissapointments.
- Understand the cause and looking at the positive aspects of the situation can help you relax.
- Positive thinking and action increase the release of endorphins in the brain, which is the happiness hormone.
- This reduces stress and strengthens the ability to think positively.