List of negative emotions and methods of getting rid of them. How to learn to restrain emotions - advice from a psychologist, practical recommendations How to cope with your emotions - advice from a psychologist
Text: Rita Popova
The ability to understand and manage one's own emotions significantly makes life easier, and most importantly, makes it more enjoyable. We asked the curator of the BHSAD summer intensive course “Emotional Intelligence in Creative Business” Tatyana Strashnenko to tell us how to cope with excessive emotionality at work and at home.
Emotions are the key to understanding yourself
and a better path to goals and meanings
We do not have time to fully experience positive emotions, and with negative emotions the situation is even worse - most perceive them as something bad that must be gotten rid of at any cost. But our irritation, anger or fear can be important signals that the subconscious sends us. Emotions are the key to understanding yourself and a better path to goals and meaning.
There is a famous saying: “Terrible is the wrath of a man who is angry once a year.” If we ignore emotions, the energy that is given to us to act (for example, to flee or fight when fear arises) accumulates inside and becomes destructive. Almost everyone has experienced a state of emotional storm, when emotions are so overwhelming that we are practically not aware of our actions and words. When the storm has subsided, the person comes to his senses and is sincerely perplexed as to what it was. However, if his behavior does not change, ignoring his feelings will most likely lead to another breakdown.
In recent years, psychologists have been talking more and more about a set of emotional competencies that can and should be developed. Even our rather conservative education is getting rid of stereotypes like “boys don’t cry” or “a girl should always be nice.” Serious work with emotions and consolidation of new habits requires effort and time, but you can start taking the first steps in developing your emotional intelligence now.
Realize and name
How often do you communicate to yourself that you are angry, discouraged, hurt, anxious, or feeling tender? If you do this regularly, congratulate yourself and put this article aside. If not, start right now. Ask yourself, “How am I feeling right now?” - and write down the answer in the language of feelings and emotions. When remembering an event from the past, analyze it from the point of view not of words and actions, but of feelings. Keep a special notebook in which at least once a day you will write down the emotional states that you experienced during the day. Gadget enthusiasts can opt for a smartphone app like Mood O Scope or Emotion Diary.
When you recognized and named your emotional state, you did some very significant things. First, acknowledge that you feel it - instead of ignoring the emotion. Secondly, you took responsibility for what was happening (not “he made me angry”, but “I got angry”), which means that managing this situation is now in your hands. In other words, you have ceased to be an object affected by various emotions, and have become a subject, that is, the master of the situation. Thirdly, you reminded yourself in time that anger or rage is not an integral part of your personality - it is just a temporary state that comes and goes, it happens to everyone.
Choose how to dispose
Once you are aware of how you feel, it is important to take control of the situation. If you control an emotion, you can use this resource for a good cause, but if a strong emotion controls you, the consequences are unpredictable. For example, when we experience anxiety, we want to immediately drop everything and hide somewhere. But if we are aware of the anxiety and manage the situation, we once again double-check our plans and actions, analyze weaknesses and possible risks. In a calm state, we might be too lazy to do this, but anxiety gives us an incentive to action and additional energy.
If you find yourself experiencing an emotion that is generally considered negative, do not rush to get upset. After asking “How am I feeling now?” and answer it honestly, ask yourself the following question: “How can I use this?” What if my feelings of resentment prompt me to prove something to others? Should I take advantage of my angry mood to finally say “no” to the person who has long been taking advantage of my kindness? Does my fear indicate that I have not fully clarified or thought through the upcoming action?
Reduce emotional intensity
If you realize that you cannot cope with your emotions, the most important thing is to relax, reduce the emotional intensity in order to be able to think soberly. You can help yourself with this using fairly simple but quite effective methods.
DRINK COOL WATER. Remember that stress is a physiological reaction of the body, and water regulates metabolic processes and cools, literally and figuratively. In addition, the procedure can serve as a “switch”: drink slowly, in small sips, focusing all your attention on the process.
BREATHE. In stressful situations, our breathing quickens or freezes, as if we stop breathing altogether. By normalizing breathing, we normalize our condition. Take a few deep breaths, if possible, close your eyes and fully focus on your breathing, without being distracted by anything else. If you want, you can use your imagination: imagine how with every breath you are filled with something pleasant (warmth, sunshine, fresh air) , and with each exhalation, all unpleasant sensations and emotions leave you (for example, in the form of black or bluish smoke).
GETTING BROKEN OR WALKING. Physical activity is a great way to burn out negativity. If you count your steps, monitor your breathing, clap your hands in a certain rhythm, or perform any other action that requires concentration, your mind will be forced to distract itself from “chewing” unpleasant thoughts. If you can’t move, try changing the position of your body in space - very often mental “stuckness” is accompanied by immobility. Sometimes a simple change of perspective literally helps you see the situation in a new way.
DO YOURSELF MASSAGE. Even if you don't know anything about reflexology or human anatomy, there are a few simple techniques available to anyone in almost any situation. Rub your palms vigorously and massage your fingers. Close your eyes and place your hand on your forehead without lowering your head. Also, bioactive points, the impact of which reduces stress levels, are located above the upper lip and under the lower lip, strictly in the middle. Massage each or both together for 2-3 minutes.
Analyze and draw conclusions
Once you have recognized your emotion and chosen a course of action, be sure to return to the situation and analyze it. What caused the anger? Was there any real reason for anger? Did my interlocutor really want to offend me or was he simply poorly educated and misinformed? After all, did I provoke such a reaction from my interlocutor? What other options exist in this situation? Do I always react this way in such cases? Such an analysis is especially necessary if you failed to take control of the situation in time and acted under the influence of emotions.
Unfortunately, people usually do not return their thoughts to a negative experience, but strive to forget it as soon as possible. As a result, instead of invaluable experience and new knowledge about ourselves, we are left with feelings of guilt, shame and disappointment. But if you make it a rule to regularly analyze your emotions, after some time you will replace automatic reactions with a conscious choice of behavior model. After all, there are always many options for behavior - when you are calm and fully aware of what is happening.
Incredible facts
It’s normal to experience emotions, the problem is that often we don’t know what to do with them.
Therefore, in most cases we resort to familiar methods. For men, the most common outlets are video games, alcohol and smoking. Women cope with their emotions through food or shopping.
It's good if this happens from time to time. However, most often we use such unhealthy methods regularly. Ultimately, our relationships, work and health suffer.
How can you learn to manage your emotions effectively?
There are a few rules to remember.
How to learn to control your emotions
1. You don't choose your emotions because they arise in a part of the brain that we have no control over.
2. Emotions are not subject to moral rules. They are not good or bad, right or wrong. It's just emotions.
3. You are in charge of your emotions.
4. You can suppress emotions, but you cannot get rid of them.
5. Emotions can lead you astray or lead you down the right path. It all depends on your actions.
6. The more you ignore them, the stronger they become.
7. The only way to deal with emotions is to allow yourself to feel them.
8. Emotions fuel your thoughts. You can use your thoughts to manage your emotions.
9. You need to understand your emotions and what they want to tell you so that you can cope with stress. In other words, you need to process your emotions.
10. Every emotion carries an important message. This message helps you understand yourself better, even if you try to hide it. Do yourself a favor and accept whatever emotions you have by feeling them.
11. How your parents responded to your emotions determines how you feel about your emotions now. As you matured, your emotions matured along with you. They developed, became deeper and more influential.
How to manage emotions
Your emotions have been trying to come to the surface for a long time. They do not disappear, but go deep, and these roots have meaning.
If you want to become more aware of your emotions, start acknowledging them to avoid misunderstandings with others.
There are a few simple steps to learn how to deal with your emotions.
1. What emotion are you experiencing?
The first thing you need to do is identify what you are feeling. Psychologists highlight 4 main emotions: anxiety, sadness, anger, joy.
When you are anxious, thoughts come to you: " What if I don't find a job?", "What if I end up single?", "What if I fail the exam?"You worry about the future and what could go wrong. Physically, you may feel an increased heart rate, muscle tension, and clenching of your jaw.
When you are sad, you have negative thoughts about the past. You feel tired and heavy, may cry, and have difficulty concentrating.
Anger is expressed through thoughts focused on how someone has violated your values. Physical symptoms are similar to those of anxiety: rapid heartbeat, a feeling of tightness in the chest.
When you are happy, your thoughts are focused on your achievements. For example, you got the job you wanted, bought an apartment, or received a compliment. Physically you feel lightness and calmness, smile and laugh.
2. Determine the message of your emotions
Ask yourself a question to understand why you have this or that emotion:
Anxiety: What am I afraid of?
Sadness: What have I lost?
Anger: What values of mine were hurt by the other person?
Happiness: What did I gain?
Managing Emotions
Once you have identified the emotion and its message, you need to take action. Ask yourself if there is anything that can solve the situation. If possible, do it.
For example, if you are sad and cannot find a job, you can turn to friends and acquaintances for help.
If you can't do anything, think about how you can cope with the emotion. Try meditation, talk to a friend, write down your thoughts on paper, engage in physical activity, seek professional help. Choose what's right for you.
I recently shared an article - research data that showing negative emotions “for release” is erroneous and does not lead to inner harmony. So what to do with negative emotions?
The most common emotions that destroy us are anger, anger, irritation, fear, resentment, jealousy, shame, guilt, grief. In this article I will focus on the first of them, i.e. Consider the emotions of anger, anger and irritation.
These emotions tend to arise when someone acts in a way that we don't like.
There are 2 options - when someone’s actions really violate our borders(for example, someone uses our things or time without our permission and consent, or behaves really offensively towards us);
Actions that do not violate our boundaries, but nevertheless make us angry or irritated(for example, a loved one does something with their life that we don’t like, or when someone is offended in our presence).
In the first option, the emerging energy of anger should not be suppressed. The right thing to do is to use this energy to protect your borders, transforming it into courage. This must be done without aggression, politely but firmly formulate what you don’t like, and urge the offender not to repeat it again.
The problem arises when, instead of transforming into courage to protect our boundaries, anger is suppressed inward, and we are afraid to tell the “offender” what we don’t like or, on the contrary, we show it through aggression towards him and claims.
Let's look at both of these cases from the first option (a real violation of our borders).
1. For some reason, we are afraid to protect our boundaries. Perhaps we are afraid of even greater aggression and conflict, or we are afraid of losing a relationship, or being fired, or some other change in our life. In this case, suppressing anger seems justified, but it is wrong, and ultimately leads to even greater problems. It will be useful to learn self-love and self-respect, because... with the development of these qualities comes the understanding that you cannot allow others to treat you badly, no matter who they are. It would be a mistake if, instead of learning to love yourself, you try to redirect this suppressed aggression somewhere. You will attract people who will “offend” you until you take a lesson on developing self-esteem and self-love.
2. In a situation where it seems to us that we are being “offended,” we immediately respond with counter-aggression, starting to blame the person for his shortcomings. But such tactics never lead to improved relationships and spiritual harmony. Anger expressed in this way will destroy relationships, our health, and our destiny. The reason for this behavior lies in the fact that there is a lack of unconditional love for the other person and acceptance of him for who he is, with all his shortcomings. Otherwise, we would calmly, without negativity towards him and aggression, defend our borders. What to learn here is to love and accept others unconditionally, to understand that every person is free to choose how to live. Remember the rule: “judge not, lest ye be judged” or “let he who is without sin cast a stone.” No one was born to live up to our expectations. And we do not have the right to punish a person with aggression because he does something wrong from our point of view. Your goal is simply to prevent it from destroying you, from harming you. To do this, it is not at all necessary to respond blow to blow; it will be enough to calmly and with self-respect learn to defend your boundaries and have the courage to change your life if necessary.
Now let's look at the second option - actions do not violate our boundaries, but nevertheless cause us anger or irritation. There are 3 main reasons why this happens:
1. There is something in ourselves that we do not want to see or admit in ourselves, but when we see this quality in others, it irritates us very much. For example, if I cannot afford to rest, if the house is not cleaned, then I will be annoyed by the person who does this. This is how the mechanism of “psychological projection” works. The cure for this is self-analysis, awareness of the underlying causes of your emotions, acceptance of yourself with all your imperfections, and the development of unconditional love for yourself and others.
2. The way another person lives seems wrong to us, and we consider ourselves entitled to feel (and even express!) our dissatisfaction with him about what decisions he makes, what choices he makes. This often applies to spouses and grown children. At the heart of this is fear and disbelief in their ability to live their destiny independently. Treatment is to get rid of excessive responsibility for the lives of other people, learn to trust the ability of each person to live their destiny in the way they need, and get rid of fears.
3. There is a reason why expressing anger will be justified - if injustice is being done to other people in your presence. And then this anger gives energy to protect them from this injustice. It is only important that at the same time you maintain inner calm, and anger is expressed only at the external level. Remember the rule - “condemn the sin, but love the sinner.”
Those. Negative emotions such as irritation, anger, anger, as a rule, show us our own imperfection and development zone. These are just lessons that come to us through other people. If these lessons are correctly understood and followed, then these emotions will easily be transformed at the moment they arise. Remember that “no one is your friend, no one is your enemy. Every person is your teacher.” You need to learn unconditional love and acceptance of yourself and others. It’s not easy, but it’s absolutely possible, you just have to set yourself such a goal.
Finally, a beautiful idea from W. Dyer: if you crush an orange, the only thing you get is orange juice. Not tomato, not plum, just orange. So it is with life - no matter how much it crushes a person, if there is love inside him, then this is the only thing he will show. What's inside is also outside.
Remember that if something happening around you causes negative emotions in you, then you don’t need to try to suppress them or do something about this world and “imperfect” people. You need to change yourself, develop your soul, and then the reasons for the appearance of these negative emotions will disappear.
Good luck and prosperity to you!
endure or fight?
Discomfort, trouble, anxiety, pain, suffering..."Negative emotions" is a rather vague definition that summarizes the emotions of this series.
Even people who consider themselves happy experience emotions from the “negative spectrum” of human experience. And although negative emotions mean a variety of emotions, their common property is that we feel something unpleasant, undesirable, “bad.” The strength of these experiences can increase from barely perceptible discomfort to a state of unbearability.
Throughout life, each person (consciously or unconsciously) develops his own strategy for dealing with them, giving his own answer to the question:
How to deal with negative emotions?
Avoid.
Some people feel that any experience is very difficult for them, hurts them greatly, or even simply “knocks them out of the rut” for a long time. At the same time, they feel that there are not enough resources to change the situation or cope with their emotions. Often such people choose the path of avoidance. Avoidance is an attempt to encounter as little as possible events, people, and even one’s own manifestations that can upset the internal balance. A person moves away from activities associated with negative emotions and stops at something.
When Masha was 8 years old, during a lesson in class, she raised her hand and went to answer the board. She knew the material well, but was excited by the opportunity to express herself and, under the influence of strong emotions, mixed up something. My classmates laughed, and the teacher gave me a C for an incorrect answer. Masha was ashamed of herself and offended by the C grade. At home, she received a comment from her mother: “Why did you volunteer to come to the board if you weren’t confident in yourself?”
Now Maria is 32 years old, she works as a junior manager in a small company. She could have become a manager long ago, because she is well versed not only in her own work, but also in the work of the entire department. But no one knows about this. The fear of proving herself (and the expectation of possible shame) crosses out the possibility of her professional growth.*
Anton is 42 years old. He is a confirmed bachelor. Women happen in his life - for a day, two, a week... The longest romance in his life lasted 8 months and ended 23 years ago. Then the girl he really fell in love with went to his friend. He suffered a lot, he wanted to kill him, her, and then yourself. These feelings were even more acute than those he experienced at the age of five, when his parents divorced and his mother married his stepfather. It took Anton 2 years to recover from the failed romance. The wound from the loss, from the experience of betrayal, healed, but the scar remained. Now, as soon as there is a “threat” of getting closer to someone, the opportunity to become attached, Anton mercilessly breaks off the relationship. He is ready to sacrifice love, warmth, the opportunity to raise children, just so as not to again face the terrible pain of betrayal and separation.*
Use others.
Another possibility is to use the people around you to transfer onto them what is unpleasant and difficult to experience inside. Unconsciously trying to avoid contact with negative emotions within oneself, and unable to process them into something useful, a person feels anxiety, irritation or anger. At a conscious level, he connects these feelings with what is happening around him - with the behavior of loved ones, life circumstances, political system, etc. As a result, he does not try to truly understand the reasons that cause these emotions, and denies his contribution to what is happening: the defensive reaction is triggered instantly and unconsciously. The emotions themselves feel like a tangled, unpleasant, hand-burning tangle that needs to be gotten rid of by throwing it to someone else. In most cases, after this the internal balance is more or less restored. But loved ones suffer from the emotions splashed out on them. And then either loved ones become unhappy or try to communicate less. But negative emotions still remain strong.
Ivan Andreevich is the head of a department of a trading company. He studied a lot, he is very demanding of himself, he is a really good specialist. But his department has a serious problem: staff turnover, due to which the efficiency of the department as a whole is greatly reduced. Only one employee lasted more than two years. The rest either move to other departments or quit altogether. The reason is this: Ivan Andreevich is considered a tyrant, hated and feared. This surprises him and offends him a little, because he just wants everyone to work “normally.” Just like his father, who always scolded him (and even flogged him) for any offense (and anything could be considered a fault), Ivan Andreevich considers himself fair. After all, his anger is always directed at some imperfection of the employee. But he does not realize that the true reasons for his emotions are often not the actions of employees, but his own poor health, a deteriorating relationship with his wife, unconscious dissatisfaction with himself, the fear of being unsuccessful and losing the trust of the company's management. While “educating” employees, he does not solve the real problems, and people from the department keep leaving and leaving... *
Tatyana got married at the age of 18. She wanted to feel freedom so much that she accepted the proposal from the first person who made it, without thinking about her feelings. It was not easy for her as a child - she lived alone with her mother - a lonely and very anxious woman who made her daughter her only friend, her mother, her psychotherapist. Unconsciously, she used her daughter so as not to feel loneliness, anxiety, and fear for the future.
Tanya lived with her husband for only 2 years. He was unable to compete for Tanino’s attention with his mother-in-law, who called many times a day, with whom he had to spend all weekends and holidays. Finally, my mother began to feel bad and Tanya, unable to cope with the feeling of guilt in front of her “abandoned” mother, moved back to her... The return of her daughter cured her mother and the two of them lived for another 20 years until her mother died. All this time Tatyana was angry with her. But concern for her mother’s well-being and a sense of guilt and betrayal did not allow Tatyana to think about starting to live her own life.*
Suffer and endure.
Sometimes a person realizes that he is sacrificing his own interests, and may even stop living his own life to save someone else. In some cases, you really have to sacrifice some of your interests (for example, when a loved one is seriously ill). But quite often, sacrificing yourself and your interests to someone is not so much a tribute to severe necessity, but rather a passive way to cope with various negative emotions - anger, resentment, guilt.
In some cases, suffering acts as self-punishment. This is how a suffering person unconsciously copes with the feeling of guilt, which acutely manifests itself whenever he tries to think about his interests.
And sometimes suffering and self-reproach constitute a person’s secret pride. and feed his self-esteem. From the outside, such a person may look like a saint. Although it is not easy for his loved ones: they are forced to constantly feel guilty for wanting to realize their desires and follow their interests, while their loved one refuses everything in their favor.
Let's return to Tatyana from the previous example. Her mother unknowingly used her to cope with her anxiety and loneliness. When there was a threat that Tanya would break this symbiosis, my mother began to get sick. And then Tatyana experienced strong fear (of losing her mother, as well as causing her death) and guilt (for leaving her mother and for wanting to have her own life, as well as for the accumulated unexpressed anger towards her mother). Fear and guilt led Tatiana to the outcome described above: she spent her entire life caring for her mother, supporting her, and giving up opportunities to build close relationships with other people.*
Elena Sergeevna is the mother and grandmother of a large family. She devoted her life to her family and children. While raising her sons, she almost gave up communicating with her friends and had no hobbies. Elena Sergeevna never demanded anything for herself. Having given herself to her children, now she doesn’t understand: why do her children feel unhappy?*
Use negative emotions to improve your life.
Emotions exist in a person’s life for a reason. Positive emotions let us know that something good is happening for us. Negative emotions are a signal that something is going wrong. It is important not just to get rid of them, but to understand this signal and respond to it.
When something turns out to be emotionally unbearable for a person, it can be as if a shutdown of emotions occurs: the person no longer suffers, but he also does not truly rejoice, and over time there is a feeling that life is meaningless, or a feeling of deadness, living life in the absence of life itself.
Few people want to experience physical pain. However, when a person actually loses the ability to feel pain for some reason, he is in mortal danger. He will no longer withdraw his hand when it comes into contact with a hot object... He no longer feels that serious inflammation is beginning... Having broken his leg, he will continue to walk, crushing the bones inside... In a word, he will not be able to respond to danger to life...
But what then to do with negative emotions? By avoiding them, we hide from the world and do not realize our potential. Using others to cope with them, we make loved ones suffer, and others simply abandon us. By suffering and enduring, we sacrifice our lives.
An alternative to these unattractive options is inner work with your emotions. A person can do it independently or with the help of a psychologist. Of course, each case is individual, but in general this work goes through several general stages:
1. Awareness of which emotions are unpleasant or cause suffering.
2. Understanding what exactly causes them.
3. Determining what is happening can be changed.
4. Deciding what exactly you want to achieve and in what way.
5. Start of change.
Such internal work not only allows you to cope with negative emotions. It changes your life for the better and gives you reasons to be proud of your inner growth.
* The article provides examples of typical life situations.
Psychologist-psychanalyst
Training Analyst and CPT Supervisor
How we succeed in life is largely determined by our emotional intelligence: our ability to motivate ourselves and persist in achieving goals, to control impulses and delay gratification, to control our moods and not allow suffering to deprive us of the ability to think, empathize and hope.
The books “Emotional Intelligence” and “Emotional Flexibility” tell you how to learn to control your emotions. We publish some interesting thoughts and useful tips from them.
Emotions and Reason
The name Homo sapiens - homo sapiens - is misleading. We all know from experience that when it comes to making decisions and determining courses of action, feelings often play a larger role than thinking.
All emotions are essentially instantaneous action programs that evolution has gradually instilled in us. Actually, the root of the word “emotion” is the Latin verb moveo, meaning “to move, set in motion.”
This evolutionary adaptation served us well when we were daily threatened by snakes, lions, and hostile neighboring tribes. Faced with a predator or enemy, primitive man did not have time for abstract thoughts: “I am in danger. What options do I have?” Instantly flaring up anger or fear provided decisive chances for survival.
Fortunately, in the modern world, most of the problems we face are vague and distant in time. It’s no longer “Ah-ah!” Snake!". This is “Will they fire me?”, “Will my savings be enough for my old age?” But because of our close connection to emotions, our thoughts can trigger an automatic response of anxiety, fear, and a sense of immediate threat.
In a sense, we have two different faculties of thinking: rational and emotional. And both of them are important. We do not at all need to get rid of emotions and put reason in their place; it would be better to try to find a balance between them, to establish harmony between the head and heart.
Emotional flexibility
Even if a situation makes you angry, anxious, or sad, you can control your behavior. By choosing how to react to a stimulus, a person realizes his opportunity for development and his freedom.
Emotionally flexible people don't let negative feelings throw them off track; on the contrary, they only move more confidently - along with all their “cockroaches” - towards the most ambitious goals.
Many people look for solutions to their emotional problems in books or courses on self-development, but the problem is that such programs often present work on themselves in a completely wrong way. Those that call for positive thinking are especially far from reality. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to force yourself into happy thoughts.
You can’t brush aside unpleasant feelings, but you shouldn’t dwell on them either. There is a third approach: openly, with interest and without criticism, accept all your emotions.When we are truly ready to recognize and accept our inner problems, sooner or later even the worst demons will recede. Often it is enough to look fears in the face and articulate them for them to lose their power.
Emotional flexibility is the process that allows you to live in the moment by understanding when you do or don't need to change your behavior to stay in alignment with your intentions and values. This process does not mean that you ignore difficult experiences and thoughts. No, you simply stop clinging to them, consider them without fear or criticism, and then accept them in order to let grandiose changes for the better into your life.
Distance yourself and learn to recognize your feelings
Separate your thoughts and feelings from yourself and consider with an open mind: you think about this and experience that, but you are not your thoughts and feelings. This creates the same gap between feelings and reaction to them. If there is this gap, we are able to become aware of complex and unpleasant emotions immediately at the moment of their occurrence and choose how to react to them.
Observation from the outside does not allow fleeting experiences to take over us. By distancing ourselves, we discover a broader picture of what is happening - we learn to see ourselves as a chessboard on which countless games can be played, and not as a piece with a strictly limited set of moves.A cool awareness of violent or violent feelings is the maximum that introspection gives. At a minimum, it manifests itself in the ability to distance itself from the experience.
Self-awareness is a neutral mode of operation in which self-awareness remains even in the midst of a stormy sea of emotions. There is an obvious difference, for example, between states when one person is simply terribly angry with another, and when the same person thinks: “But I’m furious.” This is the first step to establishing some control.
Self-awareness has a more powerful effect on strong hostile feelings. Once you think: “But I feel anger,” a greater freedom of choice will arise - not only not to be guided by it in your actions, but also, in addition, to try to get rid of it.
Manage your emotions
Extremes—emotions that build up too intensely or for too long—undermine our stability. Once out of control, they turn into pathological ones, as with paralyzing depression, insurmountable anxiety, raging anger, manic excitement.
Of course, a person does not have to be happy all the time. Ups and downs, although they give life a peculiar spice, must remain in balance. It is the ratio of positive and negative emotions that determines the feeling of well-being - as evidenced by the results of studies of the mood of hundreds of men and women.
The goal is to gain peace of mind, not to suppress emotions: each feeling is valuable and important in its own way. But when emotions are extremely strong and last longer than a certain acceptable time limit, they gradually turn into painful extreme forms.
The brain is designed in such a way that we very often have little or no control over the moment when we are overcome by any emotion, and we have no control over which emotion will capture us. But we can have some influence on how long it lasts.
Fury
Imagine someone unexpectedly cuts you off on the expressway. If your first thought is “What a son of a bitch!”, this almost certainly means that you will soon be overcome by a fit of rage.
You grip the steering wheel with all your might. Your body is mobilizing for battle: you are shaking, beads of sweat appear on your forehead, your heart is pounding and ready to jump out of your chest, an angry grimace is frozen on your face. You are ready to kill the villain. Then, if the driver of the car behind you honks his horn impatiently, you can, maddened by rage, attack him at the same time. Anger grows on anger, and the emotional brain “heats up” more and more, and as a result, rage, not restrained by reason, easily turns into violence.
For comparison, consider another process of increasing rage with a more merciful attitude towards the driver who cut you off: “Maybe he didn’t notice me, or maybe he had some good reason for driving so carelessly, for example, someone urgently required medical attention." Such thoughts dilute anger with compassion, or at least force one to look at what happened without prejudice.
To stop the chain of indignant thoughts that support rage, you first need to destroy the beliefs that feed it. Reflections add fuel to the fire. But a different way of looking at things will extinguish the flame. One of the most effective ways to completely calm anger is to describe the situation again, but from a different point of view.
Try to grasp the thoughts that cause waves of anger and doubt their correctness, since it is this initial assessment that reinforces and maintains the first outbreak of rage, and subsequent ones only fan the flames.The sooner you stop the anger cycle, the greater the effect you can achieve.
There is another way to calm down. To “cool passions”, in the physiological sense - release from the surge of adrenaline, requires an environment that does not involve additional mechanisms for inciting rage. For example, during a dispute, you need to stop communicating with your opponent for a while.
Vigorous exercise also helps a lot against anger. Various relaxation methods, such as deep breathing and muscle relaxation, have no less effect. They change the physiology of the body, transferring it from a state of high to a state of low arousal.
However, not a single method of calming down will work if you go through thoughts that provoke anger in your head one after another: each such thought in itself is a small trigger for the gradual activation of irritation.
Anxiety
Anxiety appears seemingly out of nowhere, is uncontrollable, creates a constant noise of anxiety, is inaccessible to reason and can ultimately result in real fear neuroses, including various kinds of phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder and panic attacks.
Most people with anxiety seem unable to shift their attention to anything else. The reason is associated with frequent anxiety, which becomes extremely intense and becomes a habit.
There are several simple measures that can help even the most incorrigible worriers control this habit. The first step is self-awareness. We need to track anxiety-producing episodes as close to the beginning as possible, ideally as soon as or immediately after a fleeting image of a catastrophe starts the anxiety cycle.
It is necessary to learn to identify situations that cause anxiety, or fleeting thoughts and images that stimulate it. Having noticed the beginning of anxiety, you can use different relaxation methods, abouthowever, this is not enough.
If you're struggling with worrying thoughts, the first thing you can do is learn how to confront them head-on.Try to take a critical position in relation to your predictions: is it likely that the event that frightens you will actually happen? Is there only one scenario? Can any constructive steps be taken? Will it really help you to endlessly ruminate on the same anxious thoughts?
If anxiety is not prevented from returning again and again, it will acquire the “power of persuasion.” And if you fight back, considering several equally probable options, then you will stop naively accepting every disturbing thought as truth. The combination of thoughtfulness and healthy skepticism will act as a brake and stop the nervous excitement that feeds mild anxiety.
On the other hand, people whose anxiety has become so severe that it has developed into a phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder or panic attack might be wiser - as a sign of self-awareness - to seek help from medication to break the cycle.
Melancholy
Self-loathing, feelings of worthlessness, despair, inability to mentally focus, insomnia, feeling as uncaring as a zombie are just a few manifestations of depression.
Most people with this serious condition will benefit from psychotherapy, as well as medication. But with ordinary sadness, the upper limit of which reaches the level of “asymptomatic depression,” people can cope on their own.
One of the main factors determining whether a depressed state will persist or dissipate is the degree of immersion in despondency. The standard scenario: isolate yourself from everyone and everything and think about how terrible you feel.
People in a depressed mood sometimes evaluate their reflections as an attempt to “understand themselves better”; in reality, they feed their despondency without taking any steps to actually help themselves.
One of the most powerful remedies for depression is changing the way you look at things. It's so natural to mourn the end of a relationship and wallow in self-pity. A sure way to make your feelings of despair worse! However, if you step back and think about why your relationship didn't last as long and why you and your partner weren't right for each other, in other words, look at the loss differently and try to learn a valuable lesson, you will find a cure for sadness.
Here are some more ways to improve your mood:
1. The most popular tactic for fighting depression is socializing—going out to eat, go to a baseball game, or go to the movies—in short, activities you can do with friends or family. All this works very well if the end result is to get rid of sad thoughts.
2. Aerobics is also an effective means of helping to lift a person out of mild depression.
3. A constructive method of improving your mood is to organize a modest victory or easy success: you can, for example, energetically take on a long-delayed general cleaning of the entire house or finally do some other things that have long needed to be put in order.
4. There is another effective way to get out of depression - to help those who find themselves in difficult circumstances. Depression is fueled by self-thinking and preoccupation with one's own interests. Helping others takes us away from these worries because we connect deeply with the feelings of people experiencing suffering.
Motivation
Controlling your emotions—delaying gratification and suppressing impulsivity—is at the core of all achievement. People who master this art tend to be more productive and successful in whatever they undertake.
The impulsive, reward-seeking system in our brain (passion) constantly comes into conflict with rational long-term goals (reason).
For example, you decided that you will eat more healthy foods. But then you notice a delicious chocolate mousse in the dessert display. There is activity in the area of the brain associated with pleasure. Oh, how much you want this chocolate mousse! But no, you remind yourself. It is forbidden.
While you are working up the courage to refuse dessert, the area of the brain associated with self-control is activated. When both of these areas are active, the brain is literally fighting with itself - and we decide whether to have dessert or abstain. What complicates matters is that more primitive instincts have a head start. The brain rewards certain decisions before willpower even kicks in.
Our brains are designed to allow primitive impulses to take precedence over thoughtful judgments, but fortunately, one small adjustment can save you.We can formulate our goals using the word “want” rather than “should” or “should”. When we change our motivation in this way, we no longer need to worry about whether passions or reason win in the confrontation - our “I” is in harmony.
Want goals reflect a person’s true interests and values. We pursue such goals because we get pleasure from it, because the goal is important to us in itself or is perceived by us as an integral part of the personality. And most importantly, we chose these goals ourselves.
On the contrary, should-goals have an external origin: either they are instilled in us by a persistent relative (“It’s time for you to lose fat!”), or we are obliged to follow them by a subconscious script or external goal, usually associated with the need to avoid shame (“Lord, I looks like a dirigible! I can’t go to a wedding with sides like that!”).
You may be driven to eat healthier out of fear, shame, or concern about your appearance. Or you can choose a healthy diet because you consider health a necessary condition in order to feel good and enjoy life.
The need-motivation increases temptation many times over, because you feel that you are limited or deprived of something. Although it will encourage change for the better for a while, sooner or later your resolve will waver. There will inevitably be times when impulse overtakes intention.
By adjusting your motivation, you will no longer be powerless against temptation. Want-motivation reduces the automatic craving for stimuli that can lead you away from your chosen path (previous love, the shine of a glass of cocktail on a waiter’s tray), and pushes you towards a line of behavior that will really help you get closer to your goal.
Based on books