Key ideas
Abstract
- Regulation includes changing a situation, directing attention, reconsidering an interpretation and choosing a response.
- A pause gives time to decide what to do, even if the feeling remains strong.
- Practise manageable responses in ordinary situations and review whether they help.
- Evidence for broad strategies does not establish every individual exercise or suggested timing.
Emotional regulation concerns how people influence the emotions they experience and express. It can begin before a situation becomes difficult: changing the setting, preparing for a conversation or deciding where to direct attention. Once a feeling arises, a person can reconsider their interpretation or choose how to respond. These options form the process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998). They make regulation a broader task than trying to restrain behaviour once an argument has escalated.
Connected to
Emotions | Self-Awareness | Emotional Intelligence | Self-Care | Self-Compassion | Sleep | Relationships and Regulation
A pause before responding
A short pause can interrupt an automatic response long enough to choose the next action. Count slowly to ten, take a sip of water or postpone a non-urgent reply. During the pause, identify the immediate choice: ask a question, explain a concern or arrange to continue later. If leaving a conversation, explain the break and agree when to return so the other person knows the discussion has not simply been abandoned (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009).
Ten seconds is a practical reminder, not a measured point at which rational thought resumes. The pause may leave the feeling unchanged while still making a more considered response possible.
Slow, comfortable breathing is another option for managing stress. Adult randomised trials found small-to-moderate average reductions in self-reported stress, although the studies differed in their practices and had methodological limitations (Fincham et al., 2023). Breathe without forcing depth or holding the breath for prolonged periods, and stop if the practice produces dizziness or greater distress. Its usefulness should be judged by the person’s response, without assuming that ordinary shallow breathing has deprived the brain of oxygen.
When a decision can wait, sleep on it or set a review date. New information may arrive and an initial sense of urgency may change. Waiting days or weeks is suitable only when the consequences and deadline allow it. Necessary action should not disappear into indefinite avoidance.
Feelings and reasons on paper
An emotion-and-reason list makes a decision easier to examine. On one side, write the feeling and immediate impulse: “I am angry and want to send this reply now.” On the other, record the facts, likely consequences and competing needs: “I need to correct the misunderstanding, and I want to keep working with this person.” Compare the two before choosing an action (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009).
Look for sweeping judgements such as “always” or “never”, an imagined deadline or agreement given mainly to avoid conflict. Also check whether a supposedly reasonable plan ignores exhaustion or distress. Feelings and reasoning interact, so the exercise gives both attention rather than treating them as separate brain systems (Pessoa & Adolphs, 2010).
Reappraisal means reconsidering an interpretation. “They have not replied, so they must dislike me” may become “I do not know why they have not replied; I can ask tomorrow.” It should remain consistent with the available facts. A threatening or unfair situation needs an appropriate response, not an invented positive explanation. Experimental and individual-difference evidence generally favours reappraisal over habitual expressive suppression for several outcomes, although context affects what is useful (John & Gross, 2004).
Self-talk can be specific and accountable: “I missed the deadline; I need to tell them and revise the schedule.” Calling yourself useless adds a judgement without identifying a next step. Similarly, a restriction may leave some choices available: what to ask for, when to reply, whom to consult or where to set a boundary. This does not mean that people control all their circumstances or emotional reactions.
Scheduled reflection and rehearsal
A scheduled reflection break gives a recurring problem time outside the moment of conflict. One arrangement is fifteen minutes away from screens: use the first three minutes to settle, the next seven to consider one issue and the last five to review a possible response. Linking the break to lunch or finishing work may make it easier to remember (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009).
Choose a specific issue and finish with a feasible next action. For example, identify whether you agreed to a request because it was manageable or simply because you were too tired to discuss it. The timings provide structure; they are not a tested protocol and can be adjusted to the task.
Mental rehearsal means practising a response in imagination before the situation occurs. Choose a manageable example, such as hearing an impatient tone from a colleague. Picture noticing tension, pausing and giving a short reply. Include a setback, such as starting to interrupt, and a recovery: stop, acknowledge the interruption and let the other person finish (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009).
A quiet setting and a few comfortable breaths may help you attend to the exercise. The useful outcome is a response you can attempt in the real interaction. There is no need for a perfect imagined performance or for deliberately overwhelming yourself.
Keep an immediate task small enough to follow: slow your speech, put down the pen and ask one clarifying question. A steady posture does not prove that the feeling has gone. The point is to choose behaviour that fits the situation while acknowledging the emotion (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009).
Support from other people
Ask a trusted person who manages a similar difficulty how they respond. Give a concrete example, note their suggestions, try two and follow up. Someone outside the dispute may offer another view, but no adviser is wholly free of assumptions. Seek reasons and evidence, including disagreement, rather than automatic reassurance.
Sharing a goal with a reliable person can create an opportunity for feedback and accountability. Agree what support you want and what stays private. Public disclosure is optional. A poorly delivered criticism can contain useful information; examine its substance without presuming the critic meant well or accepting hostile treatment (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009).
Self-soothing and ordinary activities
Prepare a small selection of comforting activities before a difficult moment makes choosing harder. A walk, stretching, time with a pet, cooking, music or a conversation may be workable options. Select activities you actually find comfortable and can access in ordinary life. The aim is to have something specific available when “do something relaxing” feels too vague (Webb with Musello, 2012).
The 5-4-3-2-1 sensory exercise directs attention to the immediate surroundings: name five things you can see, four you can feel, three you can hear, two you can smell and one you can taste. It is an optional grounding activity, and the sequence can be adapted rather than forced. Review whether an activity helps without creating further problems; alcohol, compulsive spending or eating may provide short relief while adding difficulties later.
Humour can provide a moment of relief while leaving room to take a problem seriously. A shared joke differs from laughing away another person’s distress. Deliberately posed smiles produced small changes in reported happiness in some tasks in a large multi-laboratory study, but results depended on the task (Coles et al., 2022). Smiling should therefore remain an option, with no expectation that someone must look cheerful to recover.
Schedule rest and physical activity through Self-Care, and attend to Sleep. Anticipating an upcoming change can also allow practical preparation: record what is changing, what remains uncertain and the next decision. Neither a daily recharge nor a new perspective guarantees resilience to excessive demands.
Feelings that persist
Naming and accepting a feeling can help identify what needs attention, but the feeling may persist. Revisit the circumstances: an unresolved disagreement may need a conversation, an excessive demand may need a limit, and continuing distress may need professional assessment. Repeating a calming exercise cannot by itself resolve every problem.
The experience sometimes called an “emotional hijacking” is a period when an impulse feels difficult to interrupt. Emotion and cognition nevertheless depend on interacting pathways; the metaphor should not be taken literally as one system completely taking over the brain (Pessoa & Adolphs, 2010). The practical task is to recognise the pattern and identify support or changes that make a considered response more achievable.
For teachers, the relevant adaptations and role boundaries are in Relationships and Regulation and Supporting Students Experiencing Emotional Neglect. Adult self-reflection exercises should not become compulsory classroom disclosures.
References
Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. TalentSmart.
Coles, N. A., et al. (2022). A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis by the Many Smiles Collaboration. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 1731-1742. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01458-9
Fincham, G. W., Strauss, C., Montero-Marin, J., & Cavanagh, K. (2023). Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of randomised-controlled trials. Scientific Reports, 13, 432. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-27247-y
Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271-299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271
John, O. P., & Gross, J. J. (2004). Healthy and unhealthy emotion regulation: Personality processes, individual differences, and life span development. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1301-1333. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00298.x
Pessoa, L., & Adolphs, R. (2010). Emotion processing and the amygdala: From a ‘low road’ to ‘many roads’ of evaluating biological significance. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11, 773-783. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2920
Webb, J., with Musello, C. (2012). Running on empty: Overcome your childhood emotional neglect. Morgan James Publishing.