Five ways to manage emotions

Physiological arousal adjustment, cognitive dissociation, value ranking and anchoring, emotional granularity calibration, and permissive catharsis.

Let’s first talk about the physiological arousal adjustment that is most suitable for emergency situations. To put it bluntly, it means “adjust the body first when you feel emotional.” I have met a visitor who works in Internet operations before. She stayed up until three in the morning to change the plan last time. The boss called her in the morning and directly told her to rewrite it. Her hands were shaking when she was holding the mobile phone, and she almost smashed the mechanical keyboard she just bought. Fortunately, she had heard me mention this method before. She turned around and squatted in the corridor for 30 seconds, doing 5 sets of 478 breathing (inhaling for 4 seconds, holding for 7 seconds, and exhaling slowly for 8 seconds). The fire that came up and went straight to the top of her head went down by half. Neuroscience research has long confirmed that the first 6 seconds of an emotional outburst is a state of "amygdala hijacking", and the rational brain is completely offline. The so-called "bearing for 3 seconds first" is fundamentally anti-human. Instead, adjusting physiological indicators such as heart rate and body temperature can cut off the chemical reaction pathways of emotions as quickly as possible. Of course, there are also scholars of the psychoanalytic school who think this is just a "temporary treatment" and cannot solve the underlying motivations behind emotions. However, it is undeniable that this is the first trick that can best help you avoid saying regrettable words and making impulsive decisions at the moment. It is enough for ordinary people.

After talking about the emergency life-saving tips, many people may ask: Hard pressure will definitely not work, so I can vent my emotions, right? This brings us to the most misunderstood "permitted catharsis". Many people's impression of catharsis is to throw things, cry in front of others, and drag friends to scold them for two hours. However, after venting, they fall into self-attack of "Why am I so emotional?" and the internal friction becomes more serious. The core of permissive venting is actually "release without judgment and ending without rumination": you can buy a soft stress relief ball and squeeze it until it deforms, or you can find a stairwell where no one is and yell a few words, or even scold the person who offended you bloody in a memo, and then just delete it without feeling guilty at all. In the early years, cognitive behavioral therapy did not advocate emotional catharsis, believing that it would strengthen the neural pathways of negative emotions. However, clinical research in recent years has also revised this conclusion: as long as the catharsis process does not harm oneself or others, and does not magnify the pain by repeatedly recalling the details of the event, it can quickly reduce cortisol levels, which is much healthier than holding back the nodules.

If the first two are "emergency medicines", then "cognitive dissociation" is a commonly used medicine to solve the internal friction of daily thinking. A reader left a message for me before, saying that her boss glanced at her during a meeting, and she froze on the spot. All she could think about was "He must be dissatisfied with my report last week" and "Will he fire me?" She listened to nothing during the whole meeting. She cried all the way home from get off work. As a result, her boss came to her the next day just to ask her where the hand-brewed coffee shop she posted on Moments last time was. You see, most of the time what traps you is not the fact itself, but the script you made up to scare yourself. The operation of cognitive dissociation is very simple. Next time an anxious thought pops up in your mind, don't take it as a fact. Just add a prefix: "I have an idea now, and my boss is not satisfied with me." This will instantly distance you from your thoughts. Of course, there are also experienced mindfulness practitioners who feel that this method is not “thorough” enough and that they should fully accept ideas without judging. However, for ordinary people, such a small mantra can already solve 80% of unnecessary self-inflicted internal friction. There is no need to pursue a master-level practice state.

There is another method that many people have not heard of, but after using it once, they will think "Wow, it's so useful." It's called "emotional granularity calibration." Many people will only generally say "I'm so annoyed" or "I'm in a bad mood" when they encounter something unhappy. But the more you break down your emotions, the less likely they will be wrapped up in them. For example, when you come home from get off work with a sullen face, don't just say "I'm so annoyed." Take 10 seconds to think about it: is it because you were stuck in traffic for 40 minutes after get off work today? Or is it the grievance that the leader was given extra work for nothing? Or do you think of the anxiety of having three meaningless meetings tomorrow? The more you break it down, the clearer the solution path will be: if you feel hungry and irritable, go for a bowl of hot noodle soup; if you feel wronged, talk to a friend to complain; if you are anxious about tomorrow, just spend 5 minutes making a meeting outline, and your mind will be settled in an instant. Studies have confirmed that people with high emotional granularity are 60% less likely to develop emotional disorders than ordinary people. Of course, some psychologists have proposed that over-calibrating emotions will amplify negative feelings. This degree is actually easy to grasp: you calibrate emotions to solve problems, not to get stuck in self-pity in the mood of "I am so miserable, I am so wronged", then there is no problem.

Finally, let me talk about a method that is not immediately effective, but can help you build an emotional firewall in the long run: "value ranking anchoring". I used to have a friend who was particularly easily affected by gossip from colleagues. Others said she was "too curly" and "pretending to be positive," which made her feel sad for several days. Later, she listed the three most important things in her life: "Save money to go to Europe to study design, maintain exercise habits, and video chat with parents once a week." After that, when she heard any gossip, she would ask herself: "Does this have anything to do with my three goals? ”If not, just ignore it and leave. In fact, the essence of many inexplicable mood swings is that you don't know what you want, so any disturbance can shake you. Of course, some people think that this method is too utilitarian and will make people become indifferent, but for many highly sensitive people who are easily led by external evaluations, this is equivalent to installing a filter for their emotions, filtering out useless emotions directly, and the saved energy can be spent on things that they really care about, and the cost-effectiveness should not be too high.

In fact, emotional management has never meant that you will become an "emotionally stable adult" without emotions, and there is no need to memorize these methods as standard answers. When something happens one day, just use whichever one comes to mind. The method that makes you comfortable and without regrets is the best method for you.