Emotional regulation is the ability to be able to control your own emotional state. Such regulation can include focusing on being calm and happy, rethinking the situation to reduce anxiety, or overcoming the sense of fear or sadness.

Regulation is often about reducing how intense some emotions are or increasing that intensity. Down-regulation and up-regulation are terms for ways to control your emotions. The first one is for reducing negative ones, and the latter is to increase anxiety or happiness when needed.

Psychologists say that emotion regulation happens in two phases – before feeling an emotion and after. The first is antecedent-focused emotion regulation, and the second is response-focused emotion regulation.

Today, we are diving deeper into the meaning of emotional regulation and the ways to enhance that superpower in order to improve your overall quality of life.

Why Is Emotional Regulation Important?

Adults are expected to manage their emotions in a socially acceptable way, without the outbursts and tantrums that children usually have. On the other hand, failure to meet those expectations usually has two mutually connected consequences.

First, your social circle shrinks, and your intercommunication patterns begin to suffer. And second, you begin to feel lonely, distant, irritated and misunderstood.

Sometimes when emotional control is poor, we tend to say and do things we regret later. If learning how to regulate emotions happens sooner, the life and relationships of a person can benefit massively.

So, what are the emotional self-regulation habits you need to integrate into your lifestyle and philosophy?

Ways to Control Your Emotions

The two main ways to reach emotional control are changing how you think about something or suppressing it. Unfortunately, the latter can have a negative effect.

Other ways are to change the situation that influenced emotional experiences or shift your attention. The hardest one is to accept your emotions and simply move on.

Emotional Regulation Exercises

If you are looking forward to an emotional regulation activity, then we have a couple of suggestions down below.

Breathing Exercises

There are three main breathing exercises for good emotional regulation:

• You can do breath counting, sitting calmly, counting to 5 on an inhale, and counting to 7 on an exhale. This makes you focus on breathing and not on intrusive thoughts.
• Breath shifting is another way to help yourself out. You just need to put one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen. Notice how they rise and fall when you breathe. This gives you a good focus on both areas and calms you down.
• Breath relaxation is simply taking deep breaths with your eyes closed until you feel that all the stress is going away, and you can feel a bit more relaxed.

You can try out all three of them and choose the one that works best for you and your temperament.

Reaching Emotional Catharsis

A great effective way to deal with emotional dysregulation disorder is to go through an emotional catharsis. This way, you will let go of suppressed emotions and reach a good mental balance.

To reach such a blissful state, you need to observe your emotions without trying to change them. Evaluate the experience that caused your emotions and acknowledge that emotions are just states that pass. Don’t identify with them; instead, treat them as a river flowing through you.

You can name or write these emotions down on a piece of paper and talk them out with friends, relatives, or a therapist.

Mindfulness and Self-awareness

Mindfulness is one of those emotional regulation skills that can help you live in the present by acknowledging your feelings, mind, and body.

Such a skill can help you look at your feelings and thoughts from a neutral point of view.

Exercises for mindfulness are implementation and acknowledgment exercises. The first ones include self-expression, empathetic listening, or thinking in a non-judgmental way. The latter are naming thoughts and emotions and observing them.

Mindfulness is also a synonym for self-awareness which is again about recognizing our emotions and how they affect us.

Again, thought and emotion naming here is a good exercise, and you can even create a chart with columns titles like:

• What am I feeling right now?
• What caused it?
• How did I respond to it?
• What emotions did I feel at that time?

Once you have the answer, you can have the strategy for managing what you feel.

Which Are the Hardest Emotions to Control?

The most challenging emotions to control are disappointment, anger, and resentment. Unfortunately, people tend to suppress such feelings, and this often leads to mental health issues like depression or even borderline personality disorder.

When not addressing such emotions correctly, you can overreact and feel less satisfaction in your life and relationships.

Sometimes controlling your emotions can be difficult thanks to beliefs that negative emotions are destructive and uncontrollable. For example, uncertainty might make emotions run wild, and if you don’t communicate clearly with someone, you might start feeling hopeless.

Emotional regulation can be tough to harness and manage, especially in this day and age. Social media is a massive trigger for everyone that has a hard time being too self-aware. The perfect life portrayed online is why so many young people feel like they are missing out on something.

Always find a friend or therapist that you feel comfortable speaking to; when a traumatic experience arises, don’t wait for the emotions to go away. They never do by putting a lid on them. Instead, let them out and let them go.

What Is Emotional Regulation Disorder?

An emotional regulation disorder is a condition in which the ability to manage and regulate a person’s emotions is not present. Emotional dysregulation, or ED, is a term that psychologists use for weakly governed emotional responses.

The most common symptoms of the emotional regulation disorder are:

• Sudden anger outbursts to someone who hasn’t done any harm or simply passive-aggressive behavior;
• Suicidal thoughts and self-destructing behavior;
• Symptoms like chronic pain not caused by a medical condition and unexplained by specialists;
• Having difficulty in building social relationships in professional and personal fields;
• Inability to focus on work since the mind is occupied with negative emotions;
• Poor self-control, hypersensitivity, etc.

Usually, emotion regulation disorder is accompanied by other mental health conditions like mood polarities and depression.

The best way to treat emotion regulation disorder is through Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT. This condition can be treated if the person takes care of the issue as soon as possible and follows consistently long-term treatment.

Another way to start your recovery journey is to build a well-being routine with a chosen mental health app, a podcast, or a tailor-made well-being program.

The term gaslighting has gained popularity in recent years, but the phenomenon behind it reaches way further back in time. In fact, the term originates from a 1940s film called Gaslight. In this psycho-thriller, a man leads a woman to believe she is losing her sanity by plotting a super-detailed pattern of deception.

What we get is a brand-new concept in the field of psychological manipulation – the so-called gaslighting.

Fortunately, people nowadays are paying increasing attention to recognizing and avoiding toxicity in their relationships, and emotional manipulation is a subject that’s worth all the discussion it takes.

So, let’s discuss.

What Is Gaslighting?

Gaslighting is a type of manipulative and emotionally abusive behavior where the abuser minimizes their victim’s feelings and shifts the blame in order to acquire dominance. While the process may look different, the results are often the same – emotional neglect, devalued feelings, and overall damaged well-being.

More often than not, gaslighting includes a conscious and well-planned effort toward building a sense of uncertainty, insecurity, and emotional instability. While the victim falls deeper into that state of self-doubt, the abuser gains more and more power over their inner world.

Although it is most closely associated with romantic relationships, gaslighting is common enough in all other types of interpersonal interaction. You can see it between friends, co-workers, and even business partners. One of the worst types of gaslighting happens between family members, including between parents and children.

What Is an Example of Gaslighting?

The most straightforward gaslighting example to come up with is something you’ve probably heard at least once in your life. “It’s no big deal”, remember? Unless it is.

Complied briefly, some other examples of what gaslighting is looking as follows:

• Claiming you’re paranoid, overreacting, or making things up in order to dramatize – when you, in fact, have the absolute right to be upset.
• Putting the blame on you whenever something goes wrong or things get tough – even when none of it is actually your fault.
• Lying and clinging on to made-up scenarios, including when it comes to easily checkable facts.
• Never taking responsibility for the things they did wrong or the ways they’ve let you down.
• Blaming you for being overdramatic, imagining things, or having skyrocketing expectations – when you’re actually settling for something below the bare minimum.

Or else said – “You’re just paranoid,” and “You are making that up” will be among your most powerful red flags for dealing with a gaslighter.

Gaslighting in Relationships: Definition and Signs

Recognizing gaslighting in a relationship might be a challenging thing to do, especially if you’re insecure. The reason is simple – gaslighters will lead you to actually believe it’s your fault instead of theirs.

That’s why spotting the early signs of gaslighting will be your most effective strategy for leaving this toxic relationship unharmed. And the easiest way to spot it is to stay cautious about your own feelings.

Some of the most evident emotional reactions to being gaslighted are:

• You feel confused and question yourself. Did that really happen? Are you a horrible person for making a scene? Are you even sane? You are most probably okay, so you better trust yourself or ask for an unbiased opinion because gaslighting is all about making you question your judgment.
• You spend a lot of your time apologizing. It seems like whatever you do, you do it wrong. You never feel like you’re good enough and your input is continually undervalued. Looks like you have something to think about, right?
• You feel lonely and cannot share your genuine thoughts. Whatever you say in your head sounds wrong, and you’re too afraid of being a disappointment. So you watch your tongue, filter what you share, and get too self-conscious when you speak about your feelings.
• You’re growing apart from your friends, family, and relatives. You keep your struggles secret and probably feel embarrassed by how you feel and what you go through. If you try to seek reassurance and support, the other person reminds you of how insignificant your feelings are and how irrational your behavior is.

This list can be modified and filled up with multiple different emotional reactions to being gaslighted. But however different, they revolve around a single feeling – that something’s just not right, and it worsens with time.

Am I Being Gaslighted?

If you spot just one of the signs listed above, it’s already time to think about it and react. The higher the red flag count, the more pressing the need to step up for yourself and regain your right to be who you are with no remorse.

Seeking support from family and friends will always give you another perspective. So – don’t hesitate to share what you go through and hear what the people who love you have to say about it.

Then, their honest feedback might surprise you and drive you to make the best possible decision – leaving toxicity behind and regaining your self-esteem.