7 tips on how to manage emotions

Useful tips and strategies to enhance your ability to manage emotions.

Emotion management is one of the basic elements of psychological therapy, and many of the problems of those who go to the psychologist arise from failures in this aspect of life.

However, emotional management is not only a component of psychotherapy, but all people, to a greater or lesser extent, carry it out with greater or lesser fortune, even if they do not realize it.

For this reason, in this article we will review several key ideas that can help you to know how to manage emotions correctlywithout wasting time and effort.

How to manage emotions in your day to day life?

No one can ever fully control their emotions, but that does not mean that we have no power when it comes to relating to our emotional side. There are several strategies we can adopt when it comes to allowing emotions to influence us in the best possible way, and prevent them from being an obstacle to our psychological well-being. Here you will find several guidelines and recommendations that go in this direction.

Follow these tips to boost your emotional management skills.

1. Structure your day with a schedule

Structuring your day is a very effective way to stay focused and not let uncertainty about your not let the uncertainty about what to do and how to use the minutes you have ahead of you lead you to a state of stress or anxiety..

It is recommended that you design a detailed schedule for every day of the week and print it out so that you can hang it somewhere in your home that you will see frequently.

2. Get enough sleep

Having slept well and the necessary hours is a factor that prevents anxious and depressive symptoms. prevents anxious and depressive symptoms..

In addition, it will help you concentrate on your tasks, which is very important to prevent the accumulation of responsibilities from causing emotional problems.

3. Assume that uncertainty will always be there

Managing emotions well means taking for granted that you cannot know everything. Tolerating the lack of information about what will happen is compatible with adopting a constructive mentality and focusing on those actions that seem best given a given situation and specific resources.

4. Learn to detect dysfunctional habits of emotional management.

Sometimes, we participate in our emotional maladjustments without realizing itSometimes, we participate in our emotional imbalances without realizing it, by performing actions that we paradoxically do to try to feel better. For example, binge eating without being hungry, smoking when feeling stress, etc.

Taking this into account, knowing how to manage emotions also includes detecting these patterns of behavior with a "rebound effect" and eliminating them. But to do so, we must get used to paying attention to the moments in which we feel bad and to the actions we "feel like doing" when we feel that way, given that context.

5. Incorporate relaxation exercises into your daily life.

There are several exercises of several minutes that are very easy to learn, and that you can use in the moments when you feel bad.You can use them in those moments when you notice that your level of anti-aging is higher than normal. For example, you can start by practicing controlled diaphragmatic exhalation techniques, or Jacobson's progressive Muscle relaxation.

6. Don't fall into ego fights.

Many times, emotional imbalances appear as a result of conflicts: grudges, poorly handled arguments, etc. Therefore, it is important to learn how to manage conflicts without turning them into absurd fights that do not contribute anything beyond escalating hostility on both sides.

Even if at a given moment a clash of conflicting interests arises, this does not mean that a "war" should start.Negotiation and the ability to reach consensus are fundamental.

7. Detect your trap-thoughts

Trap-thoughts are those that we feed unconsciously because they serve as an excuse to they serve as an excuse not to leave our comfort zone, even if it is at the cost of feeling like we are in a "war".even if it is at the cost of feeling bad.

For example, pessimistic beliefs about what we will never be able to achieve can be used as an alibi for not trying new things or even giving up on solving serious problems that are affecting us, which generates sadness and discouragement in us but keeps us away from the stress of getting down to work or making difficult decisions. In other words, they are short term "patches" that bring more problems in the medium and long term..

Thus, learning to detect these thoughts and the feelings linked to them is very important in order to correctly channel our emotions so that they do not hinder our progress.

Are you thinking of starting a psychotherapy process?

If you are looking for professional psychological help, please contact me.

I am a psychologist and neuropsychologist trained in the care of people of all ages, and I offer both face-to-face and online therapy by video call.