How to control emotions, with 11 effective strategies

Several keys to a valuable tool: emotional control.

Emotional control (or emotional regulation) is essential when we relate to other people, and is a skill that is part of emotional intelligence.

Therefore, the control of emotions is encompassed within emotional management, and to regulate them it is necessary to understand them, to understand them, and to regulate them. to regulate them it is necessary to understand them, to understand them and to make them conscious.. It is impossible to control emotions if we do not master the skill of emotional self-knowledge.

Emotional intelligence: a paradigm of current psychology

Emotions are part of us, and although they are necessary and adaptive, they can cause us suffering.. Suffering is often caused by the negative evaluation we make of them, because trying to fight them is not the right decision. It is much healthier to understand them, to know them, to know that they are there, but to accept them as part of our existence and our experience, knowing that many times they are not as we would like them to be.

Emotional intelligence has become one of the most important paradigms of modern psychology, because at the end of the day, we are emotional beings. Although we may think that we make our decisions based on reason, studies indicate that a large part of our decisions are emotional.

How to improve emotional control

Most of the success and rise of emotional intelligence (EI) is determined by its benefits.. EI is used in different fields: sports, education and business, because it positively affects performance, decision making and the achievement of results. But in the clinical and psychotherapeutic field it is also essential, as it helps us to relate to others and improve our psychological well-being and our quality of life.

If you want to know how to improve emotional control, below you can find 11 really useful strategies to increase awareness of this important skill. really useful to increase awareness of this important skill.

1. Understand your emotions

Take some time to reflect on what you are feeling and why you react a certain way in certain situations. You may be concerned about how you behaved at work this week, yelling at a co-worker, and now you regret it. Maybe the problem wasn't so serious, but you simply got out of hand by not stopping to think about the real problem. Maybe the underlying problem is that you feel stressed at work because you don't manage your time well.

One strategy to understand your emotions is to keep an emotional diary. To use it, you just need to sit down in front of it, 10 to 20 minutes before going to bed. You can review the day and write down how you felt, why you felt that way and what you could have done to improve it. Maybe the next time you find yourself in this situation you will have already learned not to behave this way.

2. Practice active listening

It may also happen that you simply got angry because you didn't listen properly, in other words, you simply listened. Many people have the habit of paying little attention to others, and while they are talking, they are already thinking about what they want to say.

Active listening is important for relating to other people, because it allows us to pay attention not only to what we are saying, but also to what we are saying. allows us to pay attention not only to what other interlocutors are saying with their wordsbut also to what they express with their body language. In fact, scientific studies affirm that verbal language represents only 30% of what we communicate. The rest is non-verbal language.

3. Do physical exercise

Physical exercise is a good way to relieve stress and release tensions that can lead to frustrating and tense situations. Something that is not at all positive for emotional control. In addition, physical exercise helps us to release neurochemicals related to positive mood, such as endorphins or serotonin. Therefore, its practice also has a positive effect on our self-esteem.

4. Do not take criticism badly

Learn how to deal with criticism because it can make you lose your temper and give free rein to your anger.. Being too concerned about what others say about you is a symptom that you do not have enough self-confidence and you have not found the inner peace necessary to control your emotions. So take the heat off when you receive criticism, at least if you want to be an emotionally balanced person.

5. Work on self-acceptance

One of the big problems of not accepting yourself as you are, is that you adopt a defensive mentality, which is not beneficial for your self-esteem.is that you adopt a defensive mentality, which is not at all beneficial for emotional control. We can all make mistakes because it is part of life, so you must love yourself as you are. This way you will feel less frustrated and will have more patience when dealing with the conflicts that may appear in your daily interpersonal relationships.

6. Adopt an optimistic attitude

In addition to working on your self-acceptance, you should have a positive attitude towards life, which will make you more resilient and less prone to interpersonal conflicts. Both self-acceptance and having a positive and optimistic attitude towards life require a willingness tothat is, do your part to make it happen.

7. Think about the good and not the bad.

The discomfort that some emotions make us feel is what makes us want to avoid them. However, to solve problems we must face them, because it is useless to look the other way. If you have worked on emotional self-knowledge and self-acceptance, you should let these negative emotions go. Now it is your turn to focus on the positive ones, and your level of tension will be greatly reduced..

8. Pull back at the right time

It is good to have a positive attitude towards conflicts and to think about the good, although sometimes the stimulus may still be present no matter how hard we try to avoid it, because it is not always up to us. For example, if we are provoked so that we end up fighting. In these cases, the best thing to do is to turn around and walk away..

9. Do not react suddenly

You may have detected that the conflict is at the surface and inside you there is a force that pushes you to take a step forward regardless of the consequences of that moment (although you may regret it later). Have a little patience, take a deep breath and don't react all at once.. If necessary, leave the room, take a breath of air and come back with a clear and renewed mind.

10. Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is an ancient practice that enjoys great popularity today because of its benefits: improves concentration, reduces stress, improves self-awareness, etc.. This method helps you to be in the present moment, with a non-judgmental mindset and with an attitude of compassion towards yourself and others. Undoubtedly, a very important tool to control emotions.

Attend Emotional Intelligence courses

If you are interested in taking an Emotional Intelligence workshop, Instituto Mensalus offers the possibility of training courses that will help you to develop the competences and skills to become an emotionally intelligent person.. This psychotherapy and psychology training center offers these workshops both in person and remotely, so that you can take them from anywhere in the world, in the comfort of your own home (or any other place you wish).

Specifically, the "Online Emotional Intelligence Training Course" allows you to learn and put into practice key strategies for the management of thoughts and emotions. This option allows you to live an experience similar to face-to-face training but with the advantages offered by distance learning. You will have a tutor who will monitor the practical tasks that you will have to develop and the different webinars that you will be able to take part in. This training action starts on February 5, 2018, costs 380€ and lasts 10 weeks (the material will be available on the virtual campus until 8 weeks after the end of the course). For more information, you can contact Instituto Mensalus through this link.