5 Ways To Improve Your Emotional Regulation

There will be situations that feel uncontrollable to you. You may react and have shame about the way you handled the situation afterward.

Words can be hurtful and reactions can cause damage in relationships. Whether you act inward or outward, the impact of dysregulation can be harmful to you and others.

You can develop ways to build emotion regulation so that you feel responsive rather than reactive in situations. This can be especially helpful at work and home for your mental health.

At work, there are many factors that can lead to emotional dysregulation like stress, relationships with authority figures, and recreating unhealthy patterns with coworkers.

Emotional intelligence can help you to identify a negative emotion and positive emotion as well as manage difficult emotions.

You can still feel empowered to emotionally regulate no matter how stressful the situation may be for you. It’s not too late to learn a new skill.

Here are 5 ways to improve your emotion regulation:

1. Pause.
Before you speak, pause. If you hear something that feels uncomfortable, you have the option to pause.

Read More: “What Is Mindfulness And How To Be Mindful”

You don’t have to say something back right away. Counting to 5 or 10 in your head can help, especially if you consider yourself an impulsive person.

You can also take a deep breath for a built-in pause. That way you can prevent an emotional reaction that you regret.

When you consider an emotional response before reacting, you develop emotional regulation within yourself.

As you practice, you may notice that you trust yourself more in heated situations. Pausing doesn’t mean avoidance.

The silent treatment can be just as damaging as a huge reaction, so think about your intention as you pause. Sometimes, this requires you to step away from the situation, which is okay.

2. State a boundary.
If you know that something is difficult for you, create a boundary for yourself. You may need to give an answer at work more immediately than feels comfortable, so be clear about your needs as much as possible so that you can leave out the guesswork for others.

It’s not someone else’s job to take care of your boundaries for you.

If you withdraw or retaliate, it can be off-putting to bosses and coworkers alike; emotional outbursts may even have more severe effects.

Be clear about your needs.

The goal is to take steps to help yourself feel safe no matter the situation so that you can be responsive in the moment.

3. Get comfortable feeling uncomfortable.
There will be difficult situations that arise throughout your life, so the better you get at feeling uncomfortable, the less reactive you will be during discomfort.

This can improve your coping skills and strategy in handling difficult emotions. Create safe situations to feel your discomfort so that you can feel more comfortable in unsafe situations.

If you know change is difficult for you during what you perceive to be an unsafe situation, you can be preventative with emotional regulation by making changes in safer situations.

For example, you can change the throw pillows on your couch for a small change or try a new flavor of ice cream. That way, you can develop emotional regulation while things still feel safe to you.

A strategy like mindfulness can help you to connect with your 5 senses, which can help build comfort around intense emotions or big emotions.

4. Practice asking permission to have a hard conversation.
If you know that you need to have a difficult conversation with someone, ask permission before you get started. That way, you both know what to expect.

Read More: “How To Approach Conflict Through Compromise”

This may sound like:

I wanted to follow-up with you about x, do you have time to chat about that? If not, when would be a good time?

I am not ready for this conversation yet, and it is important to me. Do you mind if we can reconvene on x date?

There has been something on my mind lately about x. Do you have time to talk about that now?

This is really difficult for me right now, and I want to show up. Can we schedule a time to talk about this?

You are doing everyone a favor when you acknowledge that there may be discomfort during the conversation and it can prompt awareness of your emotional state.

Holding space for that can be a way to approach the situation in an emotionally regulated way before you begin.

This can also help you to develop social skills and steer away from a coping mechanismthat no longer serves you.

5. Stop expecting others to read your mind.
This is tough because you may not feel safe expressing yourself fully in situations. It can be difficult to state your needs clearly.

Not every person will see, hear, and understand you. However, you can affirm these needs for yourself.

To expect others to know and understand you fully when you don’t tell them can cause emotional dysregulation.

Even when you think you are clear about your needs and wants, you may have to say things in a different way to be heard.

Presuming positive intent in situations can be helpful and lessen resentment around being misunderstood.

Stay patient with yourself and others to improve emotional regulation.

Communication can be difficult, especially when you are seeking validation from other people. Clearing up expectations, remaining responsive through pausing, and stating boundaries can help you.

When you develop strategies to stay regulated, you may find that people understand you better, including yourself. Work and home situations can cause stress so the more you respect others the better you may feel about how you treat yourself.

Often, people can mirror what you like and don’t like in yourself. So, improving tolerance through perspective taking can help.

A therapist can help you develop emotional regulation skills at any time.

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Written by: Randi Thackeray, MA
Clinically Reviewed and Edited by: Julie Reichenberger, MA, LPC, ACS, ACC