"Don't take it like that." "Relax." "You need to learn to manage your emotions." People say it as if it were a matter of pressing a button. Meanwhile, you cry in the office toilets over an email, snap at your children over something that does not matter or, the other way round, you have gone months barely feeling anything. Nobody has ever explained how this business of managing them is actually done.

Emotional regulation is exactly that: the ability to influence what we feel and how we express it. It is not a trait you either have or do not have, but a set of skills that can be learned, in adulthood too. This guide explains what it is, which strategies work according to research, which ones seem useful but make things worse, and when it makes sense to work on it in therapy.

What emotional regulation is (and what it is not)

In psychology, emotion regulation refers to the processes by which we influence which emotions we have, when we have them and how we experience and express them. The definition comes from the psychologist James Gross of Stanford University, one of the researchers who has studied the subject most. What everyday language calls managing your emotions is essentially the same thing.

It is worth being clear about what it is not. Regulating an emotion does not mean not feeling it, being calm all the time or putting on a brave face. Every emotion has a function: fear warns of danger, sadness of a loss and anger of something that seems unfair to us. The aim is for the emotion not to decide for you, and for you to have room to choose what to do with it. Anger, where it shows most when it goes wrong, is covered in How to control anger: why you snap and what actually works.

Emotional regulation strategies: what the research says

Not every way of handling an emotion works equally well, and some very widespread ones work worse than they seem. A meta-analysis published in Psychological Bulletin brought together 306 experimental comparisons between strategies and found clear differences between them.

Putting a name to what you feel

It sounds like a small thing, but it is not. In a brain imaging study led by Matthew Lieberman at the University of California, putting feelings into words reduced the response of the amygdala, a part of the brain closely involved in emotion, to unpleasant images. Going from "I feel awful" to "I am furious because they showed me up in front of everyone" is already regulating.

Changing how you look at the situation

This is what psychologists call cognitive reappraisal: looking for another reading of what happened. In the meta-analysis, reinterpreting the situation and, above all, taking the other person's perspective were among the most effective strategies; reinterpreting only your own emotional response worked somewhat less well. The difference shows in real life: in the studies by Gross and John, people who habitually reappraise experienced and expressed more positive and less negative emotion, got on better with others and had greater well-being. An example: "my boss ignored me in the corridor" could be a snub, or it could be that he was hurrying to a meeting.

Distracting yourself, without running away

Shifting your attention to something else proved effective at lowering the intensity of an emotion, whereas staying focused on it made it worse. But there is an important nuance. Another large meta-analysis, by Amelia Aldao and her colleagues at Yale University, covering 114 studies, found that habitual avoidance is associated with more symptoms of anxiety, depression and other problems. Distracting yourself for a while until the wave passes helps; systematically dodging whatever makes you feel bad keeps the problem going.

What does not work: suppressing and going round in circles

Trying not to feel what you feel, or forcing away thoughts about what happened, had no effect in the meta-analysis of 306 comparisons. Hiding the outward expression did reduce some measures in the short term, but as a way of life it comes at a cost: in the studies by Gross and John, people who habitually suppress their emotions felt more negative and less positive emotion, got on worse with others and had lower well-being.

And the worst of all is rumination, going over what you feel and why you feel it again and again. In Aldao's work it was the strategy most strongly associated with symptoms of anxiety, depression, eating disorders and substance use. We cover it in depth in Overthinking: why you cannot stop turning things over. And if you notice that you calm the emotion by eating, you may find Emotional eating: why it happens and how to tell it from real hunger useful.

Emotional dysregulation: when your emotions overwhelm you

We speak of emotional dysregulation when emotions arrive very fast and very strong, take a long time to settle and lead you to do things you later regret. Also when the opposite happens: you disconnect and feel almost nothing. It is not a diagnosis in itself, but a feature that shows up in many different conditions.

It is very common in ADHD: a review published in 2014 in the American Journal of Psychiatry concluded that emotional dysregulation is prevalent in ADHD throughout life and is a major contributor to the difficulties it causes, even though it is not part of the diagnostic criteria. If you recognise yourself here, the ADHD Test is a good place to start. It also appears in anxiety and depression, which you can measure with the Anxiety Test and the Depression Test, and it is one of the ways difficult experiences in childhood can show up, as we explain in Childhood trauma in adults: how it shows up and what can be done.

Woman sitting on the living room floor with her eyes closed, practising an emotional regulation technique

Why some people find it harder to regulate their emotions

The NHS describes two factors when it explains the basis of one of the therapies most focused on this, dialectical behaviour therapy. The first is high emotional vulnerability: levels of stress that barely affect others make you feel extremely anxious. The second is having grown up in an environment where your emotions were dismissed: you were told you had no right to feel sad, or that you were "being silly" when you complained of anxiety. The combination creates a cycle: you feel intense emotions, you feel guilty for having them, and that guilt produces more emotion.

Then there is what we learn. The ways we handle emotions are partly learned at home, by watching how the adults around us did it, something the NHS points out in relation to anger. And timing matters: with a lot of stress on your plate, holding back is harder.

How emotional regulation is learned in therapy

The good news is that these are skills, and skills can be trained. Several evidence-based therapies work on exactly this:

  • Cognitive behavioural therapy. It teaches you to spot the interpretation that triggers the emotion and to look for alternatives, which is the reappraisal described above. In the meta-analysis, changing how you think about the situation was the family of strategies with the largest effect. We explain it in Cognitive behavioural therapy: what it is, how it works and what it treats.
  • Dialectical behaviour therapy. According to the NHS, it combines validation (accepting that your emotions are real and understandable) with finding alternatives to harmful ways of coping with them, in weekly individual and group sessions. It was designed for borderline personality disorder, and the UK's NICE recommends it as the first treatment for women with that diagnosis and a history of self-harm.
  • Acceptance-based therapies, which work on making room for the emotion instead of fighting it. The differences between approaches are covered in Types of psychological therapy: what they are and how to choose.

According to the NHS, these therapies can be done in person, by video or phone call, and also through online courses. At MyPsicoTest we recommend Xènia Capel Salcedo, a licensed clinical psychologist (COPC 14982) with a master's degree in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, who lists emotional regulation among the specialties she works on. She sees clients in Igualada and Sant Sadurní d'Anoia and also through online therapy, and the first information call is free, so you can tell her what is going on and decide afterwards.

What you can start doing today

  • Name it. When you notice a strong emotion, give it a name and, if you can, a reason.
  • Pause before you act. A few seconds are enough to stop the emotion answering for you.
  • Look for another reading. Ask yourself how the other person, or a friend who is not involved, would see it.
  • Distract yourself, with a return date. Switching activity for a while is fine; dodging the subject for ever is not.
  • Cut the rumination short. If you have spent half an hour going round the same thing without getting anywhere, that is no longer thinking, it is ruminating.
  • Write down your patterns. Which emotion, in which situation and what you did. Within a few weeks you will start to see where they come from.

If your emotions still overwhelm you despite all this, and especially if thoughts of harming yourself appear, ask for help: in Spain there is the 024 helpline, free, confidential and available 24 hours a day; elsewhere, contact your local emergency services.

If your result worries you or you want a professional assessment, you can talk to Xènia Capel Salcedo, a licensed psychologist (COPC reg. 14982), who offers a free first consultation call and online therapy from anywhere.

MyPsicoTest team · Updated: