People With Really Healthy Brains Do 3 Things To Help Regulate Their Emotions
Practicing these things will help you to be in control of your own reality.
Philip White | Unsplash Feeling strong emotions is healthy. Learning how to regulate emotions and respond with appropriate behavior is essential to a person’s well-being. Lacking emotional self-regulation can perpetuate negative emotions.
An inability to regulate one's emotions can also have social repercussions, such as damaging relationships with others. To overcome these challenges, targeted strategies and therapeutic interventions are necessary. Techniques such as mindfulness, deep breathing, and cognitive restructuring are often used by people with healthy brains to recognize and manage their emotional responses.
People with really healthy brains do 3 things to help them regulate their emotions:
1. Become less invested in being right
When you give up some of your connection to being right, you open up a whole new world; the birds-eye world that is an important part of being wise. You rise above the right/wrong mentality, and you start to see yourself and others differently.
Being able to see the polar opposites — the greater truths — makes it easier to understand your feelings (which often oppose each other) and to understand others. It aids your ability to see and understand yourself.
2. Get the hang of mindfulness
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Mindfulness, or the ability to be in the moment, with your attention turned inward at yourself, what you’re doing, and what you’re feeling, is a key part of both self-awareness and being comfortable in your skin. It has also been shown by scientific research to have multiple other psychological and health benefits.
3. See failure in a new light
Failure is a sign of courage. Failure means that you pushed yourself outside your comfort zone and took a risk. Failure, done well, is a growth experience. We can learn more from our failures than we can from our successes.
As you become more self-aware, more mindful, more emotionally communicative, and more comfortable in your skin, you will be freer to take risks and learn from them. This will ultimately push you to experiences and successes far beyond what you ever thought you could achieve.
Jonice Webb, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and best-selling author of two self-help books. She specializes in childhood emotional neglect, relationships, communication issues, and mental health. Dr. Webb has appeared on CBS News and NPR, and her work has been cited by many publications.
