The Art Of Not Snapping: 3 Ways To Handle Your Stress Response Without Saying Something You'll Regret
Narissa de Villiers | Unsplash We all react differently to stress. When someone directs anger at you, your instinct might be to fight back, shut down, or physically want to leave the room. These reactions are not character flaws. They are automatic stress responses designed to protect you, even when the situation itself is not truly dangerous.
The art of not snapping is learning how to work with that stress response instead of being hijacked by it. Humans are wired for survival, which means our bodies often treat emotional discomfort like a real threat. The good news is that once you understand what your stress response is doing, you can slow it down, process it, and choose how you respond. These three tools help you handle stress in the moment so you do not say something you will later wish you could take back.
The art of not snapping: 3 ways to handle your stress response without saying something you’ll regret
1. Become aware of what your body is doing
Awareness is the first step in changing emotional and physical habits. Taking time to recognize uncomfortable sensations in your body is an important step. How do you react to emotional discomfort or anticipated trauma?
- Do you fight?
- Do you leave the space (take flight)?
- Do you freeze in your space without knowing what to do?
If the angry person is your boss, you might want to hide (freeze) from embarrassment or fear of being fired. These reactions (fight, flight, freeze) can happen because stressful situations evoke emotions, expectations, and uncomfortable sensations in the body. How can we process our emotions during these stressful times?
For example, when someone feels anxious and doesn’t take the time to recognize this feeling, they can drag this feeling on through the day. This feeling can affect your mind flow, muscles, posture, blood pressure, etc. We cannot process feelings/sensations if we don’t take the time to feel the discomfort.
This discomfort can be a headache, shoulder tension, stomach issues, or any specific body sensation that emerges when emotional stress takes over. Become aware of these sensations in your body the next time your emotions take hold of you.
Dr. Carmen Harra, Ph.D., encouraged people to recognize "one of the keys to detachment is to train your brain to think less and less about aspects that stress you. When you find yourself creating hurtful or disadvantageous stories in your mind, stop and refocus. Doing so will allow you to reach a healthy emotional flux in time. If you shift your focus, you can shift the outcome. And the less you worry about it, the more likely it is to be resolved."
2. Stop overanalyzing and start sensing
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People are strongly motivated to understand why and how they came to feel what they feel. Trying to understand this may evoke positive change. However, understanding alone does not induce change because people do not know what else to do. They often get stuck analyzing and rethinking with the hope/intent to get the change they seek. What they do not know is that understanding is not necessary for change.
To shift from thinking to sensing, you need to interrupt the thoughts and focus on the sensations in the body. Typically, people do not want to address unpleasant emotions because the sensations/feelings might be intense.
The sensations/feelings that are not processed build up over time and drain personal energy, which is used to process our emotions. This processing, or analyzing, can be exhausting and affect our health and relationship with ourselves and others. Catching yourself in the act can lead to different neural pathways and new ways of being.
"Mindfulness training is an effective part of the reconnection process and a solution for reducing anxiety," explained psychotherapist Katherine Mazza. "Oftentimes, the true source of anxiety is disguised, perhaps as small annoyances or just a bad mood. In stillness, we uncover the real concerns and fears, and in breaking this down, it becomes more manageable. However, anxiety reduction techniques in mindfulness training need to be cultivated daily. It's like building it up in your system, so you have it when you need to call upon it."
3. Let emotions move through you and breathe
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If an emotion is not allowed to flow, it will build up. It takes personal energy to block or stop the flow of emotion. Eventually, something will give. The person will either live a limited life or have an emotional breakdown. They will either implode or explode, cry, or have outbursts of anger over tiny incidents, such as spilled milk.
This emotional blockage leads to exhaustion and an inability to function, which is often part of a midlife crisis. A person’s way of operating in the world no longer works, but they do not have a new way of being; therefore, they stay the same.
They use so much energy to manage their emotions that there is little energy left to function in daily life. Processing these sensations helps to promote emotional freedom and personal growth.
Personal growth leads to healthy relationships.
- Sensations come in waves.
- Breathe through the waves.
- Breathe through the sensations.
By breathing through the waves of sensations (deep, slow breaths), personal energy will realign and flow in the same direction. Sometimes, during this shift, the biggest temptation is to avoid feeling the sensations (a twinge, some nausea, a slight headache, etc.) and immediately shift back to thoughts to figure out why you feel this way.
However, it does not matter why! It also does not matter who, what, when, where, or how. What matters is that they are having these sensations and need to accept and stay with them. A study of slow breathing linked breath control with "increased comfort, relaxation, pleasantness, vigor and alertness, and reduced symptoms of arousal, anxiety, depression, anger, and confusion."
Thriving emotionally is when we stay with the sensations and breathe into them. We process them. We create new neural pathways that precipitate new sensations, and therefore, we evolve emotionally and create healthy and productive change. As we reconnect with our bodies, we feel more connected to ourselves. When we connect to ourselves, we feel more connected in relationships.
To live happy and healthy lives, one needs to thrive emotionally, not just survive. Next time you sense an uncomfortable feeling, take the time to acknowledge your feelings/sensations and breathe through them.
The YourTango Experts team includes licensed therapists, dating and life coaches, matchmakers, and more professionals committed to offering you the tools and guidance for a happier and more rewarding life.
