Regulating emotions

We are emotional beings. It is difficult for us, as social animals, not to be emotional. Though it is generally healthy to be in touch with our emotions and deal with them instead of pushing them inward, there are situations where we must regulate our emotions especially well. Workplace is a major example of the situations we talk about here.

Emotional outbursts at work could stem directly from work-related matters or from personal stressors being carried into work. Managing our emotions both negative and positive at work is often seen as an indicator of our level of professionalism.

Common negative emotions experienced at work are frustration, worry, anger, dislike and unhappiness. While its important to manage these negative emotions, certain positive emotions can also be a hindering factor in our work as they can result in ceased focus and state of “euphoria” that is not conducive to work. 

Following are few strategies to help manage emotions at the workplace.

Compartmentalization.

Compartmentalization as the name suggests is distinguishing and separating personal and professional life. One of the best ways to compartmentalize is to use our commute to work as a tool. One can use their commute time to let go of thoughts related to personal life and practice creating a mental “store” to “lock” the issues in. This technique of compartmentalization also helps avoid the spill of work-related stressors in personal life 

Relaxation Techniques 

Something as simple as deep breathing and slow counting can 10 can help one regulate their emotions. Knowing about the technique doesn’t mean one will be able to see a complete shift in reaction towards stressors and take deep breaths or count to ten to stay calm. This requires conscious and continuous practice. Making sure that we practice deep breathing and backward counting on a daily basis even in the absence of stressors will improve the chances of us resorting to these techniques when required.

Knowing Our Triggers

One if not the most important and effective methods of regulating emotions is to avoid or deal with triggers. But the first step to that is to know what our triggers actually are. This can be achieved through self-reflection. Charting out critical incidents where our emotions get the best of us, then tracing back steps in each of those incidents, helps us identify common themes of what our triggers are. Once we determine what or who ticks us off, we can work on addressing the trigger or sometimes even avoid them. 

Alternate Release

The alternate release refers to directing our emotional outbursts into something productive or relaxing. For example, exercise. If a specific incident has put is in a state where we want to let it all out, we can hold it back take it out in the gym. Not only is this an ideal channel to let out our emotions but also help us be productive. other examples of an alternate channel include diary writing and doodling. Writing down our emotions, doodling, or drawing helps facilitate a healthy outlet.

Managing emotions not only contribute to an individual’s external presence or how people perceive them from away but also helps in maintaining focus and prevents our emotions from clouding our judgment.