A pressing and painful question for many! There are such strongly emotional people that with their emotions, like an uncontrollable weapon, they tear and destroy themselves and the people around them, especially if these are absolutely negative, such as anger, rage, hatred, etc. Read about the nature of Emotions and what they are.
Any intelligence officer, diplomat, good politician, professional athlete, surgeon, aristocrat, or simply a worthy self-respecting person will clearly explain to you why you need to be able to control and manage your emotions. Because the success of each of them directly depends on this.
Imagine what would happen if each of these people did not know how to control themselves and could not control their emotions:
The scout would have been split on the second day, in the first unusual situation.
An athlete who does not know how to cope with his own anxiety would not be able to control his body as needed and, quite likely, would receive an injury instead of a medal. The surgeon would have killed the patient with his scalpel in his trembling hands.
A politician would always he would break down and fall for every provocation, get upset, nervous, lose face, and with it the support, reputation and trust of people, voters, the electorate.
In such cases, in the old days, an aristocrat lost Honor and Dignity, and with them the right to enter high society, the circle of the elite of society, the right to appear at balls and high-ranking receptions. And sometimes, due to unworthy behavior, an aristocrat could lose his title, titles, the honor of his entire family, and even his life.
An ordinary person loses no less than a politician, surgeon, athlete or diplomat if he does not know how to manage his emotions.
What does a person lose when he does not know how to manage his emotions?
1. Joy and positive state, when negative emotions provoke him, take possession of him and destroy his good state of mind.
You can not hold back your emotions, get angry, scream, laugh, cry bitterly and be loudly indignant. Do you think anyone likes such sincerity? Only your enemies enjoy watching this performance. Learning to manage emotions!
Sometimes, succumbing to emotions or allowing ourselves to be led by false feelings, we commit actions that we later repent of. At the same time, we make excuses that we have lost control over ourselves, so emotions have prevailed over reason. That is, we did not control our emotions, but they controlled us.
Is it really that bad? Perhaps there is nothing good in the lack of self-control. People who do not know how to control themselves, maintain self-control and subordinate their feelings to their will, as a rule, do not achieve success either in their personal lives or in the professional sphere.
They do not think about tomorrow, and their expenses often far exceed their income.
Unrestrained people flare up like a match during any quarrel, unable to stop in time and compromise, which earns them the reputation of a conflict person. At the same time, they also destroy their health: doctors claim that many diseases have a direct connection with such negative emotions as anger, etc. People who value their own peace and nerves prefer to avoid them.
People who are not used to limiting themselves spend too much free time in empty entertainment and useless conversations. If they make promises, they themselves are not sure whether they can fulfill them. It is not surprising that no matter what field they work in, they are rarely professionals in their field. And the reason for it all is lack of self-control.
A developed sense of self-control allows you to maintain a cool head, sober thoughts and understanding in any situation that feelings may turn out to be false and lead to a dead end.
There are also situations when we need to hide our emotions in our own interests. “Sometimes I am a fox, sometimes I am a lion,” said the French commander. “The secret... is to understand when to be one and when to be another!”
People who control themselves deserve respect and enjoy authority. On the other hand, many people think they are callous, heartless, “insensitive blockheads” and...incomprehensible. Much more understandable to us are those who from time to time “go all out,” “break down,” lose control of themselves and commit unpredictable acts! Looking at them, we also seem to ourselves not so weak. Moreover, becoming restrained and strong-willed is not so easy. So we reassure ourselves that the life of people who are guided by reason and not by feelings is joyless, and therefore unhappy.
That this is not the case is evidenced by an experiment conducted by psychologists, as a result of which they came to the conclusion: people who can overcome themselves and resist momentary temptation are more successful and happy than those who are unable to cope with emotions.
The experiment is named after Michel Walter, a psychologist from Stanford University. It is also known as the “marshmallow test” because one of its main “heroes” is an ordinary marshmallow.
The experiment, conducted in the 60s of the last century, involved 653 4-year-old children. They were taken one by one into a room where one marshmallow lay in a plate on the table. Each child was told that they could eat it now, but if they waited 15 minutes, they would get another one, and then they could eat both. Michel Walter would leave the child alone for a few minutes and then return. 70% of children ate one marshmallow before he returned, and only 30 waited for it and received a second one. It is curious that the same percentage was observed during a similar experiment in two other countries where it was conducted.
Michel Walter followed the fate of his students and after 15 years came to the conclusion that those who at one time did not succumb to the temptation to get “everything now”, but were able to control themselves, turned out to be more learnable and successful in their chosen areas of knowledge and interests. Thus, it was concluded that the ability to self-control significantly improves a person’s quality of life.
Isaac Pintosevich, who is called the “success coach,” argues that those who have no control over themselves and their actions should forget about efficiency forever.
How to learn to manage yourself
1. Let's remember the “marshmallow test”
30% of 4-year-old children already knew how. This character trait was inherited from them “by nature,” or this skill was brought up in them by their parents.
Someone said: “Don’t raise your children, they will still be like you. Educate yourself." Indeed, we want to see our children restrained, but we ourselves throw tantrums in front of their eyes. We tell them that they must cultivate willpower, but we ourselves show weakness. We remind them to be punctual and we are late for work every morning.
Therefore, we begin to learn to control ourselves by carefully analyzing our behavior and identifying “weak points” - where exactly we allow ourselves to “bloom”.
2. Components of control
The aforementioned Yitzhak Pintosevich believes that in order for control to be effective, it must include 3 components:
- Be honest with yourself and have no illusions about yourself;
- You should control yourself systematically, and not occasionally;
- Control should be not only internal (when we control ourselves), but also external. For example, we promised to solve a problem within such and such a time frame. And, in order not to leave ourselves a loophole for retreat, we announce this among our colleagues. If we do not meet the stated time, we pay them a fine. The danger of losing a decent amount of money will serve as a good incentive not to be distracted by extraneous matters.
3. We write down the main goals facing us on a sheet of paper and put (or hang) it in a visible place
Every day we monitor how much we have managed to move towards their implementation.
4. Putting our financial affairs in order
We keep our loans under control, remember whether we have any debts that urgently need to be repaid, and balance debits with credits. Our emotional state is quite dependent on the state of our finances. Therefore, the less confusion and problems there are in this area, the less reason we will have to “lose our temper.”
5. Observe our reaction to events that evoke strong emotions in us, and analyze whether they are worth our worries
We imagine the worst case scenario and understand that it is not as terrible as the consequences of our inadequate and thoughtless behavior.
6. We do everything the other way around
We are angry with a colleague, and we are tempted to say “a few kind words” to him. Instead, we smile welcomingly and give a compliment. If we were offended that another employee was sent to the conference instead of us, we should not be angry, but would be happy for him and wish him a happy journey.
Since the very morning we have been overcome by laziness, so we turn on the music and get down to some business. In a word, we act contrary to what our emotions tell us.
7. A famous phrase says: we cannot change our circumstances, but we can change our attitude towards them.
We are surrounded by different people, and not all of them are friendly and fair to us. We cannot be upset and indignant every time we encounter someone else's envy, anger, or rudeness. We need to come to terms with what we cannot influence.
8. The best assistant in mastering the science of self-control is meditation.
Just as physical exercise develops the body, meditation trains the mind. Through daily meditation sessions, you can learn to avoid negative emotions and not give in to passions that interfere with a sober view of circumstances and can destroy your life. With the help of meditation, a person immerses himself in a state of calm and achieves harmony with himself.
The question “How to learn to control emotions” contains a goal. Many people want to learn to control their emotions. After all, a balanced and restrained person is perceived as reliable, smart, and serious. People who are too emotional scare those around them, and it makes no difference what emotion is going off scale: either the person is crying bitterly, or laughing out loud.
Are emotions manageable?
Before you start working on yourself, you need get rid of from the existing stereotype that emotions are something light, insignificant, something that must quickly submit to reason.
People often tell others: “Calm down! Now stop being nervous! Can’t you pull yourself together?”, but when it’s their turn to worry, they simply don’t know what to do with themselves.
Emotions control people and people get very angry with themselves when they fail to control their emotions because underestimate their strength and meaning.
Why you shouldn’t be angry with yourself when emotions control and direct can be understood by learning what emotions are in general. We recommend that you read the article to learn more about the nature and functional significance of emotions.
Emotions this is not just some kind of mental processes and states, it is a complex psychophysiological internal regulation mechanism mental activity and behavior aimed at meeting current human needs. Roughly speaking, emotions help a person survive. Both bad and good emotions vital people, they regulate behavior by directing a person towards To achieving and maintaining well-being and from troubles.
Manage emotions - social necessity. Although this is difficult, it is possible and often simply necessary for a cultured, civilized person.
Controlling emotions is...
Emotions, out of bounds normal manifestations, no longer serve for the benefit of a person, they provoke illnesses (including mental ones), spoil relationships with others, complicate self-realization in various spheres of life, change personality (a person becomes impulsive, irritable, aggressive, etc.).
Excessively prolonged and intense emotions, especially negative ones, can make a person unhappy and significantly ruin their life. It is known, for example, that in a state of passion an individual can even commit a crime.
Control your emotions difficult, and such extreme forms of intensity and inhibition of all other mental processes as affects are generally impossible. The stronger the emotion, the more effort it will take to curb it. So it's much easier don't let it happen emotion to a state of excessive and too long, learn to control yourself.
No matter how difficult it may be, a huge number of people still know how to regulate their emotional state. Actors, politicians, lawyers, military men do this masterfully - many people know how to control themselves.
Control your emotions this is not the same as suppressing them or ignoring them! Control of emotions implies:
- skill realize, that is, catching yourself thinking about the occurrence of emotions and understanding what exactly this or that experienced emotion is called,
- skill accept both good and bad your emotions and understand their functional significance, necessity for the body and personality,
- the ability to manage them, that is, to support them normal intensity and duration of experiences.
Control over emotions this is managing them to the extent possible when they have already arisen, as well as the ability to prevent the unwanted development of strong, excessive, dangerous emotions.
How to learn to control emotions in 5 steps
There are many emotions and each of them requires separate consideration. It is easy to guess that the mechanism for controlling laughter and fear will be different. But still there are some universal recommendations given by psychologists:
Small secret: To relax tight muscles, you need to tighten them even more. You need to press even harder, squeeze, squeeze, twist the clamped area, after which this muscle group will automatically relax. If you can’t give yourself such a mini-massage, then you need to try to grimace at least a little, this will relax your facial muscles.
So, the essence of emotional control in skill:
- be aware of them and their bodily expression,
- by an effort of will to control their intensity,
- intelligently regulate your behavior without denying the presence of emotions.
Any emotion is a hint, a signal to action. You need to listen to her.
Most people want to learn to control negative emotions (fear, anger, resentment, guilt, envy), but a negative emotion stimulates human activity aimed at avoiding harmful and dangerous influences from the outside!
Emotion is not an enemy, but a friend. If you understand this, it is easier to understand yourself. If a certain person is annoying, instead of hiding the negativity, isn't it better not to communicate with him at all? If you are afraid of something, maybe you don’t need to do it, but if you do it, then first get rid of the fear? If envy arises, maybe it's time to stop comparing yourself to someone else and become more confident in yourself?
Do you ever find yourself yelling at your husband and then regretting it? Does it happen that you say offensive things to him, the reality of which you yourself do not believe? How often do you feel remorse for actions that destroy your relationships? Does this sound familiar to you? Then this article is written for you!
To get started, answer the following questions:
- Do you think it is possible to control emotions?
- What advantages and benefits will we get if we learn to control our emotions?
- What damage do we cause to ourselves and our family by failing to control ourselves?
I think it's obvious that self-control is a skill worth learning, but how?
When I first got married, my ability to control my emotions was at best 10%, and today I can proudly say that I have 90% control over my emotions. I not only learned to control my emotions, but also began to help other women in this difficult task. I have developed several exercises that, with constant practice, give amazing results.
How to control your emotions and maintain peace in the family?
Follow the six rules!
Rule 1: Don't dramatize the situation
Many women simply “wind up” themselves and make a big deal out of any little thing: “He didn’t call me, that means he forgot about me, that means he doesn’t care about me, that means he doesn’t love me anymore, etc.” and so on".
Remember - as a rule, you are offended or angry not at the event itself, but at the meaning that you attach to it. Learn to think more positively and more broadly: “He didn’t call me because he has an important project at work; he didn't call because he wanted me to miss him; he didn’t call because he didn’t want to distract me from my business.”
Or even: “He didn’t call, simply because he forgot.” That's all. No drama.
Rule 2: Take care of your well-being and emotional state
Imagine that you are tired, hungry and on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to the amount of work. And then your husband comes home an hour later than promised. You throw out on him everything that has accumulated at work, and all your fatigue over the past days, and maybe months or years.
Very often we take our anger out on our husband, although in principle he has nothing to do with it. He just came across it at the wrong moment.
So, your direct responsibility is to take care of yourself and your happiness. Then your husband will get a piece of your happiness instead of a ton of your stress.
Rule 3: Play the role of a happy and good wife
Yes, as they say, “fake it till you make it.” That is, play it until you get it - until it becomes second nature.
Here the necessary books, films and live communication with those who can serve as an example will help you.
Say goodbye to your previous image, because you didn’t choose it, life somehow imposed it on you without your consent. Choose a new image for yourself and be who you want to see yourself as, playing this role as an actress. Very soon this will become a habit, and before you know it, you will become the person you always dreamed of being!
Rule 4: Analyze your intentions, behaviors and results
Behind every action there is a good intention. For example, a woman yells at her husband because she wants him to understand and accept her feelings. But does her action - raising her voice - lead to the desired result? Obviously, this leads to the opposite. The husband simply ignores her and insists on his own even stronger.
Therefore, it is important to ask yourself: “Why am I screaming? What do I want to achieve with this? Does this lead me to the desired result? What alternative action can I take to achieve what I want? Learn to ask yourself these questions and analyze your behavior, and not just act automatically.
Rule 5: Count to ten and breathe deeply
In any stressful situation, the first reaction is usually animal, instinctive: attack or run away. Therefore, women either make a scandal, or slam the door and leave in offense. Neither one nor the other option is a way out of the situation.
You need to understand that rational and creative thinking comes into play a little later in a stressful situation. That’s why they recommend counting to ten and then reacting. A more effective way is to do a full breathing exercise: 8 seconds while inhaling, 32 seconds holding your breath, and 16 seconds exhaling. After this exercise, you literally become a new person with whom you can communicate again.
Rule 6: Go to another room to beat a pillow
In the most extreme case, there is a very effective means for releasing negative emotions without sacrifice, without remorse and without harm to others. As soon as you feel like you are about to explode, move away from witnesses and, when you are alone, feel free to start hitting the pillow and shout loudly: “A-a-a-a-a!”
I assure you that even a minute of such entertaining pastime will be enough for you to again feel that you are “perfectly in the saddle”! You can again talk, communicate and clarify various issues without fear for your health.
Remember, you may not always have power over the situation, but you can always have power over yourself. This is what I wish for you!
Emotions are what makes us human. But sometimes the expression of feelings is completely inappropriate, interferes with thinking sensibly and leads to mistakes. You cannot (and should not!) keep yourself from experiencing certain emotions. But it needs to be manifested and expressed at the right time and in the right place. Use your feelings constructively and don't let them destroy everything you've been trying to achieve for so long.
Don't rock yourself
Regulate the temperature of your emotions like the temperature on a thermostat. Not too hot, not too cold - just right to feel good. This applies to both good and bad emotions.
Excessive enthusiasm can be inappropriate, as can overly aggressive or depressive behavior.
People who know how to control their emotions always try to avoid disharmony in their state of mind.
Stop to think
Do you feel like you're boiling? This is a dangerous condition, and you need to get yourself in order as soon as possible. Instead of reacting to the situation immediately, think about what tools and solutions you can use. Cool down and reflect on what happened, regaining your focus and ability to analyze. Hasty decisions most often bring a bitter feeling of regret. On the other hand, a short pause will help you focus on what is most important and choose an effective and tactful way to solve the problem.
Avoid emotional overload
Emotional overload is a situation in which a certain feeling completely takes over you. This condition is accompanied by physical symptoms such as increased heart rate, increased breathing, trembling knees, sweating and nausea. Do you feel something similar? This is a clear sign that you are emotionally overwhelmed. Instead of going with the flow and giving up, pull yourself together! Process the information piece by piece, gradually coming to your senses. You can evaluate the result with a sober look.
Kate Ter Haar/Flickr.comPractice deep breathing
The body's reaction to emotional overload directly affects all muscles of the body. You experience tension, after which you will definitely feel overwhelmed. To avoid such surges, practice deep breathing. It will saturate your brain with oxygen and help you relax. The technique is very simple: stop whatever you are doing, close your eyes and inhale very slowly through your nose, counting down five seconds. Hold your breath for another two seconds, and then exhale just as slowly through your mouth, again counting to five. Repeat at least 10 times.
Avoid emotional company
People are known to easily convey their emotions to others. This is why you should avoid those who see only the negative in everything: you will borrow the same point of view without even noticing. The same applies to overly emotional people. If you want to control your feelings and be in harmony, you should distance yourself from those who can be called drama queens.
Think about the solution, not the problem
A negative reaction to a difficult situation is one of the most common problems associated with emotions. Feeling sad or angry as a reaction to changed circumstances is normal, but irrational.
You can’t stop thinking about the problem; you need to use the time to think through a plan for the next actions.
Make a list of possible solutions, be creative and... During work, emotions will fade into the background, you will come out of the situation as a winner.
