Each day, all of us can experience different feelings; irritated when we are stuck in traffic,
anxious when we have an exam, happy when we get praised etc. These are emotions and
every one of us goes through a myriad of these each day. There are certain ways in which
we can control what we are feeling and such techniques go a long way in mitigating the
damage that negative emotions can wreck on our relationships with others and with ourself.
Emotional regulation doesn’t mean suppressing one’s emotion; it teaches us how to deal
with our emotions better. There are both positive and negative ways of regulating
emotions. Negative methods include ruminations, avoidance, substance use, self harm etc.
The focus of this article is going to be positive techniques of managing ones emotions.
The first step is to be aware of what one is feeling. Many a times we are not able to
pinpoint which emotion is bothering us. Giving it a name helps us to understand it
and also to trace its source better. For eg., a student might be getting irritated at his
mother for not finding his books, but on probing it comes to light that his irritability
is actually anxiety due to not having completed his assignment on time.
Grounding techniques: these techniques are a great help in anxiety as it brings us
back to present and our surrounding thereby increasing our mindfulness. The 5-4-3-
2-1 technique involves focusing on
o Describing in detail 5 things that you can see around you
o 4 things you can touch
o 3 things that you can hear
o 2 things you can smell
o 1 thing you can taste
Accepting the emotion: people tend to judge their emotions negatively at times; for
eg, men cant accept feeling tearful or women cant accept feeling angry at their
children. We have to actively let go and accept.
Taking a long term perspective: often when incidents are viewed from a long term
lenses, they seem insignificant and the angst associated with them seems
unnecessary. For eg, scoring less marks than usual on a test can be anxiety provoking
for a student ( and parents too!), but its better to shift focus on what can be done to
better it, and to remember that