The Magic of Self-Regulation

Five steps to better health and more harmonious relationships.

Dear Friends,

We all lose our cool from time to time. It’s part of being human. We are vessels that house a vast reservoir of feelings characterized by endless nuances and highly personal triggers of delight as well as distress.

How we manage our big feelings, the ones that begin to overtake our physiology such as our temperature rising, our muscles tightening, our breath shallowing, overwhelm enveloping our rational mind — that is the million dollar question.

Do we fall prey to the internal chaos baiting us from beneath the surface, or do we pause, taking a conscious beat, putting space between the stimulus that has us going and our response? Choosing a better path.

Regulating big, intense emotions as they arise can be a challenge for me, especially during times of acute parenting stress or a disagreement with a loved one. At times I get triggered and feel out of control. My circuits get overloaded. Self-regulation in those ubiquitous moments is an ongoing practice for me. Sometimes I do quite well, and other times I fail miserably which results in my need to repair the hurt feelings I created when I essentially was having a tantrum; to acknowledge and reflect on how I wish I handled myself better, apologize, and reconnect. Oh to be human!

Research reflects that our mental health and overall wellbeing is better, and our interpersonal relationships are more harmonious, when we can skillfully modulate our big feelings. Alas, I started digging to learn how I can in fact better develop this skill set.

So what happens exactly, when we lose it? As Dr. Dan Siegel, renown clinical psychiatrist at UCLA’s School of Medicine explains, big feelings that lead to dis-regulation are a result of our prefrontal cortex (PFC) getting hijacked by our amygdala. When this happens, our PFC, which is the thinking part of our brain, “shuts off”, so to speak, and our amygdala, which is the 200 million year old mammalian region of our brain responsible for our fight, flight, freeze, faint response, takes over. That is to say, over millennia, when under acute stress, our bodies have evolved to simultaneously shut off the thinking part of our brain and activate our fight, flight, freeze, faint response. Having our body flooded with strong, overwhelming emotions is an acute stressor which then leads to the different regions of our brain disintegrating with one another and our emotions becoming dis-regulated.

Self-regulation is an essential skill that has to be present for someone
to have a healthy, happy life. It’s crucial to executive function, emotional intelligence, motivational styles, and long-term success and goal achievement.

The scientific literature also shows that for most of us, the acuity at which we are able to regulate strong feelings as we get older and move through school, relationships, and our career is tied to whether or not self-regulation was modeled for us and the tools taught to us as we were growing up. If we learned to self-regulate as a child, we then developed emotional maturity and socially intelligent management skills as part of our upbringing. Additionally, our ability to self-regulate is rooted in whether or not we experienced strong attachment with our primary caregivers when we were young.

But not all is lost, if you, like me, find yourself with room to grow. Self-regulation is a skill that we can learn and level up.

Here is a five step practice to, well, do just that … practice … in the moments we feel the twinge arise and our emotions are building.

1. Notice when you start to feel your emotions intensifying. Become cognoscent. As the ancient Greek thinkers professed, “know thyself.”

2. Commit to calm. Emotions can spread like wildfire. Decide to be the calm in the face of a potential storm. When we stay calm, we are like a firehose to a brushfire instead of being the wind.

3. Take a body break and change your environment. Hide in the bathroom if you need to. Just remove yourself from the intensity. Sip some water. Wash your hands or face. Step outside. The simple act of changing our senses serves as a reset. A reboot.

4. Label the feelings and describe the sensations in your body. As Dr. Siegel says, “Name it, to tame it!” By consciously labeling our intense emotions, we bring our PFC back online and signal our body to soothe our amygdala. For example, “I am so frustrated and am getting angry. I feel overwhelmed and inadequate in this moment. I need a break!” Our feelings are passing emotions. They are not necessarily accurate but they are valid regardless, so claim them in the moment to be able to diffuse their intensity.

5. Double down on the healthy routines that keep you mentally and emotionally grounded and well resourced, most notably getting eight to nine hours of sleep, meditating, eating clean, and moving your body.

Here’s to self regulation whenever we need it most! For, our own mental health and emotional wellbeing coupled with the health and happiness of our relationships deserve it, if not even partially depend on it.

Until next time, xoxo!

WRW