Many articles have been written about how to manage emotions, but you know what I’ll tell you: it doesn’t make it any easier for me. I am an emotional person, so managing emotions is a very relevant topic for me. This happened often: I’ll flare up, blow up the world, then, of course, I cool down, and all around me there are only ruins of love, friendship and wonderful relationships. The consequences of emotional stress are difficult to correct.
Why is emotional stress dangerous?
Emotional stress is a state of pronounced psycho-emotional experience of conflict situations that acutely or long-term limit the satisfaction of a person’s social or biological needs.
Under the influence of strong emotions, a person cannot adequately perceive reality, communicate normally, think, his blood pressure rises, his heart rate increases, a person may suffer from attacks of suffocation and experience other unpleasant symptoms.
Is it possible to manage emotions or not?
Of course, emotions need to be managed. But how to do this when they are too strong and surge suddenly? This is not a spleen so that a methodical plan of action can be developed and systematically implemented. Here you need to act quickly and clearly in order to get yourself out of a situation of emotional zombie, help yourself abstract and start thinking clearly. The situation is developing quickly and uncontrollably. What to do?
People who want to manage their emotional state are advised to first monitor their thoughts in order to prevent the emergence of negative emotions. In one of the articles I read: “The main thing that helps you gain control over your emotions is total control over your own life.”
Finishing all things and paying off debts is also advice that you can’t argue with, but our life is so fast-paced: when we complete one thing, another is immediately there, and everything starts all over again. Debt is even more difficult. It turns out that if you don’t live like a Tibetan monk, then it’s impossible to cope with emotions?
Of course, creating comfort, not letting anyone into your personal boundaries, avoiding energy vampires are practical tips, they can be used in a relatively calm (or repetitive) situation.
Imagine that the cleaning lady, Aunt Glasha, constantly insults you just like that - calls you offensive words, mutters all sorts of nasty things under her breath and does not react in any way to your calls to observe etiquette. You are nervous, angry, and Aunt Glasha, calmly kicking your legs with a mop, does her dirty work and leaves with her head held high. And the more angry you are, the prouder Aunt Glasha’s posture is...
The first meeting with Aunt Glasha will be a disaster for you; you are not prepared for it and, most likely, you will lose your temper. You will prepare for the second meeting, but you will lose because you have not yet studied the enemy well enough. But for the third time, you can easily fight back against Aunt Glasha if you understand that she is that same energy vampire and there is nothing more terrible for her than your positive emotions in response to insults.
But even if revenge is yours, because of Aunt Glasha you will not sleep for several days, get angry, invent ways of revenge and hate yourself for it. How great it would be to know a technique against Aunt Glasha that could, at the very first meeting, remove the negative consequences of emotional stress or eliminate it altogether!
Navigation through the article “Here and now: what will we get if we live by feelings?”
- What does the “Here and Now” state give us?
- Living with feelings: do they tell the truth?
- Living with feelings is living in reality
- Statistics - the new religion
What does the “Here and Now” state give us?
Firstly
Being “here and now” will give you the effectiveness of your reactions and actions. We have already said that it is impossible to predict everything 100%. How then to react to something that was not part of the plan, that did not go as you expected? If you are still in your own mind, ideas, fantasies, any deviation from the plan will plunge you into a stupor and generally slow down any action.
“I get lost when something goes “wrong”, I am speechless, I don’t know what to do, and often I just stand in silence, trying to collect my thoughts, and realizing that I look stupider every second... »
If you are in the here and now, you can easily feel what you want at the moment. And you can easily express your feelings about what is happening and act in accordance with your natural reactions. And, accordingly, if you are in contact with yourself, there will be no stupor or clouding of reason.
Many people are afraid that their reaction will be “inappropriate” or “wrong.” At sessions, hearing this, I always ask – wrong for what?
What standards of correct behavior do you follow? Are you sure these standards are appropriate for this particular case? Why do you put standards above your feelings and your goals? Who and when told you that living with feelings is inadequate?
Naturally, we are forced to respect social boundaries, but they are quite simple in general.
Switching attention
Here is a small but quite diverse arsenal of techniques for dealing with emotions that the Internet offers: breathing exercises, massage, sports, an offer to speak out completely, scream, hit a pillow, hit the sofa with a rolled up towel. Which of the proposed methods could help me in a story that happened to me about a year ago? And this is what happened...
On the way to work, I was stopped by traffic police officers and asked to show my documents. It seems like a banal situation, but its development made me seriously nervous. The policeman did not like my eyes, he suspected me of using drugs and alcohol. It also seems like nothing like that. Trivial questions. I was asked to open the trunk. It is unknown what happened to the car, but the trunk did not open. And the show began!
Which of the above tools for dealing with emotions do you think I should have used? Scream or hit a pillow (I drive one in the backseat)? I don’t think I would have been able to meditate in this situation either. It’s unlikely that playing sports would help (I would definitely be forced to undergo a medical examination if I suddenly started doing push-ups on the hood).
It is unknown how the situation would have been resolved if I had not managed to pull myself together. It turns out that just a couple of seconds is enough to take a breath and look at what is happening from the outside. The more confident and calm I became, the sadder the traffic police officers seemed. In the end, I calmly got into my car and drove away, but everything could have ended differently if I had not been able to cope with my emotions.
What to do in situations like this, rapidly developing, negative, provoking an emotional explosion and further experiences?
The only thing you can do is try to switch your attention. A good way is ritual sign language used in Hinduism and Buddhism (mudras). The most famous is the mudra of knowledge, often used in yoga. When performing this mudra, the tip of the index finger touches the pad of the thumb, the remaining fingers are straightened, but not tense. Mudra is not just a gesture. For example, the mudra of knowledge relieves emotional stress, anxiety, worry, improves thinking, and concentrates potential.
Why does this work? In order to correctly compose a mudra, you need to concentrate, and therefore distract yourself from a difficult situation. You form mudra consciously, which means you are already concentrating on what is happening, and this is the first step to regaining control, but not over emotions (they are secondary), but over the situation.
If you think that they are fighting each other, then you can try to get yourself out of emotional stress with another stressful situation. For example, pricking your finger, pinching yourself or biting your tongue, etc. I personally don’t think this is a good way, since focusing on pain can play a negative role in the future - with any pain you will experience additional emotional discomfort.
So, all you need to do when you are in the midst of emotions is to find an opportunity to abstract yourself and look at the situation from the outside, and to do this you need to distract yourself for at least a few moments and take a breath.
Choose any mudra of your choice and practice in advance. Believe me, under stress you will find it difficult to concentrate.
The most important thing is to start acting calmly and consciously, and to do this, try to check whether you composed the mudra correctly. Don't think that your procrastination will be noticeable to others. It only takes a few seconds to pull yourself together.
How to get rid of stress at work and at home
Nobody wants to be in a state of stress. We are all looking for a way to relax and relieve stress. Everyone chooses different methods of coping with stress and anxiety, and not everyone manages to make the right choice. Some techniques do not improve the situation, but only make it worse. Let's figure out how to properly relieve stress and what techniques you shouldn't resort to.
Ways that don't work
Let's start with the most common mistakes that our compatriots make when trying to drown out emotions and ease stress.
- TV. Every second Russian tries to forget about the problems behind the TV screen. If we are talking about watching a comedy or humorous program, this is not so bad. It's another matter if you watch news, political shows and similar programs that, while distracting from one problem, create new ones. As a result, stress only increases.
- Alcohol. Every fifth Russian drowns his sorrows in wine or stronger alcoholic drinks. As you know, this does not solve the problem. Momentary oblivion soon turns into even bigger troubles: health problems begin, family quarrels become more frequent, money becomes less, there are more and more mistakes in the service, and nerves become even more frayed.
- Gluttony. Every sixth of us tries to eat away stress. Food can bring temporary pleasure, but in the end your figure deteriorates, health problems appear, and all this becomes new sources of stress.
So, let's see: alcohol, nicotine, drugs, gambling and similar addictive drugs do not help relieve stress. They deceive a person, plunging him to the very bottom. TV makes the situation worse, not better.
Effective methods: 15 working methods
As a result of numerous experiments, several activities have been identified that actually help you relax and reduce stress.
- Medicines. Pharmacy medications can suppress anxiety and relieve tension, but it is impossible to sit on pills all your life. You can take anti-anxiety pills and antidepressants for a while to numb the pain and avoid serious health problems if such treatment has been recommended by your doctor. But medications should only help you fight stress; acceptance should be made of safer non-drug remedies that also “work.”
- Reading helps reduce stress levels by 60-70%. We are not talking about reading newspapers and other periodicals.
- Music helps fight stress almost as well as reading. The effectiveness of music therapy depends on the choice of musical works, but not significantly.
- A cup of tea or coffee allows you to relax slightly half the time. The effect will be more noticeable if you add chamomile, mint, valerian, and St. John's wort to the tea.
- A bath with these herbs, as well as ivy and lavender, will also help relieve tension.
- Aromatherapy has also proven itself to be a good way to overcome stress. The aromas of sandalwood, lavender, rosemary, chamomile, cedar, geranium, and patchouli have a calming effect. We have already described how to use essential oils on the pages of our online magazine “The Beauty is in You”.
- In 40% of situations, a walk helps relieve stress.
- More than 70% of women believe that communication with children helps them reduce stress.
- Communication with the opposite sex and intimacy are also effective means of relieving stress, but no more than 10 percent of Russians resort to it.
- Communication with pets can also increase stress resistance. Walking with a dog, petting a cat, watching aquarium fish - it’s so simple, and it helps much better than vodka and cigarettes.
- Laughter prolongs life precisely because it helps relieve stress.
- Tears also help you relax. It is no coincidence that experienced representatives of the older generation so often advise: “Cry - it will become easier.”
- Psychologists recommend sports and active recreation as one of the best ways to increase stress resistance. But only 12% of our compatriots follow these tips.
- Meditation, yoga or prayer can also help you find peace of mind. But only 2% of Russians use this product.
- Psychologists advise using another non-trivial technique to increase stress resistance: select photographs that capture the most pleasant moments of your life, where you laugh, smile, look happy, and hang these photos on the walls in your apartment, place them in a photo frame, setting it on your desktop .
Stress is a defense mechanism that nature has given us. But it can be destructive. Even if you consider yourself a calm person, you should know how you can increase your resistance to stress and get rid of stress and worries on your own, without doctors or medications. There are actually many effective methods; you just need to choose the one that suits you best.
