emotion regulation concept

The core concept of emotion regulation is a process in which individuals proactively intervene in the timing, intensity of experience, and expression of their own emotions. It does not mean forcing oneself to suppress negative feelings, nor does it mean deliberately pursuing continuous happiness. The core goal is to adapt emotions to what is being done at the moment, rather than to eliminate all emotional fluctuations.

Many people's first reaction to this concept is "Oh, it just teaches you how to tolerate your temper, right?" This is what an Internet operator visitor I interviewed a while ago thought: He stayed up for three consecutive days during the Double Eleven promotion last year, and the client he contacted scolded him for half an hour because he complained about the slow jump of active links. He also had to do some psychological development for his subordinates who were struggling, gritting his teeth and not showing any emotion during the whole process. As a result, he suffered from insomnia for half a month, and he shed tears for no apparent reason while waiting at a red light while driving. He had always thought that "if you can suppress your emotions without delaying things, you have adjusted well." It was not until he finally went to see a doctor because of physical reactions that he realized that what he was doing was not adjusting at all, but storing all the emotions in his body waiting to explode.

Among the current academic research on emotion regulation, the most widely used is the process model proposed by Stanford psychology professor Gross. He divides emotion regulation into several intervention nodes according to the order in which emotions occur. Oh, by the way, you may have used it many times unconsciously: for example, if you know that cooperation with someone is prone to stalemate, make an appointment in advance in an open conference room instead of a small closed office. This is to choose the situation in advance to reduce the possibility of emotional outbursts.； If the other party is really unreasonable during the conversation and you deliberately lower your head to flip through two pages of information and wait for three seconds, this is diverting attention and interrupting the rhythm of your emotions. ； When your anger subsides a bit, you think, "Although his demands are excessive, they are indeed their compliance requirements and are not deliberately targeted at me." This is cognitive reappraisal, and it is also the most effective long-term adjustment method that has been clinically proven. ； If you really can't help but blush, then use the excuse to go to the bathroom and wash your face with cold water. This is to adjust the emotional reaction that has occurred.

Interestingly, this model has also been questioned a lot in recent years, the most prominent of which are mindfulness-oriented researchers. They feel that this "early intervention and active control" idea is too tight, and essentially treats emotions as a "problem" that needs to be solved. I participated in a mindfulness therapy workshop last year, and the teacher who gave the lecture gave an example: If you suffer from insomnia for a week because of a project, and you feel anxious as soon as you lie down in bed, "Why can't I still fall asleep?" At this time, you use cognitive reappraisal to do ideological work for yourself, "It doesn't matter if you can't fall asleep, and it won't affect your work the next day." In essence, you are still fighting against anxiety, but the more you fight, the more you can't sleep. It is better to lie down and feel your own heartbeat. Even if you are awake, you will feel sleepy soon. In their framework, "allowing emotions to exist without any intervention" is itself a kind of emotional regulation, which is more effective than deliberate adjustment.

Oh, and there is another perspective that is easily overlooked, put forward by the school of cultural psychology: mainstream Western emotion regulation research always regards "suppressing emotions" as an unhealthy way of regulation, but this does not hold true at all in the collective cultural context of East Asia. For example, when you go home during the Chinese New Year and are urged to get married by relatives, you are obviously upset to death, but you still laugh and laugh at it. Do you think this is depression? But if you fall out on the spot, your whole family will not be happy during the New Year, and you will regret it even more afterwards. This kind of "adjusting one's emotional expression in order to maintain relationships" is originally a very important survival wisdom in East Asian society. It is also a completely reasonable emotional adjustment and is not "unhealthy" at all.

In the five or six years that I have been doing consulting, I have seen too many people who have misunderstandings about emotional regulation. The most typical one is that "if you can do it without being angry or sad, you are great." Last month, a high school student came to me and said that his mother always asked him to "regulate his emotions when encountering problems." He lost twenty places in the last mock test and endured the entire school without crying. He just closed the door and shed two tears when he got home. His mother caught him and said, "How come you can't regulate these things well?" As a result, he didn't say a few words for half a month, and instead suffered from sleep disorders. What do you call this adjustment? Emotions are not a switch, they can be turned off at will. The so-called adjustment actually means that even if you cry, you can still finish the food in your hand and finish the homework due the next day, instead of asking yourself not to have the right to feel sad.

Speaking of which, I also encountered a very interesting thing last week. Taking the subway during the morning rush hour, a little girl was bumped into and spilled half a cup of the soy milk she had just bought. She frowned and was about to get angry, but she stared at the remaining half cup in her hand for two seconds. She took out her phone, took a photo and posted it to a circle of friends, "I lost half a cup of soy milk today, I will make up for it with a grilled sausage tonight." Then she put in a straw and drank. You see, this is the simplest and most effective way to regulate emotions. There is no lofty theory. It is just to find a step by yourself and not let bad emotions delay the rest of the day.

Having said all this, you can also see that there is no unified standard answer to emotional regulation. Some people think it's useful to do ideological work in advance, some people think it's better to just take a nap, and some people have to find a friend to scold them for half an hour before they can get over it. As long as it doesn't hurt yourself, doesn't drag others down, and can get you back to a normal pace of life as soon as possible, this is a good method for you. There is no such thing as a perfect "emotionally stable" person. Everyone is just learning to get along with their own tempers while having emotions.