How Can You Control Your Emotions?

Not everyone talks about their feelings with the same ease. After all, nobody taught us how to manage our emotions in a healthy way and how to deal with them. However, the following exercises will help you face your emotions more easily from now on.

In this article you will find 5 simple exercises that you can apply when needed. Remember: practice makes perfect! The more you practice, the better the results will be.

Exercises to learn to control your emotions

We give you the 5 most effective exercises to learn to control your emotions. There are many different exercises, but we have chosen the best one for you.

1. Be present with full attention

Mindfulness means resting, standing still, breathing and observing.

You can practice every day in being present with full attention:

• Sit or lie down for at least 5 minutes each day (choose whichever suits you best), and focus on your breathing.
• It’s not about clearing your head. It’s about reflecting on what you’re feeling, observing your emotions without judging them, and looking at what your emotions are trying to tell you. 

For example, if you use this exercise during an argument, and you wait a while before reacting, you will notice that the confrontation will be less annoying.

2. Keep an Emotion Diary

It may sound crazy, but keeping a journal about your feelings is very important. If you don’t already have such a diary, consider starting one. The advantages:

• Writing is therapeutic. It helps to view and reflect on our emotions objectively through pen and paper. After a while you will see which feelings keep coming back, and you will know how to deal with them in the best way.
• Keeping an emotion journal helps you see how much progress you are making in managing your emotions.

• Any time you notice a feeling that negatively affects your mood, such as sadness, look back in your journal to see how you can best deal with that feeling. The fact that you can read back in your diary makes you feel safe and secure.

3. Focus your mind on something else

The third exercise that can help you manage your emotions involves shifting your thoughts. You know very well that you are angry when you feel angry. If you allow that anger to breed further in your thoughts, it will only intensify.

When this happens, try the following exercise:

• Think of a keyword ahead of time that you can conjure up in these moments, to remind you to stop your thoughts. For example: ‘enough’, ‘stop’, or any other word that works well for you.
• Then write down the negative thought and write the positive equivalent next to it. For example, in case you feel anger, write ‘joy’ or ‘be happy’.

At first, this exercise may seem pointless, but you will see that it calms you down and makes you feel less agitated. Give it a try!

4. Give yourself time to worry

That sounds strange, doesn’t it? Normally we worry more than is good for us, so if we suddenly have to make time for that, it sounds very strange. Still, it’s not a bad idea.

• Some people set aside some time each day for them to worry.
• When the time is up, they go about their daily activities, putting their worries aside. Those worries then disappear, or they are parked until the peak of the next day.

This is a great way to avoid walking around with a worrying head all day, making you less efficient and productive at work. By parking them, you keep your worries under control.

5. Find a mirror ASAP!

This final tip for mastering your emotions is one you’ll love! As soon as you feel negative feelings rising, quickly find a mirror. It might even be useful to keep a hand mirror with you from now on…

The exercise goes like this:

• Look at yourself in the mirror and smile. Maybe you don’t feel like laughing at all, but do it anyway. Hold that for a few minutes, between 2 and 5 minutes, without taking your eyes away from the mirror.
• This exercise will help you look more objectively at the situation that made you feel so bad. It also helps you calm down.

• Smiling, even though it may be forced, makes your body release endorphins.  This makes it easier to control your emotions and get a clear view of the situation.

Emotions you should never suppress

The exercises above give you tools to deal with your emotions in a positive way. So you should never try to forget, ignore, or suppress your feelings. 

Our exercises help you to calm down and get your overwhelming emotions under control. So they don’t make your emotions disappear completely, but they can help you view the situation in a calmer and more balanced way.

Running away from your feelings or hiding or ignoring them is not the answer. They always come back eventually. The exercises in this article will help you get to know yourself better, and learn which emotions require more effort to control. Have you already tried one of the exercises? And how did it go?