How to manage your emotions

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1:14Kimberley Wilson:That's MaximusTribe.com.

1:20Kimberley Wilson:Hello and welcome. I'm Kimberly Wilson. I'm a counseling psychologist, and this is Complex. The psychology podcast that helps you sort out the sock drawer of information and advice that's out there about our mental health. And in today's episode, I'm delighted to be exploring how we can regulate our emotions better. We all recognise the feeling of being overwhelmed. Maybe your partner upsets you at breakfast and then you're stuck in a traffic jam. And then when you get to work, your boss gives you a hard time for being late. Your emotional barometer shoots up and suddenly all you want to do is scream and shout or lie down and cry.

2:05It's all too much.

2:11Kimberley Wilson:So how can we soothe ourselves when our emotional balance is challenged? Is it even possible? Well, the very good news, my friends, is that it is something that we can learn to do and we can definitely get better at it. So let me be your guide from the tantrum of misinformation to the calm of understanding.

2:40Kimberley Wilson:And so I am delighted that my guest today is Dr. Emma Hepburn. She's a clinical psychologist, author and illustrator and is better known as Psychology Mum on social media. Hello Emma. Hello Kimberly. And could you please talk us through your work? What do you do? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a clinical psychologist and I've worked with adult mental health, children's mental health and neuropsychology for over 20 years now. I also write and illustrate books with the aim of making psychological concepts accessible and usable and applicable in people's day-to-day life. Perfect. So it sounds like you are the exact person you want to guide us through emotion regulation.

3:22Kimberley Wilson:And so let's get started.

3:29Kimberley Wilson:Okie dokie. So let's try and work out what we're talking about before we actually start talking about it. You know, I love a definition. So, and this is a big one. What are emotions? Oh, it's a great question. And doesn't it seem so easy? But it is incredibly complex. We all have innate and universal emotions. And the number of these range from three to 20 something, depending on what you read. And this is Paul Ekman's basic universal emotions, which suggests that each emotion starts with a particular kind of pattern of brain response, and also facial expression. So that might be things like happiness is a smile, disgust is a grimace, and that these are universal.

4:14Kimberley Wilson:Everybody in the world has these whatever number set of emotions built into their brains. Yes, absolutely. That's spot on. However, understanding of emotions has really changed in recent years. There's a new theory of constructed emotions, which Lisa Feldman Barrett is at the forefront of. She's the main researcher in this area. We love her. Yes, she's absolutely fantastic. and this really kind of shifts how we understand emotions. So emotions shift from something that are kind of innate to something that our cultural background, our history, influence how we experience emotions. So emotions are really about understanding the data that's coming at us internally.

4:49So interception, looking at sensations that are coming at us in our body alongside the data around us or context. So it's understanding the internal data in the context we're in to make sense of it through language, which is very cultural, So we know what to do about it.

5:05Kimberley Wilson:So I think actually this new definition is fundamentally much more optimistic because what it says is these things aren't carved in stone in your brain. They are learned. They are open to interpretation. And therefore we can shift, move, improve, upskill in these emotional areas, which is exactly what we're talking about today. I think that is absolutely spot on. I find this hugely optimistic because as we construct our emotions, we can learn to build them differently. Beautiful. So we have this new understanding of what an emotion is. What does emotion regulation mean in that sense? It's a process which we respond to or influence the emotions we have.

5:47And that can be before we have them or it can be while we're having them or it can be responding to the emotions.

5:54Kimberley Wilson:And on the flip side of that then, what does emotional dysregulation or poor regulation mean and what does it look like? When you're dysregulated, emotions become unhelpful to us and they get in the way of living our lives rather than supporting our lives. I think lots of people listening will have had days when they didn't feel particularly regulated, you know, that maybe the second, third, fourth horrible thing has happened to them that day and they just want to crawl into bed and cry and eat ice cream. So what's the difference between what we might call a normal response to a bad day and something that's much more of a trait where people aren't very good at managing their emotions?

6:42So we're not trying to get rid of emotions. And actually what you described about getting into bed and having a cry is sometimes a fantastic way to regulate and manage your emotions. So I think the difference really is, are these emotions stopping us doing the things we want to do in life? Or are they helping us navigate life?

6:58Kimberley Wilson:Yes, I think there is a belief that what would be good and beneficial and ideal and optimal for us is just to have this kind of very smooth, neutral response to our emotions. And I have people say to me, oh, my emotions are so volatile. And actually, you know, having sat with them for weeks and months, they're not. Your emotional responses are completely appropriate to what you're describing to me. it's your expectation about how you think you should respond or not respond to things which is the problem so where do we get this idea that we shouldn't be responding? Yeah so this idea that emotions should be stable all the time I think that's a really kind of misconception of what emotions are and it's also tied into kind of long-term myths around emotions that some emotions are ones we need to override and negative emotions are bad whereas I talk about what would happen if we didn't have those bad emotions?

7:51What would happen to the human race? We would not spot threat. We would not be compassionate because we wouldn't spot bad emotions on other people. We would not manage ourselves effectively when we have a bad situation. So if we're feeling sad, we wouldn't kind of respond to that in an appropriate way. We wouldn't apologise because we wouldn't experience guilt. Exactly. So actually, I think it's shifting from thinking these bad emotions are something negative that we shouldn't have to thinking that they don't feel nice, but we actually need them as much as the other emotions. They're a necessary component of life and a necessary component of brain functioning too.

8:25Kimberley Wilson:Perfect, thank you. And this feels like a really lovely point for us to bring in our listener story. And actually, as a quick aside, thank you to everyone who gets in touch. We absolutely love receiving your questions and your dilemmas, so please keep them coming. And now to today's story. This one comes from someone I'm going to call Jacob to help protect his identity. Emma I'm going to read this out and please tell me what you think. Jacob says, hi complex team. In my personal experience as an 18 year old who's quite stressed and struggles a lot especially with body issues I often listen to music as a way to regulate my emotions.

9:05Kimberley Wilson:However I've noticed that when I play sad music I often feel more sad than I did before. I'm curious as to why we're drawn to sad music when we already feel low and why something so comforting at first can sometimes intensify those feelings instead. But he also goes on to say thank you so much for all the work you do on making this podcast such a great listen. It's definitely one of my favourites. So thank you very, very much Jacob for getting in touch and for those kind words. I'm sure lots of listeners know exactly what you're talking about Jacob. Emma, what do you think? Well first of all what a fantastic skill to use music to regulate your emotions because music is fundamentally emotional.

9:49It can create emotions or it can let us process emotions and that can be really helpful for us. I use music a lot. I use 90s dance music to get myself energised. So it's really interesting what he's saying about sad music because often we do listen to sad music when we're sad and that can help us process the emotion, think about the emotion, allow the emotion as well, which is really critical because if we suppress or kind of push emotions away we know it makes us feel worse longer term although it feels protective short term so it sounds like he's using the sad music to kind of process that emotion but again like all these regulation techniques it's the right thing at the right time so it might be that after a certain point he finds it more helpful to shift music and he maybe wants to create kind of different emotions by that point instead

10:34Kimberley Wilson:Yes, and so maybe what's happened with Jacob is that he's moved from reflection and regulation perhaps into rumination, that he's gone into kind of sitting in the emotion for a little bit too long and that's what's kind of leading to this intensification that he describes. Yes, absolutely and it sounds to some point the sad music helps him move through it but then maybe it gets him caught up in it and that's when it becomes unhelpful. Okay, so we might be saying to Jacob this is a great start and it's helpful in places but what we're going to be talking about are additional skills that you can add into your toolbox so that you can help shift and move through those emotions.

11:12Kimberley Wilson:This is such a multi-layered topic so let's get into the complexity.

11:21Kimberley Wilson:You described how emotions are a combination of the physical, the social and linguistic. So what is happening in our brains and bodies when we are trying to emotionally regulate? So emotions are a physical thing in our body. Something's happening and we're trying to move through it. But we often try and feel better by shoving that away, which actually makes our body more stressed. So it really is about allowing it, allowing that process to happen, observing it and moving through it to the other side of that emotion. So it's not just that we are regulating this abstract thing that's happening in our minds.

11:58Kimberley Wilson:we also as part of that want to regulate our bodies is that right? Absolutely it's a physiological response first of all our brains process our main brain function is allostasis which is about predicting our energy needs so our brain is constantly predicting our energy needs to get us energized or calm us down so that might trigger the fight and fight response for example which is needed at times but other times it might trigger when it's not necessary or it's not helpful so we're regulating that physiological response throughout the day and our bodies do it naturally but we can also support it to do that.

12:29Kimberley Wilson:I'm thinking though about, if we're talking about emotion regulation as a skill, where does it begin? So, I mean, that's a big question. And the first thing really is understanding what emotions are and the beliefs we have about emotions. Are they scary things that you don't know what to do with? Or are they things that you understand and you know how you can respond to them? Because we know if people feel more able to do things about their emotions, if they feel more manageable, then emotions are less detrimental to them longer term. There's also about noticing our emotions what's going on in your body what's happening where are you feeling it and then there's the language how do you label that because we know the more you can label and name your emotions the better able you are to manage and regulate them longer term.

13:15Kimberley Wilson:Lovely and that last point I think is so important because so many people get stuck with two or three words for their emotions I think the big ones I hear are bad, stressed, weird. And whilst they feel like they're describing something, they're just not very descriptive, are they? Yeah, they're not giving you much detail. And if we think of emotions as data, the finer you can understand that data, the more you can know what to do about it. So a label like bad is a very, very wide label. It doesn't tell you much about what's actually going on. So we can talk about emotional granulation. And I think of it like a sieve.

13:51you take this big thing, bad, and you put it in a sieve and then you shake it about and then the fine details come out and that's emotional granulation. So are you feeling ashamed? Are you feeling stressed? Are you feeling hungry? Once you start to label those emotions, it tells you what to do. Lisa Feldman Barrett does a lot of research into emotional granularity and we see that people who can label their emotions in finer detail, it helps them really regulate them more. they're also less likely to have poor mental health longer term as well. So it's incredibly helpful. And it can also impact potentially in physical health because physical health and emotional health are not separate.

14:29They really link together.

14:31Kimberley Wilson:And that's fantastic because that's a practical thing. It's like broadening your emotional dictionary and it's a wonderful skill to have. And I'm thinking about Jacob. He's 18 and speaking to our teenage listeners directly. Hello. We're very glad that you're here. adolescence can be particularly difficult in terms of understanding, experiencing, sharing our emotions. Why might that be? Adolescence is a time when we're just learning about ourselves and also it's a time when emotions are very up and down as well so you can have very strong emotions and sometimes those emotions don't really make sense in the context you're in.

15:12Our brain is continuously developing throughout adolescence so you know there's a lot of frontal lobe development and that really is about inhibiting responses, initiating responses, reflecting on responses and as well of course you have lots of ups and downs with hormones. It's not just what's going on in our environment, there's lots of things in our body constantly affecting how we feel and something we can notice. So hunger we can usually notice, needing to go to the toilet we can usually notice but we're not aware of most of these processes like hormone changes which can affect how we feel or lots of other things that are constantly going on.

15:43So it's learning to understand that. So not only are we learning to understand ourselves as a person, but we're learning to understand this constantly changing and evolving body as well, which is really hard.

15:52Kimberley Wilson:Yeah, it's a huge amount of transition adaptation to try to get your head around. And are there any other groups that might experience emotions differently? So we've got 86 billion neurons in our brain and millions and billions of connections between them, as well as millions of supportive cells. So everybody experiences emotions slightly differently. But obviously there are some groups of people who might have kind of differences in emotions. I work with people with a brain injury and one of the factors after brain injury is what we call emotional ability. So your emotions go up and down, but you can't really relate it to the context that's going on.

16:26And suddenly you just feel a big surge of emotions without kind of any clear trigger. And that really is because of brain changes. There's also some evidence that people with neurodiversity might experience emotions stronger or slightly differently or actually be less aware of kind of the body physiological sensations to understand their emotions. Thank you. And that feels really kind and normalising

16:48Kimberley Wilson:because I think it's so easy to look outwards and see someone who appears to be managing their emotions very well. And if you internally feel like you're in the storm of emotions, it can be very easy to kind of shame yourself. Absolutely. And some people are more sensitive to other people's emotions. So they have greater empathy, they pick up other people's emotions more and they impact more on them. And there's huge differences across people.

17:14Kimberley Wilson:So Emma, let's kind of take it back. Where does emotional management begin? Because we were all toddlers once. We were all throwing tantrums. We were all upset that our sandwiches were cut in the wrong shape. So childhood is really the time when you're developing a set of beliefs about yourself, the world and other people. But you also have beliefs about things like emotions. So beliefs are transmitted through the cultures you exist in and also the people around about you. And our beliefs about emotions are fundamental for how we manage them long term. So if we believe emotions aren't acceptable, that we need to keep them in, that we need to suppress them, then we'd be more likely to do that longer term.

17:53So that might mean something like, boys don't cry, don't talk back to me. Don't be so emotional. so the message you're given they can either be direct messages about emotions or they can either be indirect messages about how you should respond and display emotions

18:10Kimberley Wilson:Yes, if you imagine just being a two year old and you're suddenly overwhelmed with anger but you don't have the word for anger you don't have the concept of anger you just have this really overwhelming feeling you're kind of helpless with it and so it's the parent or the carer's the environment's job to do that act of translation oh you're feeling angry you might be angry because of this and that links to kind of longer term understanding what that emotion is and labeling it so we know what to do about it and I suppose it brings up the idea that in order to do that you require a parent who has sufficient space of mind enough calm in themselves to be able to make space for the child you know Thinking about maybe parents who are in poverty or struggling, who are unwell, who are in some stressful situation.

19:03Kimberley Wilson:It's going to be harder for them to regulate themselves. And therefore, it's going to be harder for them to create a space where they can regulate their children. Absolutely. Children learn from modelling. So how they see their parents responding to emotions is how they learn to respond to their own emotions. And as well, emotions are contextual. How we feel is as a result of not just what's going on in our lives, but what's going on around about our lives. So emotions don't just exist in the individual, they exist in the context and what we do as a context to influence that person.

19:36Kimberley Wilson:It's time now, Emma, for us to see if we can put the emotion regulation on a scale. And I love to do this just to help listeners get a little bit of context for their experiences. so as we've discussed emotion regulation does sit on something of a continuum there are people who maybe were taught or modeled how to do it well and and those who weren't quite as fortunate so what does it look like when someone has really you know they've nailed emotion regulation they've got it down to a fine art they could be teaching it at college somebody is able to understand or notice what they're feeling they're noticing something's going on they're then able to kind of be curious about it and label it if they can and then you can start to think what can I do about this that's helpful not stop it happening because we can't stop it happening necessarily so how can we ride that wave of emotion rather than be engulfed in it and overtaking our lives so that's what somebody who's really good at it will do but even they will not always be perfect because emotions are complex and also we're all learning yes and sometimes you do just get out of the wrong side of the bed.