Emotional Regulation
What is emotional regulation?
Many of us will have experienced days when we feel out of control of our emotions, or, looking back on an event you may wish you could have done or said something different. Maybe you wish you had not said something when angry or that you spoke up more when you felt worried.
It could be that having overwhelming emotions has been more of a longer-term concern. Perhaps people notice things that you did or said, and not realising what lies underneath is often a sense of feeling emotionally overwhelmed or emotionally dysregulated.
Emotional regulation means noticing our emotions, understanding what message they are trying to give, and using helpful strategies so the emotion helps you achieve your goals — rather than taking over and potentially causing harm.
Emotional regulation includes skills to:
- Reduce emotions that you feel are too intense.
- Increase emotions that you feel are too low
- Keep the amount of emotion that matches the facts of the situation
- Act effectively while you feel strong emotions.
Key message
Emotional regulation is not about suppressing feelings — it’s about understanding them and responding wisely. With practice, it is possible to begin to learn ways to ride the waves of emotion rather than being swept away by them.
Emotional dysregulation means difficulties in managing your emotions. It is when emotions become too strong, last too long, or lead to behaviour that causes problems. Common causes include:
- Life experiences: trauma, not feeling validated, not having your needs met, or living in an environment which is unpredictable that can teach the nervous system to stay on high alert. During childhood, emotion regulation is learned through repeated experiences of adults helping you to regulate your emotions (this is called co-regulation); it is very difficult for children to learn how to do this on your own. You may also have had life experiences of adults around you being overwhelmed by their emotions which makes it more difficult to learn ways to regulate your own emotions.
- Biology and temperament: some of us are born more emotionally sensitive or reactive than others. Also, any of us, when we are tired, hungry or our senses are overwhelmed can find it much more difficult to regulate our emotions and our responses.
- Lack of skills or support: if you haven’t learned safe ways to manage big feelings, you begin to rely on quick fixes (avoiding situations, lashing out, using drugs or alcohol, self-harm) that don’t help in the long term.
- Thinking traps: believing that emotions are facts — for example, “I feel worthless, so I must be worthless.”
- Emotions rising quickly from calm to very intense (going from 0 to 100 in seconds).
- Finding it hard to calm down once upset — heart racing, shaking, crying, feeling trapped.
- Strong urges to act immediately, sometimes in ways you might later regret (for example, shouting, binge-eating, self-harm, cutting people off).
- Emotions interfering with school, work, or relationships.
- Feeling ashamed, hopeless, or stuck in cycles of strong emotion followed by guilt.
Related to Emotional Regulation
Advice to help me
You can easily feel like you will always be the type of person who is overwhelmed by their emotions. But is possible for this to be different. If you are interested in making change, you could start small – notice and name one feeling each day and practice one calming technique. Tell a trusted adult if you have urges to hurt herself or respond when feeling overwhelmed. Perhaps try to;
Notice and name the emotion
Simply putting a name to it (“I’m angry,” “I’m sad”) can help your brain calm a little.
Check the facts
Ask yourself: “Does this emotion fit the facts?” Sometimes feelings are accurate; sometimes they’re influenced by past experiences or assumptions. Sometimes the emotion does fit the facts but perhaps the level of emotion doesn’t. Notice what you think about that when the emotion feels overwhelming.
Identify the urge
Notice what your emotion wants you to do – for example, run away, shout, or hurt yourself.
Choose the right strategy
If the emotion fits the facts and is useful: accept it, validate it, and take practical steps to solve the problem. If it doesn’t fit the facts or is too strong: use calming or grounding skills to bring the emotion down.
Reflect afterwards
Once you feel calmer, think about what helped and what didn’t. This builds self-awareness and skill for next time.
Other emotional regulation tools include:
Mindfulness:
Watch the emotion without acting on it. Say to yourself, “I notice I’m feeling angry,” and focus on breathing. Give yourself time for the strong wave of emotion to pass. You might find this Mindfulness for current emotions video useful.
Opposite action:
If you feel like avoiding someone, try talking calmly to them. If you feel like shouting, lower your voice. Acting opposite to the urge helps shift the emotion. Here is a step by step guide for developing opposite action.
Please Skills:
Try and practice these PLEASE skills to take care of your body:
Self-soothe:
Use your five senses — comforting touch, soothing music, pleasant scents, favourite tastes, calming sights. You could try this 5 senses mindfulness exercise.
Problem-solving:
If the emotion is valid, break the issue into small, manageable steps and make a plan. Getselfhelp website has useful resources to help you do this, including this problem-solving guide.
Who can help me?
Accessing support in your local area, or on-line, may be useful if you are experiencing mental health difficulties that are having mild or moderate impact on your daily life . Based on your symptoms, age and where you live, the support below might be useful for you:
Thrive hubs can help you understand your options.
Our service is designed to advise, guide, signpost and get help for young people within Manchester currently facing mental health and emotional wellbeing issues.
Learn more about Thrive HubsFor young people looking for emotional wellbeing support, this website offers a range of information and services, including counselling, psycho-social support, and cognitive behavioural therapy.
An on-line resource with lots of advice and information for young people.
We provide mental health support within education settings across Manchester, including primary and secondary schools and colleges
Offering counselling support for young people with anxiety, depression, anger, difficult life experiences, panic attacks, struggling to cope, low self-esteem, hearing voices, unwanted thoughts or post-traumatic stress disorder.
Offering a 10-week Junior Physical Activity Referral Service (PARS) Their Children’s Healthy Lifestyle Practitioners will connect families to fun activities in your local area.
Offering community based support for children and young people impacted by violence or at risk of violent crime involevement
Support around the impacts of witnessing or being subject to domestic violence.
Blocks is a 1-to-1 mentoring programme to gives 8-11 year olds in North and East Manchester all the tools they need to move to high school effectively.
Suitable for young pople who are at risk of serious youth violence and child criminal exploitation, providing mentoring programs and support to help improve resilience and make safer choices within the community,
We provide mental health support within education settings across Salford, including primary and secondary schools and colleges.
Stop.Breathe.Think is a mental health charity offering online counselling to those aged 8-21, who cannot afford or access support quickly. No wait times and available nationally, we provide vital support to those who need it right now.
A mental health charity offering online counselling to those aged 8-21, who cannot afford or access support quickly. No wait times and available nationally, we provide vital support to those who need it right now.
Offering a variety of resources to encourage healthy relationships between a child and their parent is suitable when a young person would like to or would benefit from developing a better understanding of safe, happy, and healthy relationships.
We provide mental health support within education settings across Trafford, including primary and secondary schools and colleges.
Trafford Youth Engagement team delivers a number of services from our Talkshop base in Sale. Talkshop is an advice, support and information centre for young people aged 11 to 19 (up to 25 with additional needs or care leavers).
CAMHS Services
A referral to a CAMHS service might be useful if you are experiencing mental health difficulties that are having a significant impact on your daily life. Based on your age, symptoms and where you live, the following services might be appropriate for you:
We are an NHS service that offers support and treatment to children and young people up to 18 years old who are experiencing challenges with their mental health and wellbeing. We also support parents, carers, and families of these children and young people
CAPS supports parents and carers to help their children (under 5) to develop to their fullest potential and be ready for school. This includes promoting improved quality of parent/child relationships; and supporting parents and carers with their children’s social, emotional development and wellbeing.
The Community Eating Disorder Service (CEDS) is a specialist CAMHS community team (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service), for children and young people aged 5 – 17 who may be presenting with an eating disorder or eating disorder difficulties. We provide specialist evidence-based therapeutic interventions to young people and their families, through a range of treatments, as well as physical health monitoring.
We are a specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) working with deaf children and their families. We cover the North of England and have teams in York, Manchester and Newcastle.
Emerge 16-17 CMHT provide a wide range of community based mental health services, including risk and duty support, to young people aged 16 and 17.
The Manchester CAMHS team for Looked After Children is a CAMHS team for children and young people cared for by Manchester City Council.
We are an NHS service that offers support and treatment to children and young people up to 18 years old who are experiencing challenges with their mental health and wellbeing. We also support parents, carers, and families of these children and young people.
The Paediatric Psychosocial Service (PPS) is a specialist CAMHS team (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, for children who are being treated at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. By providing psychological and psychiatric assessment and treatment for patients who have emotional and mental health problems related to their underlying physical illness.
We are an NHS service that offers support and treatment to children and young people up to 18 years old who are experiencing challenges with their mental health and wellbeing. We also support parents, carers, and families of these children and young people.
We are an NHS service that offers support and treatment to children and young people up to 18 years old who are experiencing challenges with their mental health and wellbeing. We also support parents, carers, and families of these children and young people.
We are an NHS service that offers support and treatment to children and young people up to 18 years old who are experiencing challenges with their mental health and wellbeing. We also support parents, carers, and families of these children and young people.
We are a specific CAMHS team for young people who may have been involved in the youth justice system. We are based within Manchester Youth Justice supporting Children who may be on a statutory court order or on intensive supervision.