How to “tame” emotions

Studies show that the ability to recognize and name emotions calms and interrupts the seizure of the amygdala, which triggers the fight/flight/freeze response.

Lieberman and D. Creswell conducted a study among students of the University of California. The MRI machine consistently recorded the amygdala at the moment when the subjects were offered cards with emotional faces to determine the emotion that was depicted.

So, when the students called the pictures anger, fear, guilt, or shame, the amygdala inhibited its arousal.

Let’s conclude – to tame an emotion, you need to recognize and name it. Try to practice for at least a few days a week and recognize all the emotions of the day. Use our convenient EQ.APP application and the “Emotion Diary” inside.  

The ability to identify the primary emotion in a stressful situation will help you to cope with the avalanche of secondary emotions that covers your head. This may seem obvious or simple, but it usually isn’t – especially when emotions arise quickly and unexpectedly. Recognizing emotions will help you get to the source of the emotional situation and deal with it skillfully.

You need to be as honest with yourself as possible. Your goal is to find out what emotions you felt (both primary and secondary) and then determine how these emotions influenced your actions and feelings in the future.

For example, when you feel the tension in your shoulders and lower abdomen – it looks like you are scared.

If you feel a pleasant lightness in the solar plexus – it seems you are happy… and so on. Remember that the longer you train a skill, the easier it will be to apply it in stressful conditions. 

And remember, emotions come to tell us something and go away.