How to manage your emotions?

After a week of preparing, you and your friend are convinced that you succeeded in passing the exam on Friday, which you both need to ace to avoid taking summer school. However, the marks you receive back are significantly worse than what you and your partner anticipated. You're heartbroken. Your friend doesn't seem too worried, which makes you wonder why you can't get over this the way they can. But is attempting to see the bright side really necessary? And is it even feasible to manage our emotions in the first place? The answer to the previous query is emphatically "yes." There are many methods for controlling our emotions, and the Process Model is one framework for comprehending these methods.

This tool is used by psychologists to determine when and how to enter the process of emotion formation. There are four stages to this process. The first is when we enter a scenario, either actual or imagined, and it grabs our attention. Then we assess the circumstance to see if it advances or obstructs our objectives. Finally, this evaluation results in a series of modifications to our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors known as an emotional response. A chance to actively intervene and alter our emotions is presented at each stage of this process, and the Process Model describes some tactics for doing so. Imagine being invited to the same party as your least favorite ex and their new partner in order to watch this in action. Your first course of action might be to skip the party in order to completely avoid the scenario. But if you go, you might also try to change things by deciding not to speak to your ex. If that's proving to be difficult, you might want to focus on something else instead of your ex's new partner, such as playing game with your friends or even flirting with someone else. Reassessing your perspective on the circumstance is another approach.

You can come to the conclusion that you don't care who your ex dates after giving things a serious second thought. If none of these tactics are successful, you can always attempt controlling your emotions after the fact. But this can be challenging. The simplest ways to accomplish this, such as masking your emotions or attempting to manipulate them with medicines, frequently result in longer-term bad emotions and health issues. Here, taking a long walk, inhaling slowly and deeply, or speaking with a member of your support network are more enduring solutions. The first part of the battle is learning to recognize your emotions and think on where they are coming from. It takes experience to use all these techniques effectively. And once you've really accepted the idea that you have the power to control your emotions, doing so gets much simpler. But should you rely on these methods all the time to stay cheerful? What constitutes a "good mood" depends on how you define it. No emotion is intrinsically good or evil; they are either beneficial or harmful depending on the situation. It's tempting to think that we should always try to avoid feelings of grief and irritation. For instance, feeling and expressing sadness when a friend confides in you about the death of a loved one is not only acceptable, but it can also enable you to empathize with and support them. On the other hand, faking a grin to get through a single discomfort is totally understandable, even though it's bad to suppress your feelings on a regular basis.

We frequently receive conflicting messages regarding emotions. Some people counsel us to keep a positive attitude, while others advise us to simply accept our feelings as they arise. But in actuality, everyone needs to establish their own equilibrium. So, in response to the inquiry, "Should you always try to be happy?" No, is the response. According to studies, people who are preoccupied with happiness frequently feel secondary negative emotions, such as guilt or annoyance for feeling disturbed and dissatisfaction that they are not happy. This does not imply that you should give in to grief or rage. But techniques like reappraisal can help you reconsider your perceptions of a circumstance, enabling you to acknowledge your sadness and foster optimism that things will turn out better.