How to Get Better at Managing Your Emotions

Most of us could stand to be better at managing our emotions. Emotions are a good thing, for the most part, but they can also interfere with the ways we think and act. For example, our emotions often cloud our judgment when making major financial decisions, causing us to make plainly irrational choices that hurt us in the long run. Emotions also make us more impulsive, causing us to say things we don’t really mean in the course of an argument or act in a way that’s unlike us.

Fortunately, there are several strategies you can use to better manage your emotions.

Stay Focused on the Facts

First, try to stay focused on observable facts, rather than your emotional assumptions. For example, if you find out your boss assigned an important project to one of your coworkers, you might assume they did so out of spite, or because they didn’t think you can handle it. But you don’t know this—all you know is that they chose to assign it to someone else. There could be many explanations for this behavior, so try to think about them clearly before allowing your emotions to guide your thinking.

Give Yourself More Time

One of the best ways to manage your emotions is to give yourself more time when making decisions or taking actions. If you write out an angry email, give yourself a few minutes to cool down before you decide to hit send—you’ll likely delete the email and start over. If you’re worried about missing out on a good deal on a new house, give yourself a few days to think about it in context. The more time you have, the more your extreme emotions will subside and the clearer you’ll think.

Recognize Your Emotions When They Arise

Emotional control starts with emotional awareness. Most people let emotions wash over them without actively recognizing them; this causes them to be more reactive and less conscientious. Fight against this tendency by internally recognizing your emotions as they unfold. Telling yourself, “I’m getting angry about this,” or “I’m feeling anxious because this is an unfamiliar situation” can have a powerful effect in toning down the extremity of these emotions. It can also help you understand the irrational urges you might have—like punching someone or running away.

Practice Meditation or Deep Breathing

You can get more control over your emotions by practicing mindfulness meditation on a regular basis. Meditation forces you to keep your concentration on a mantra, or on your own breathing, helping you filter out intrusive thoughts and other distractions. If you practice it regularly enough, you’ll be able to enter this clear, focused state of mind at will, helping you think more objectively and filter out emotional influence. You can accomplish something similar with deep breathing, assuming you can practice it in a heightened emotional state.

Keep a Journal

Consider keeping a journal as well. Take the time to write down your thoughts and feelings, once a day. What did you feel throughout the day? Which incidents were responsible for making you feel that way? How did you respond? This exercise will help you better understand your own thoughts, feelings, and patterns of behavior, so you can find ways to modify them in the future.

Monitor and Acknowledge the Emotions of Others

You can also better understand and control your own emotions by watching the emotions of others. For example, if you’re having a discussion with someone and you notice them getting angry, you may be able to stop yourself from getting angry in turn.

Understand the Biases That May Be Affecting You

All of us are affected by cognitive biases, and many of those biases stem from emotional responses. For example, consider the sunk cost fallacy; people tend to make irrational decisions when they’ve already spent money (or time) on something. For example, if you wait in line for a service for 25 minutes and you grow impatient, you may be tempted to continue waiting in line, rather than leaving; this is because you don’t want to feel like your 25 minutes was a waste, even though there’s no way to recover that lost time, and leaving now could prevent you from facing another 25 minutes of waiting. Learning more about cognitive biases, and recognizing when they crop up in your own life, can help you achieve a more objective view of reality.

Emotional management isn’t about shutting down your emotions altogether. Instead, it’s about recognizing them when they arise, accepting them, and learning how to act without allowing them to take you over. It’s simple in theory, but difficult in practice, so stay committed to your personal improvement and keep pushing for better emotional management habits.