More Answers... (03/04/26): Emotional Regulation Doesn't Mean "No Emotion"

Hi Everyone, 

Here are More Answers... to help you head into the work week. Remember, you can see previous newsletters at askchrista.com/MoreAnswers.

Today’s topic: Emotional Regulation Doesn't Mean "No Emotion" (it means REGULATING your emotions)

These days we are all seeing, hearing, learning, asking, wondering, and living in uncertainty-- some more than others, but I don't know anyone who isn't feeling the pressure of living in a world where things feel secure, stable, or easy. Let's face it: life isn't always easy, but for 20+ years (at least for those of us working that long!), it's been one economic setback after another, one seismic societal or political (or both) shift after another, one more hill to climb...

And I don't say that to be a downer or bring you all into the realm of "ugh... yeah." I am writing this week to encourage all of us to understand and then practice the art and science of emotional regulation.

I know that puts a clinical spin on things, but that's part of why I'm focused on it this week: it shouldn't feel or BE clinical. 

Emotional Regulation Helps Us Be Healthy

The phrase is what it is: the ability to regulate our emotions, and it's typically a means to show respect or decorum, or how we practice effective listening, or how we pause to understand things... or even how we place SOME value on the bigger picture a the smaller picture we live in feels up-ended.

(And remember: I write about and help people facing day-to-day issues in their workplace and faced with business challenges. When I say "emotional regulation," it's in the context of a work environment, but I promise it will help in SO MANY other areas of your life)

Some people think "emotional regulation" means being WITHOUT emotions, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Regulating our emotions enables us to maintain what's needed to be calm, feel cool, make better decisions, and train our brains to use other means (not just our emotions) to deal with stress.

Regulating Is Not Suppressing

Research on emotion regulation makes an important distinction between suppression and regulation. Suppressing emotion often increases physiological stress and reduces effectiveness over time, whereas strategies like regulating our emotions on a frequent basis by changing how we think or frame situations (also called "cognitive reappraisal") are associated with better interpersonal functioning and well-being (Gross, 1998; Gross & John, 2003).

In plain terms, pretending you do not feel anything is not strength. It is strain and creates many more problems. It also increases stress, which has a direct impact on our health.

Regulation is different. It is how manage things up and down, and YES! there are times when we have to turn our emotions UP, too-- not just down (gentle reminder: that's my em-dash... before AI/GPT took the em-dash away, those of us who loved the em-dash and even praised Emily Dickinson for it actually used it frequently to pause in a more conversational tone. So there.)

It Often Starts with a Pause

Speaking of pauses, that's one of the ways to start emotionally regulating ourselves: the pause before reacting in a meeting. Another is choosing respectful language when you are frustrated, or better yet: have a few workable phrases when you're frustrated so you can feel OK to either address a situation at another time, or determine ways to cope in the moment and before you respond with heightened emotion.

But the pause also works for hyping others up, including yourself. The pause can enable you to recall a joke to get people to laugh, or consider how others feel and whether a joke is appropriate at all (we all handle stress differently, right?)

In that way, emotional regulation is a key factor for our ability to "read the room."

This includes listening fully before forming your rebuttal. It is stepping back long enough to see the bigger picture before instantly reacting to the smaller one.

In the workplace, emotional regulation supports trust, collaboration, and sound decision making (Joseph & Newman, 2010). It allows you to honor your emotions without allowing them to run the room.

You can be disappointed and still professional, right?

You can be anxious and still steady, yes?

You can be angry and still constructive... maybe?

(baby steps, but all of this is what regulation looks like)

And yes, it helps everywhere else in life, too.

Booster for the Week!

Cognitive Reappraisal. Yeah, I know, I know.

But that's the boost for this week, and I promise you'll get at least one effective tip from it that you can apply today (and ironically, it's from Psychology Today). 

The article is in fact called Cognitive Reappraisal, and it's written by the Psychology Today staff. 

Enjoy!! 

With kindness,

Christa

(Helpful? Interesting? Please feel free to forward and invite others to subscribe at askchrista.com/newsletter.)

References

Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271

Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348

Joseph, D. L., & Newman, D. A. (2010). Emotional intelligence: An integrative meta-analysis and cascading model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 54–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017286

(remember: most public libraries in the USA offer access to academic papers; however, if yours does not, then Google these papers to see where they are listed, how you can learn more about them, and how you can find similar papers to learn more about conflict management and conflict resolution in the workplace)