How to Stop Freaking Out

Americans are emerging from the pandemic more stressed out and reactive than ever. For example, in a typical year, the United States sees about 100 to 150 cases of “air rage”—passengers becoming violent or unruly on airplanes. In 2021, there were more than 5,700 cases, of which more than 4,100 were mask-related.

You might not be disrupting a flight or assaulting a stranger in the street, but maybe you are more emotionally volatile than you would like.

Emerging data on adolescents abroad show that emotional reactivity—when emotions are unstable in response to the stressors of ordinary life—increased during the pandemic.

I think of the best life advice I ever got, from my older brother: “Don’t freak out.” He was giving me a parenting tip, but really, it applies to everything in life. Freaking out—“emotional flooding,” in social-science jargon—never seems to make matters better, and we nearly always regret it.

The psychologist John Gottman defined emotional flooding as an automatic physical and mental response to an unexpected negative reaction by another, usually close person, an encounter we can perceive as a threat. Our brain triggers ineffective and disorganized responses as we prepare to do battle or run away.

Emotional flooding might have helped your Pleistocene ancestors survive, but it is maladapted to most modern interactions. Emotional flooding and its ill effects go beyond our family and love relationships. Freaking out is almost always a source of regret and embarrassment, not satisfaction and pride. Keeping your cool avoids bad outcomes and sets a good example for others.

Knowing you shouldn’t freak out is easy enough, but actually preventing your emotions from taking over can feel like another challenge entirely. The secret is to manage your emotions so they don’t manage you.

1. Count to 30 (and imagine the consequences).

“When angry, count ten, before you speak,” Thomas Jefferson wrote. “If very angry, an hundred.” Research has shown that this strategy works well under certain circumstances; for example, people with low self-control responded more quickly and aggressively to an insult than those with higher self-control. Imposing a 30-second response delay on everyone reduced their aggression significantly, but only when there were negative consequences (having to perform a task) to being aggressive.

2. Observe your feelings.

Try this yourself when you have a strong disagreement with your partner or a friend and are feeling angry. Sit quietly and think about the feelings you are experiencing. Observe the anger as if it were happening to someone else. Then say to yourself, “I am not this anger. It will not manage me or make my decisions for me.” This metacognition will leave you calm and empowered.

3. Write it down.

You may have noticed that when you are upset, if you write about what you are feeling, you immediately feel better. Journaling is in fact one of the best ways to achieve metacognition, which in turn creates emotional knowledge and regulation, which provide a sense of control. Recent research shows this very clearly. In one study published in 2020, undergraduates who were assigned structured self-reflective journaling were better able to understand and regulate their feelings about learning.

Managing your emotions is like home improvement: You can teach yourself to do a lot of it well, but it’s best to get some professional assistance when the job is particularly tricky. If your emotional flooding is less like a leak around the tub and more like a crack in the foundation of the house, you might consider getting some professional help in the form of therapy.

Excerpted from “How to Stop Freaking Out” in The Atlantic. Read the full article online.

Source: The Atlantic | How to Stop Freaking Out, https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/04/how-to-manage-emotions-and-reactions/629692 | Copyright (c) 2022 by The Atlantic Monthly Group

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