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How to manage your emotions

After a week of hard studying, you feel confident that you will score high on your exam. But when you receive your results, the score is much lower than expected. You feel utterly disappointed, and the sense of frustration is hard to shake off. Should you try to find a silver lining in this situation? And is it possible to control your emotions? Let’s explore a theoretical framework known as the Process Model with TED-Ed, a psychological tool that helps you identify, understand, and regulate your emotions.

Model helps us recognize and intervene in four steps of the emotional process

  1. Entering a Situation: This could be a real or imagined scenario.
  2. Paying Attention to the Situation:
  3. Evaluating the Situation: Assess whether it helps or hinders your goals.
  4. Emotional Response: Changes in feelings, thoughts, and behaviors following the evaluation.

Each step in this process provides an opportunity for intervention and conscious emotional change. This model helps us identify appropriate strategies at each stage.

Emotion regulation strategies

  • Avoid the Situation: One way to regulate emotions is to completely avoid the distressing situation. For example, you might choose not to attend a party where you know you’ll encounter an ex.
  • Modify the Situation: If you decide to participate, you could adjust the situation, such as avoiding direct contact with your ex.
  • Shift Attention: If modifying the situation isn’t effective, you can try redirecting your focus to other activities, such as playing games with friends.
  • Re-evaluate the Situation: After careful reflection, you may realize that you no longer care about who your ex is dating.
  • Minimize Emotional Response: If feelings have already surfaced, you can attempt to lessen them through more sustainable methods, such as going for a walk, deep breathing, or talking to a supportive friend.

Dealing with Disappointment

Although using these strategies requires practice, recognizing emotions and reflecting on their sources is half the battle won. Once you become aware that you can regulate your emotions, it becomes easier to master them.

Should you always strive for Happiness?

Is maintaining a consistently positive mood a goal to pursue? The answer is no. While there is temptation to stay optimistic and avoid negative feelings, no emotion is inherently “good” or “bad.” Each emotion can be helpful or unhelpful, depending on the context.

For example, in a conversation with friends sharing about the loss of a loved one, feeling and expressing sadness is appropriate, as it helps you empathize and support them. However, in minor situations, forcing a smile to overcome a small annoyance is reasonable. Research shows that those who focus too much on achieving happiness often experience secondary negative emotions, such as guilt or disappointment when they don’t feel as happy as expected.

This doesn’t mean you should let feelings of sadness or anger dominate. But strategies like re-evaluating the situation can help you accept that you are feeling down while nurturing the hope that things will improve.

The content is edited from the video “How to Manage Your Emotions” on the TED-Ed YouTube channel. You can select Vietnamese subtitles to fully understand this information.

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