In almost every blog post related to Autoimmune diseases and my personal experience I talk about managing and regulating emotions….but what does that mean? I’ve gotten a few questions on TikTok regarding emotional regulation and what that looks like for me. So today we are going to talk about how to develop and practice emotional regulation techniques, and building habits that support our emotional needs.
Unregulated stress and big emotions directly affect the state (symptoms, severities) of autoimmune diseases due to the body’s response to these emotions. It’s even thought that stress is one of the possible triggers for the onset of Autoimmune diseases. Because the stress-triggered neuroendocrine hormones lead the immune system to dysregulation resulting in Autoimmune disease due to the altercation or amplification of cytokine production.
Making it of utmost importance to learn how to cope with and manage stress/ other emotions. This was something I struggled with and being emotionally unintelligent set me back months in my Autoimmune healing journey. Simply because I didn’t understand how to manage these emotions I was having. If you pay attention next time you get stressed out, angry, sad, or any other big emotion what do you do next?
Personally, before doing the self-work I would cope in any way that could give me a dopamine rush; mindlessly scrolling on social media, eating when I wasn’t hungry, making impulsive decisions. This led to me bottling up my emotions, constantly trying to occupy my mind with anything other than thinking about what was really going on in my life, many sleepless nights, and a dysregulated nervous system.
This is how I would deal with stress or big emotions now; identify what I’m feeling, accept how I’m feeling, and ask myself what I need to do (deep breaths, take a break, make a nourishing meal, talk to a family member/friend/therapist, etc). Taking the 90 seconds to acknowledge how I’m feeling and work through it saves me hours in running away from my problems, money from not having to impulsively buy things to take my attention away from what I don’t want to deal with, and a few pounds because I eat when my body signals it’s hungry not mindlessly to distract myself/ get that dopamine rush.
For some, this may seem like a no-brainer but many people like me were not taught how to self-regulate. Your emotions are yours to work through and regulate. Which is something that took me a long time to learn but a skill I wouldn’t trade for the world.
If I could go back and restart my journey of learning emotional regulation I would start with a dopamine detox to identify my positive and negative coping habits. Then replace the negative habits with ones that served me. I didn’t learn about dopamine detoxes until a few months into my emotional regulation journey but when I finally did my first dopamine detox it helped me break the cycle of negative emotional coping habits like mindlessly scrolling social media. Let’s look into what a dopamine detox is.
Dopamine detox
A dopamine detox is a cognitive behavioral therapy(CBT) that was developed by Dr. Cameron Sepah. The goal of a dopamine detox is to help you cultivate beneficial ways of thinking and behaviors. The idea behind a dopamine detox is that you are more likely to engage in unhelpful behaviors and ways of thinking because they produce dopamine. Which can lead to addictive behaviors and impulsive pleasure-seeking.
Dopamine detoxes can help break:
- Gaming addictions
- Eating addictions
- Mindless scrolling
- Drinking addictions
What is emotional regulation?
Emotional regulation is the ability to exert control over one’s emotional state which can look different for everyone. This could mean down-regulating one’s emotions to reduce anxiety, fear, sadness, etc. To deal with at an appropriate time or aid in coping with emotions.
For someone with anxiety, practicing down-regulation could look like box-breathing and body tapping to get one out of their head and back into their body. I learned helpful coping strategies like box-breathing by working with a therapist and doing my own research based on my emotional needs. I will share a few of my favorite emotional regulation tools at the end of this post.
How to build emotional regulation
In stressful/ emotional times we fall back on our habits so building emotional regulation habits such as breathwork, listening to your body’s needs, and identifying what your feelings are is a great place to start. Working with a therapist to better manage and control your emotions is definitely something you should think about!
When I first learned about regulating emotions it seemed like “just get over it” or “Let it go” which is far from the truth. You identify it, allow yourself to feel what you feel, decide what you need to do about it, and let it move on. When stress can directly affect your Autoimmune disease you have to decide to either work through and let go of what doesn’t serve you or allow it to harm your disease. There is a huge difference between letting go and allowing yourself to feel, process, and let it flow through and out of you for your health.
I allowed emotions to control every choice I made in life which only hurt me and worsened the state of my Autoimmune diseases. Pushing me further away from my goals of healing. Because I didn’t want to let go of the uncontrolled emotional rollercoaster filled with high highs and low lows I was used to. It was too comfortable to cope healthily because of the constant dopamine rushes I would get doing unhelpful “coping” behaviors that allowed me to avoid my problems. It’s hard to be real with yourself and talk through what’s going on but to heal my body I had to make the choice.
I will never forget something I read by a brain scientist named Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, “When a person has a reaction in their environment, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, the remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop”
She continued, “Something happens in the external world, and chemicals are flushed through your body which puts it on full alert. For those chemicals to totally flush out of the body, it takes less than 90 seconds. This means that for 90 seconds you can watch the process happening, you can feel it happening, and then you can watch it go away. After that, if you continue to feel fear, anger, and so on, you need to look at the thoughts that you’re thinking that are re-stimulating the circuitry that is resulting in you having this physiological reaction, over and over again.”
The first step I took to building emotional regulation skills was finding ways that worked for me. I’m about to go over all the techniques that help me get out of my head and back into my body.
Emotional regulation techniques
1. Box Breathing: With box breathing you breathe in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, and release for four seconds. This slows your heart rate and helps me get out of my head. This also goes along with the 90-second rule because instead of just continuously re-stimulating that feeling or emotion you sit with it and regulate.
2. ACES: Is an acronym (awareness, component, explore, shift) and technique I was taught in therapy that has been helpful more times than I can count.
A– Awareness: What are you feeling? You have to understand what you are feeling to dive any further. I started learning to do this by putting a name to what I was feeling. Using an emotions wheel was helpful in the beginning.
C– Component: After acknowledging the feeling you recognize you aren’t what you felt and you are in control. You are not controlled by your emotions, you control your emotions. This is important because if not acknowledged it’s easy to give your power to your emotions and allow them to control you.
E– Explore: You know what you were feeling, now look into the why? Without judging you have to be honest with yourself. What triggered this emotion?
S– Shift: After you have worked through this emotion it’s time to decide on what you need to do (ex. Talk with someone, make a change, etc.) in response to the situation.
3. Identify and reduce triggers: Once you start paying attention to what you’re feeling and putting a name to the emotion you’re feeling. You can start to look at the root cause of these emotions and see if there’s a pattern. We can’t always avoid situations, activities, or people that trigger unpleasant emotions but we can be aware and reduce contact when possible. Being aware of your triggers can also better prepare you to face and cope with them!
4. Mindfulness: Mindfulness is a practice that helps you create space between you and the situation at hand. Decreasing one from being overly reactive. Practicing mindfulness makes us more aware of our emotional signals allowing us to better self-regulate. You can practice mindfulness by slowing down and using your senses (sight, touch, taste, smell), focusing on your breathwork, etc.
5. Recognize your choices: In response to any stressful or emotional situation you only have three choices; approach, attack, or avoid. Being conscious of this was a pushing factor that made me want to better understand and regulate my emotions. When faced with stressful situations I always think about my three options and how it’s better for me and my health to handle a situation to the best of my abilities even when it’s uncomfortable. I basically use emotional regulation skills to make myself emotionally regulated. Self-awareness made learning emotional regulation a billion times easier.
There are many more strategies you can use to regulate your emotions. These are just the three that are quick and work for me.
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Books to grow emotional regulation skills
Building emotional regulation skills is like building muscle. You just gotta keep working it out to build it up. Keep practicing and it will become the new norm for you. If you are struggling with building emotional regulation skills, speak with a therapist who can help you find what’s right for you!
