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Techniques For Managing Emotions

By Monitor Panambo

The following are three techniques that you can use to help manage your emotions:

1. USE HUMOR.

You’ve heard the adage that humor is the best medicine. You’ve undoubtedly experienced humor’s salubrious effects on such negative emotions as anger, depression, sadness, and anxiety. Well, there’s actually a scientific explanation for this phenomenon. Laughter, a by-product of humor, stimulates the release of protein substances called endorphins. As the level of endorphins in the brain increases, the perception of pain-whether physical or emotional-decreases. Essentially, laughter causes the body to produce its own painkiller.

There is of course another benefit to laughter: it serves as a distraction, turning us away - even for a moment - from whatever distressful emotion we may be having. It’s a little to be depressed about your awful job during the very moment that you’re having a good laugh. That moment of respite can be quite useful in giving you pause to reappraise your situation, get control of your behavioral actions, or whatever. Here are some ways to bring humor into you day.

Tips for Generating Humor

1. Put on “Candid Camera” glasses. Take five or ten minutes out of your workday and try looking at your coworkers, your office, and your boss though a hidden-camera perspective, as in the old TV program of the same name. Observe them from an absurd, whimsical, or silly perspective, rather than the serious, somber, stomach-churning perspective from which you may normally view them. Moments ago, Edward was giving his usual lame excuses for why he couldn’t help you out with the report; now he looks like a court jester holding forth at the star ship enterprise, with all its flashing lights and equipment. Your boss, moments before, was haranguing you about the report being late; she now looks like a silly magpie as she flits from office to office. Chances are that after this experience you’ll return to your office feeling better disposed toward your boss, Edward, and the report. The point is not to laugh at other, but to gain awareness that we often take our selves and the events we encounter too seriously.

2. Take a humor meditation break. When things get especially distressful during the day, try to take a short break of five or ten minutes to do something that is likely to produce a laugh, even a teeny one. Close your mind to external distractions as much as possible, and read funny passages from a joke book or humor scrapbook; look at the funnies in the newspaper; or think of a funny experience from the past.

3. Create a humor-field environment. Step up a bulletin broad in your office or workspace for cartoons, silly photographs, jokes, and humorous quotations. Then look at it whether you need to laugh. Change its contents regularly so the humor stays fresh.

2. REDIRECT YOUR EMOTIONAL ENERGY

As you experience an intense emotional, energy is being expended. You tend to tense muscles and move your body more. Your circulatory and respiratory systems work much faster. Your mind goes at a quicker pace, with those automatic thoughts. What I’ve found works well in these situations is to re-direct this energy into some activity that has nothing to do with the situation at hand.

Suppose you’re extremely anxious about your job evaluation, which is to take place later in the day. You find yourself fidgeting and pacing, thinking I’m going to get fired. He’s going to give me a terrible evaluation. Instead of continuing to fidget, pace and entertain dreadful thoughts - which we’ve seen just perpetuate your anxiety - take up some simple task, some busywork. This distracts you from your anxiety and also helps you gain a sense of accomplishment that you’re actually getting something useful done.

I find it’s quite helpful if I make a list of some of these tasks - filing, ordering supplies, dusting, copying notes, cleaning my desk - and then pull out the list when I need some distracting busywork. Knowing there are constructive things you can do when you are angry or anxious is a good antidote to feeling immobilized by those emotions.

3. TAKE TIME OUT

In the same way that relaxation techniques can calm down your arousal level, taking a break from an emotionally taxing situation can slow down your emotion responses. Sometimes the time out can be almost momentary: you take three deep breaths before responding to your angry boss. A brief time – out gives you the moment you need to keep yourself from saying something you might regret. Deep breaths are the first form of time-out you should practice.

Some situations may be so intense, so emotionally distressing, so potentially volatile that the only way to preserve your dignity (and perhaps even your job) is to remove yourself entirely. Recall the earlier example of your boss denigrating you in a meeting. Although it would be difficult to leave the meeting for an extended time-out (say, more than five minutes), you could excuse yourself to go to the bathroom. There you might dab some water on your neck or wrists to cool yourself down.

Suppose a co-worker accosts you in the corridor and starts berating you for undermining his position with your mutual manager. You might say, “Look, this is really important, and I want to talk with you about this, but just let me go tell my assistant to hold my calls.” This gives you a few moments to calm yourself down and collect your thoughts.

Anger is perhaps the most potentially volatile of all our emotions as it is usually another person who provokes our anger and at whom it is directed. With anger, you may need an extended time-out of an hour or more to return to a state in which it is possible to effectively deal with the situation. Here are some ways to defuse your anger.

Tips for Managing Your Anger

1. Communicate your anger. Let the person with whom you are having an angry exchange known that you are angry or that your stress is building. You might say something like, “I am beginning to feel very angry.”

2. State your wish to remove yourself temporarily from the situation. You could say, “I would like to stop arguing for a little while so I can think more clearly. Then I’d like to get back together with you in an hour and talk this thing through.” You should set a limit for the time-out, probably no more than an hour. (leaving the time limit open-ended makes it too tempting to avoid the problem indefinitely, perhaps with the hope that it will resolve itself - which it won’t.) Also, you don’t want to put the other party at an unfair disadvantage by leaving it at your discretion what time you re-convene.

3. Remove yourself immediately. Then do some deep breathing, or use constructive self-statements in the time you have to yourself.

4. Use the time-out productively. During the time – out, do some useful busywork, as discussed above. Use you relaxation response to calm your self.

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Copyright by Monitor Panambo

http://www.career-info-info.blogspot.com

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

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