Big emotions, bigger solutions
Key takeaways:
- Big emotions include anger, sadness and fear. It's important to find healthy ways to manage them.
- Tips include: take accountability and ground yourself through deep breathing or journaling.
- Health care providers can also coach you on communication skills.
Anger. Sadness. Anxiety. Fear.
The Inside Out movies may be onto something.
They’re examples of “big emotions,” says Rachel Yuhas, LCPC, a psychotherapist at OSF HealthCare. Yuhas says it’s OK to feel these emotions, but you should know how to react to them. When you’re angry, for example, swinging your fists at others is a bad idea.
“A big thing is taking accountability first,” Yuhas says of managing these emotions. “Often when you have a big emotion, it can impact people around you.”
Yuhas also preaches techniques to ground yourself like deep breathing, taking time out from stressful situations, meditation, journaling and practicing mindfulness.
“With children, having them interact in a group might be really effective because they can learn from their peers. They can learn how to have those relationships. They even learn how other kids might be having these emotions,” Yuhas says. “I might also incorporate play therapy with kids because it’s more their style. They might receive that better.”
For adults, Yuhas often uses dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). She says it’s a type of therapy where the person learns skills to use in the outside world.
“We talk about mindfulness skills; meditation and interpersonal effectiveness, which is how to communicate with people in an effective way when you’re experiencing big emotions,” Yuhas explains. “We talk about stress. Say you’re at a nine on the stress scale and you need to come down to a seven. There are also emotional regulation skills we talk about.”
Details to know about some of these tactics:
- Mindfulness: As the name suggests, try to keep your mind full. Use your senses to notice things that you wouldn’t otherwise, such as a painting on the wall or the scent of a food truck.
“We want to come back to the here and now instead of ruminating on the emotional turmoil we’re experiencing,” Yuhas says.
- Communication: Yuhas will coach people through tough conversations. For example: You’re mad at your partner. Instead of throwing an object against the wall, think about how you’re really feeling and what triggered the anger. Find a way to communicate that without a “catastrophic reaction,” Yuhas says.
- Distress tolerance: Yuhas says it starts when knowing that you’re highly stressed – in the “red zone” or toward the top of the one to 10 stress scale. Step away from the situation and find an outlet that helps you calm down, like going for a run.
“Run off some of the steam,” she says.
Read more about mental health resources on the OSF HealthCare website.