Quiz: How do you deal with emotions?

When you’re feeling stressed, a part of your brain called the amygdala senses a threat. It responds by overriding your ability to think logically so that you’re ready to react quickly to whatever the threat is. This is why, when you’re mid-argument or mid-panic, it feels impossible to think clearly. Understanding that your brain has switched into survival mode helps you to realise that the best thing to do isn’t to ‘think harder’; it’s to calm your body down, so that you’re in the right frame of mind to act.

Sometimes we judge ourselves for feeling sad, angry or scared. You might think you should ‘just get over it’, or that your problems ‘aren’t that bad’. Here’s what you need to remember:

• Other people ‘having it worse’ doesn’t mean that your emotions don’t matter. Emotional pain isn’t a competition.

• Trying to push tough feelings away usually makes them feel stronger and last longer, or it leads to an outburst when you least expect it.

• Experiencing negative emotions is part of being human, not a sign that you’re a bad or ungrateful person. You have the right to feel whatever you’re feeling.

When you encounter strong negative emotions, treat yourself with the same kindness you’d offer a friend. If they came to you really upset and shared their feelings, you would never tell them not to feel that way – you’d listen, acknowledge their pain and help comfort them. Self-compassion is the best way towards acceptance and genuine emotional resilience.

Feeling ‘nothing’ or ‘flat’ is actually a sign that your brain is overwhelmed and has ‘shut down’ to protect you from intense experiences, including stress or burnout.

If this happens, don’t try to force yourself to feel happy. Instead, focus on your senses. Pet a dog, smell some strong mint, or hold something heavy. By doing so, you’re letting your brain know that the danger has passed and it’s safe to start engaging again. It can also help to re-engage in activities or hobbies that usually bring you joy.

If you frequently feel emotionally numb, it’s a good idea to check in with your GP or a mental health professional. Such feelings can be an indication of an ongoing mental health condition, and support is available.

By learning to understand our emotions and how to work with them (not against them), we get to be in the driver’s seat. Here’s how better emotional literacy and coping skills can help you:

• Better choices: Learning how to sit with strong emotions, rather than suppressing how we feel or acting out impulsively, prevents us from doing something we might regret later.

• Stronger friendships: When you understand your own feelings, it’s much easier to understand how your friends are feeling. Empathy helps you to solve arguments peacefully and be a better person to hang out with.

• Better focus: When you aren’t overwhelmed by stress, it’s much easier to concentrate and work towards your goals.

• Better resilience: Understanding emotions allows us to bounce back from disappointments and deal with life’s challenges.

• Better physical health: Constant stress is hard on the body. It can make you feel exhausted, ruin your sleep, and even make you more likely to become ill. Managing stressful emotions can support our overall physical health. 

• Improved quality of life: Often, we avoid doing fun things, like joining a team or going to a party, because we’re afraid of feeling embarrassed or anxious. When you know how to handle those feelings, you stop being afraid and feel more able to go after what you want.

Developing awareness of your emotions and how they affect you takes some practice. Here are some quick strategies to try:

• Do a body scan. Often, our bodies feel things before our brains catch up. Is your chest tight? Is your jaw clenched? Are your palms sweaty? Knees weak? Different feelings live in different spots – anxiety might feel like a fluttery stomach, while anger might feel like heat in your face or neck.

• Try to put a name to it. Labelling a feeling gives you some clarity about what to do next (plus it can actually reduce the intensity of the emotion). For example, you could say, ‘I feel scared whenever I have to speak in public’, or ‘I get so annoyed when my group doesn’t contribute to our project.’ 

• Look closer. Sometimes, we may say we’re ‘angry’, when in fact we might be feeling embarrassed, lonely or confused. Pinpointing the exact feeling makes it more manageable. This feelings wheel can help you to find the right word for what’s going on – start at the inner ring and work your way outward until you land on something that feels right.

Triggers are specific situations or words that spark a big emotional reaction. The best way to figure out yours is by taking a look at your patterns:

• Do you feel more sensitive when you’ve skipped lunch or had only four hours of sleep? (The answer is usually ‘yes’.)

• Are there certain people or accounts that leave you feeling drained or ‘less than’?

• Do loud noises, deadlines or being interrupted set you off?

Try writing a note on your phone or in a journal when you’ve just experienced a spike. It often becomes obvious fairly quickly what triggered it.

Developing a good toolkit for identifying your feelings and practising how to manage them will help you to become emotionally stronger. Here are some daily strategies you can try:

• ‘Name it to tame it’. Research shows that naming how you’re feeling – ‘I’m feeling really sad right now’ – signals to your brain that the threat has been identified, which takes some of the power out of the feeling and helps you to figure out what you need in order to feel better.

• Radical acceptance. You don’t have to like experiencing these big emotions, but if you stop fighting the reality of the situation, they become a lot easier to manage. Tell yourself: ‘I’m feeling very [lonely/angry/sad] right now, and that’s okay. I don’t have to fight this feeling, I just have to sit with it.’

• Reframing. Changing the way you think about a situation changes how you respond to it emotionally. The next time you feel upset, ask yourself: ‘Is there another way to look at this?’ or ‘Will this matter in six months?’

• Self-compassion. Speak to yourself like you would speak to a best friend. You wouldn’t tell them to ‘just get over it’, so don’t say this to yourself.

• Find a method of release. Activities like exercise, journalling, creative expression or venting to a friend can help you to feel and process your emotions. 

• Keep up with your self-care. Prioritise sleep, healthy eating, movement and downtime. Doing some mindfulness work can help you to understand, accept and let go of your difficult emotions when you’re in distress.

• Sensory modulation. This means using your senses to change how your nervous system feels and reduce the intensity of big emotional experiences. 

• Touch: Hold a weighted blanket, squeeze a stress ball, or pet an animal.

• Sight: Dim the lights if you’re overstimulated, or look at a photo of a place that makes you feel calm.

• Sound: Listen to ‘brown noise’ or calming music, or put on noise-cancelling headphones.

• Smell: Sniff something strong like peppermint, lavender, or even a piece of fruit.

• Movement: Rock back and forth, stretch, or pace the room.

When you’re so overwhelmed you can’t think straight, focus on your body first:

• Do a ‘H.A.L.T.’ check. Ask yourself if you’re Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. Often, a snack or a nap can lower the emotional volume enough to help you cope.

• Use a ‘T.I.P.P.’ skill:

  • Temperature: Splash cold water on your face or hold an ice cube – it triggers a reflex that slows your heart rate.

  • Intense exercise: Do 30 seconds of jumping jacks, or go for a run to burn off the adrenaline in your system.

  • Paced breathing: Inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 6. The long exhale at the end tells your brain you’re safe.

  • Paired muscle relaxation: Tense a specific muscle group (like your shoulders or fists) for 5–10 seconds, and breathe in for 5 seconds, then slowly breathe out and release the tension. Move through other muscle groups like your facial muscles or your legs, one group at a time. This relaxation exercise physically breaks the cycle of stress and brings your attention to the present moment.

• Grounding techniques like 5-4-3-2-1: Look around the room and name:

  • 5 things you can see

  • 4 things you can touch

  • 3 things you can hear

  • 2 things you can smell

  • 1 thing you can taste.

When you’re in the middle of a crisis, it feels like the distress will last forever. However, emotions are like waves: they peak and then they subside. You just need to learn how to ride it out.

It can feel really tough to let someone into your inner world, especially if things don’t feel clear to you, but you don’t need to have the perfect words. Being vulnerable about your emotions is what builds deep, resilient friendships and relationships, and it creates space for you to be ‘not okay’ and not have to hide or perform. Here are some ideas for expressing how you’re feeling: 

• Give someone a ‘weather report’. Tell someone: ‘My head feels a bit stormy today. I’m feeling sensitive, so if I’m a bit quiet, it’s not about you.’ This helps them understand you without them feeling like they did something wrong.

• Use a traffic light system. Sometimes, we don’t know why, but we know our capacity. Tell them you’re ‘red’ (overwhelmed), ‘yellow' (struggling) or 'green' (doing okay) today.

• Describe your physical experience. If you can’t find the right word, start with how you’re experiencing it: ‘I have a knot in my stomach’, or ‘I just feel really heavy today’.

If your emotions feel uncontrollable, overwhelmingly intense, or consistently get in the way of  your day-to-day life, it’s a good idea to talk to a mental health professional, such as a psychologist or counsellor. They’re trained to help you figure out why you’re feeling this way and to give you strategies tailored to your needs. You can also check out PeerChat for free one-on-one chat support with a trained peer worker who ‘gets it’. Remember: asking for help is a sign of strength.