You have the ability to change your life and the lives of those around you by controlling your emotions.
Managing your emotions is important because, for one, it increases your chances of success in life. For another, it improves your relationships and improves your coping skills when faced with challenges.
10 Good habits to manage emotions
Here are 10 habits you can develop and incorporate into your daily routine to manage your emotions for success.
1. Practice breathing exercises
A recent study discovered evidence that there is a direct link between nasal breathing and cognitive functions. According to this study, the act of breathing can influence our emotions and memory.
Slow and steady deep breathing through the nose calms the body and mind.
And thus, it is an important habit to develop and employ when faced with extreme emotions. Particularly negative ones.
2. Engage in meditation
Meditation is another good habit that also incorporates the importance of breathing. Meditation allows your body to relax deeply and your mind to become calm.
With this practice, you can improve both your physical and emotional well-being.
This is due to the fact that you focus your attention and clear your mind of the numerous thoughts that only crowd and stress your mind.
And by stilling your mind, you can calm heightened emotions. As well as the physical reactions that accompany them, allowing your body to relax as well.
Aside from mastering your emotion, the practice of meditation can also provide you with the following benefits:
- Ability to look at stressful situations from a different angle
- Increasing self-awareness
- Improving imagination and creativity
- Improving patience and tolerance
- Reduced resting heart rate
- Reduced resting blood pressure
- Better sleep quality
3. Reframe your thoughts
It is also a good habit to develop the ability to reframe your current thoughts. Especially if you’re feeling negative emotions.
For example, your train of thought starts from having to do an important task. Then it flows to you forgetting or failing to do it well. After that, your thoughts then go to another negative one, such as getting reprimanded or worse getting fired. All of a sudden, you are feeling anxious and agitated.
When you reframe your thoughts or your feelings. You will notice them and recognize how unhelpful they are. Detrimental even to your physical and mental health.
So you make an effort to steer them toward positive thoughts in order to generate calm emotions.
Going back to our example, you can reframe your thoughts by actively stopping them right in their tracks. You can even imagine a stop sign immediately appearing and the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote stopping in its track. For comic relief. But I digress.
Anyway, back to our example, once you stop your train of thought, you can consciously think of something more positive. Such as writing a detailed and accurate report.
You may also question your thought patterns. Such as why you would forget to complete the report when you had scheduled it in your calendar.
Or, you can also remind yourself that you always double-check, if not triple-check, whatever work you do before submitting it. This means your report is of high quality.
4. Think before you speak or act
Developing the habit of thinking before acting is another important habit that can help you manage your emotions.
The time between something that requires action and the actual action is critical. Because it allows you to consider a proper course of action. Or provide a proper response that will benefit both you and the other person.
As a result, you avoid the potentially disastrous consequences of speaking or making a decision hastily.
5. Avoid promoters of negative emotions
Another habit you can employ to manage your negative emotions is to steer clear of those that cause them.
You should be aware of the sources of your emotions in order to avoid agitating yourself unnecessarily. Limit your exposure to the news and social media, for example, if they make you feel bad.
However, if you cannot avoid negative influences, you must devise a strategy to keep your emotions in check. And avoid being manipulated by a negative situation.
6. Spend time with people who inspire you
People who inspire you are likely to possess the qualities you admire and wish to cultivate in yourself. Thus, if you want to manage your emotions well, you should surround yourself with people who do the same.
Spending time with people who inspire you allows you to learn and imbibe their skills such as the ability to manage emotions.
7. Focus on what matters most to you
Focusing on what is most important to you allows you to manage your emotions. It allows you to divert your attention away from negative emotions that drain your energy. And it makes you more productive.
When you focus on things that matter, you are choosing to allocate your limited time and resources wisely. Which will benefit your personal development as well as the development of your family and others.
8. Understand that emotions are something you feel and can let go of
Another skill you must learn is to recognize emotions as signals. They are our body’s natural reactions to external stimuli.
And feelings are how we interpret these emotions. As a result, it is possible that our interpretation of our emotions is flawed.
As a result, we have the ability to let them go or redirect them to more productive thoughts or feelings.
9. Learn from your mistakes
Negative emotions result from mistakes and failures. And they can be difficult to overcome. However, it is essential that you manage your negative emotions. So that you can move forward in life and achieve success.
Learning from your mistakes is one habit you can develop to help you manage your emotions. This transforms your negative feelings. Such as failure, embarrassment, or financial loss into positive feelings of learning, strength, and perseverance.
10. Focus on the positive outcome
Finally, focusing on the positive outcome is another habit that will help you manage your emotions.
Focusing on the positive may prove difficult to do especially when times are tough, but, do it you must. You have to find the good, no matter how small.
Because doing so can help to improve your ability to control your emotions, thoughts, and behavior.
Practicing this habit will also benefit your overall well-being.
This is because focusing on the positive outcome is linked to a part of the brain. That has been linked to healthful changes in the body. Including lower levels of a stress hormone.
Summary
To summarize, managing your emotions is important because it increases your chances of success in life. It also improves your relationships. And improves your coping skills when faced with challenges.
And, there are habits you need to develop and employ to manage your emotions.
These habits are:
- Practice breathing exercises.
- Engage in meditation.
- Reframe your thoughts.
- Think before you speak or act.
- Avoid promoters of negative emotions.
- Spend time with people who inspire you.
- Focus on what matters most to you.
- Understand that emotions are something you feel and can let go of.
- Learn from your mistakes.
- Focus on the positive outcome.
Please share your thoughts or ideas about 10 Good Habits To Manage Your Emotions For Success in the comments below. And if you liked this article, you might be interested as well in these articles:
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Outside reference/s:
Nasal Respiration Entrains Human Limbic Oscillations and Modulates Cognitive Function
Meditation: A simple, fast way to reduce stress
The Pursuit of Happiness: Using the Power of Positive Emotions