Emotional Regulation vs Emotional Suppression
The way you handle emotions like anger, sadness, or anxiety makes a big difference to your mental and physical well-being. All too often, people think that they are regulating emotions but instead, they are suppressing them unknowingly. Sometimes people adopt some coping mechanism techniques as an attempt to regulate their emotions. Even though it might make you feel better for a little while, it can cause bigger issues later on. It's better to deal with your feelings as they come up and positively handle them. Emotional regulation, however more difficult at present, enables you to completely process your feelings and become self-aware of them, to prevent them from being trapped or developing into more serious problems. In this blog, you will understand the difference between Emotional Regulation and Suppression with examples and its effect on individuals.
What is Emotional Suppression?
Emotional suppression simply means pushing down, avoiding, or denying uncomfortable emotions rather than allowing yourself to feel them. People do this in a variety of ways, from using distraction (i.e. watching TV), or numbing (through drugs and alcohol), to overeating or controlling food intake. People often channel strong emotions into physical activity (i.e. boxing, running, or going to the gym). Focusing our minds on something else helps us to forget what is going on inside. A few common examples:
Putting on a happy face and pretending everything is fine when you're upset on the inside.
Distracting yourself or staying busy to avoid dealing with painful feelings like sadness or regret.
Shutting down emotionally and numbing yourself when emotions feel too intense to handle.
While suppression can provide momentary relief from emotional pain, it comes at a big cost long-term.
What are the problems caused by Emotional Suppression?
Suppressing emotion has a physiological effect on the body. The effects of suppressed emotions include anxiety, depression, and other stress-related illnesses. When you chronically suppress emotions rather than feeling and processing them healthily, those suppressed emotions stay in the body. They build up internally, creating all sorts of problems over time:
1. Mental Health Issues- Suppressed emotions often manifest as anxiety, depression, anger management problems, and general emotional volatility. You become disconnected from your inner emotional experience.
2. Physical Health Problems- Unexpressed emotions cause physical tension, stress, and manifestations like headaches, muscle pain, stomachaches, and insomnia.
3. Relationship Problems- You struggle to relate authentically and communicate directly about issues in your relationships. Resentment builds.
4. Emotional Numbness- You lose your ability to feel passionate, joyful, spontaneous, or fully present as you shut off your emotional experience altogether.
Rather than staying in control of emotions, chronic suppression leads to them controlling you through outbursts, anxiety, withdrawal, and other problematic behavior.
What is Emotional Regulation?
Emotional regulation is a term used to describe a person's ability to effectively manage and respond to a personal experience. Emotional regulation involves cultivating self-awareness and empathy to fully experience and process emotions productively. Rather than judging, bottling up, or venting emotions destructively, emotional regulation allows you to:
Acknowledge and accept unpleasant emotions like sadness, anger, or anxiety without judgment.
Engage in self-awareness practices like journaling, questioning beliefs, and exploring emotional patterns and triggers to understand the origins of feelings.
Find healthy outlets such as exercise, talking to loved ones, or grounding techniques like deep breathing to work through difficult emotions productively.
Develop empathy and emotional intelligence to better understand and manage personal emotional experiences. Additionally, Emotional intelligence also helps in Personal Growth.
The key to emotional regulation is, self-discovery and the willingness to fully experience emotions while channeling them in a constructive way that promotes personal growth and emotional well-being.
How Does Emotional Regulation Benefit Us?
While emotional regulation takes more work than suppression, the benefits are immense for your overall well-being in multiple ways:
Better Mental Health- You're not building up unexpressed emotions that manifest as depression, anxiety, and other issues.
Enhanced Emotional Intelligence- You will develop emotional intelligence and learn to manage emotions effectively, rather than being controlled by them.
Physical Relief- Since you aren't holding tensions inside, emotional regulation helps in stress management and physical symptoms of it.
Enriched Relationships -You can communicate authentically, resolve issues directly, reshape your relationships, and relate from an emotionally grounded place.
Enhanced Self-awareness -Rather than disconnection, you feel fully engaged with the entire range of your emotional experience.
How to Cultivate Emotional Regulation
Emotional Regulation begins with developing self-awareness and empathy. Developing the ability to control our emotions is very important and requires us to practice and put in effort. It means becoming aware of how we feel by noticing how our body reacts and naming our feelings. Instead of pushing away or criticizing our emotions, we should let ourselves feel them completely by taking deep breaths or staying focused on the present moment. Emotions don't last forever, and if we allow ourselves to sit with them, they will eventually fade away.
One way to tell if you are truly regulating your emotions or just suppressing them is by looking at your self-awareness practices. Are you taking the time to examine your emotional responses and question the beliefs driving them? If not, you may be suppressing rather than regulating your emotions. Self-awareness - consciously observing and making space for your feelings without judgment - is necessary for emotional regulation. Although it's not always simple, developing emotional self-control helps us take responsibility for our feelings rather than allowing them to rule us.
How to move forward with emotional Regulation?
Developing emotional regulation is a journey that requires patience and dedication. Although it might feel tough initially, especially if you're used to bottling up your feelings, remember that progress matters more than being perfect. Embrace every chance to practice healthy ways of expressing and managing your emotions because consistency is key to making lasting changes. If you're finding it hard to progress on your own, seeking support from a professional life coach is a wise step. Life Coaching can provide insightful advice, a secure place to discuss your thoughts without fear of being judged, practical methods for managing strong emotions, closure for previous emotional traumas, and motivation to maintain your routines for emotional well-being. It’s time to make the right decision, to invest in your emotional health that brings you more peace and control over your mind.
