How to control your emotions as a woman

Learning how to control your emotions can positively impact every area of your life and your physical and mental well-being—not succumbing to the dramas in life that can tilt you off your axis and remaining calm and steady in everyday situations. Your emotions have an impact on everything in your life, they shape the way you conduct your days, how you interact with other people and how you view everything going on around you. They can affect your relationships with not only other people but also with yourself. Therefore, being able to understand and control your emotions is important. While it sounds easy in theory, many women have real issues when it comes to controlling their emotions and not letting them overwhelm their lives.

In the 1970s psychologist Paul Eckman identified six types of basic emotions;

1. Happiness

2. Sadness

3. Fear

4. Disgust

5. Anger

6. Surprise.

He later went on to add emotions such as shame, excitement, embarrassment and pride.

Everyone will be aware of these emotions and will have experienced all of them at some time or another.

The issue for some is when some of the more negative emotions begin to become more dominant in life and start to have repercussions.

Everyone’s emotions are brought about by their thinking. Some are useful, enjoyable and ones you love to experience, while others are destructive, and problematic and can ruin your life in a myriad of ways.

If the latter emotions are affecting your life, you may be wondering how you can prevent your emotions from overtaking your life quickly and easily.

Women will often tend to suffer from being over-emotional far more than men. Research has shown that women tend to show more negative emotions than men and react more negatively in different situations.

Why am I overcome with emotion?

There are always going to be times in life when you will be overcome with negative emotions and there will be very little you will be able to do about it.

The death of a loved one, a sudden illness, or financial stress can bring negative emotions to the fore and can leave you feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope. Learning how to cope when these emotions appear and threaten to overcome you is crucial to your well-being.

It is at these times in life you need to practice some self-care and make yourself a priority.

Following the self-care tips below can help you navigate your life when negative emotions arise, helping guide you through the difficult stages.

Use these tips as a good routine to get into whenever you feel your negative emotions rising and threatening to take over your life.

19 Simple Ways

1. Take a step back and have a measured response

The first thing you need to do when feeling overcome with emotion is to take a step back and view the situation in a measured way.

It could be your initial reaction to catastrophise the problem when, with a more measured approach, the problem you are facing isn’t as bad as you imagined.

Taking a step back is a perfectly acceptable way of handling any problem, having space to think things through, decide what you want or need to do or just getting your emotions in check before you make any decisions is both sensible and advisable.

2. Maintain a positive perspective

Although at times someone handing you platitudes such as to smile, remain positive or that things are never as bad as they seem can be quite irksome, there is a lot of truth in what they say.

Coming at any problem or tricky situation with a positive perspective can always help to get through and can really help you to sidestep negative emotions.

3. Practise deep breathing exercises

When you take a breath situations seem calmer and easier to handle. If you are dealing with the emotions of stress, anger or anxiety. Deep breathing helps you concentrate on your breathing taking your mind away from the distracting thoughts you may be having.

Developing a routine of slow, deep breathing is an excellent tool to have on hand if you find you are in a stressful situation and feel negative emotions rising to the surface. Implementing a breathing routine can calm such situations and remove negative emotions.

4. Write your feelings down in a journal

Getting your feelings out of your mind and down on paper is a simple yet highly effective way of dealing with negative emotions.

When you write something down it has far more significance than a thought in your head.

Negative thinking has a tendency to go around and around on a loop, serving no one and causing untold damage.

Writing down a thought helps you to analyse it, test its validity and question whether or not there is any truth to the thought.

This practice helps to put emotions into more perspective and to handle stressful situations with more clarity and composure.

5. Perform some daily physical exercise

If your emotions are getting you down, get up and get moving. Physical exercise has long been proven to remove negative emotions and replace them with more positive and uplifting feelings. When you exercise you release endorphins…those feel-good hormones into your body giving you an automatic natural feel-good boost.

Whether it’s a spell at the gym, a quick run, a stroll in nature or a brisk swim, as long as it is something you enjoy doing you should notice an impact on your emotions.

6. Try to identify the route cause of the problem

Get to the route of what is causing you to feel the way you do. Identifying why you are feeling the way you do can help you overcome any negative thinking which is causing your emotions now and can prevent them from appearing in the future.

Identifying your thoughts and emotions can help you to understand triggering events in your life which could cause further outbursts in the future, and can help you to figure out future plans for dealing with different areas of your life that may be causing you problems.

7. Accept that emotions are part of being human

You need to learn to accept that as a human, emotions are part and parcel of life. Indeed, many emotions impact your life in a positive and affirmative way. Learning to handle negative emotions is the key. There will be times also when you will want to experience a negative emotion. When a loved one dies, for example, it is only natural you would feel sad this is not a time and place where you would want to be experiencing positive emotions. Emotions good and bad can have their place in life as long as you learn not to let one overwhelm you.

8. Separate yourself from the situation

Get into the habit of separating yourself from negative situations.

If you are someone who gets overcome by what is happening in the world around you, cut back on the amount of time you spend watching and listening to the news.

Removing the triggers can help you to deal with the emotions.

If you have a friend or family member who brings about negative emotions in you then try and spend as little time with them as possible.

9. Ask how you can improve this situation

Question ways you can improve the situation which is bringing up negative emotions. If it is work-related could you get another job? move to a different department? speak to a senior manager?

Whatever the situation is there will always be a way through you just need to ask the right questions to discover the answers.

10. Take up meditation to control your thinking

Meditation is another simple yet effective tool you can use in order to control any negative emotions you may be experiencing.

When you are in control of your mind, you will find it much easier to be in control of your emotions. Learning the art of meditation helps you to be in control of your thoughts and therefore your emotions.

To get the best results from meditation, try making it a part of your daily routine. You can begin by just sitting for ten minutes until it is something you are comfortable practising and then build up your time.

There are many apps you can download which have timed meditation to help you until you become more proficient.

11. Practice self-care to help you feel better

Start developing a self-care routine that will become a regular part of your day. When you take time to look after your own physical and mental well-being, it can have a profound effect on the rest of your life. It can cut down on stress levels, reduce anxiety and help you feel more relaxed, valued and relevant in your life.

Whether it involves being out in nature, practising mindfulness or meditation, sitting quietly and reading, cooking a beautiful meal you have time to savour or catching up with friends, as long as it is something to make you feel better that is all that matters.

12. Avoid unnecessary stressful situations

Where you can try to avoid stressful situations. Often stress from other people can have a huge impact on your own well-being so if you know someone is likely to be stressed try to avoid them. The same is true for different circumstances in your life. If driving stresses you look to use public transport, or if friends want you to meet in venues which cause you stress offer alternatives. By avoiding unnecessary stress you will be avoiding negative emotions.

13. Practise being mentally tough

Work on your mental resilience to overcome your negative emotions. Build up your mental toughness by celebrating when you achieve small wins. Concentrate on building your confidence and self-esteem and challenge any negative thinking. These are all great ways to build up a tougher mental attitude.

14. Develop a long-term perspective

Start looking at the long-term aspects of your life as opposed to looking at everything happening immediately.

In today’s society, often the attitude is to want to have and achieve everything now and to stress or worry that life isn’t happening as you imagined immediately.

Instead, develop a more long-term perspective on your life. Give yourself time to achieve things. Set medium and long-term goals to elevate some of the pressure you are placing on yourself.

15. Maintain good personal relationships

A good network of people around you can help you in so many ways. Try to establish and maintain good personal relationships so you always have someone around fighting in your corner and helping you when it is needed most. Everybody benefits from having good personal relationships, whether it is friends, family or work colleagues.

16. Watch your caffeine and alcohol intake

Keep an eye on the levels of caffeine and alcohol you consume. Negative emotions such as stress, depression and anxiety can be exacerbated by drinking too much of both. If you do suffer from negative emotions on a regular basis then think about cutting them from your diet altogether.

They can both affect sleep patterns which can affect your mood and they are both depressants which can be harmful if you suffer from depression. Try switching to herbal teas or decaffeinated drinks and alcohol-free beverages instead.

17. Use the power of positive affirmations

Talk to yourself in a positive way. Have you ever examined your internal monologue? Do you listen to how you speak to yourself? No doubt if you did you would be horrified by what you hear at times.

Try using positive affirmations when addressing yourself.

Instead of telling yourself all of the things you can’t do try being positive and highlighting everything you can do. Start building yourself up with your language instead of knocking yourself down.

Begin and end each day with a list of all positive affirmations about yourself. Very quickly your mind will start to believe them and you will develop a more positive belief system about yourself.

18. Distract yourself with something enjoyable

Take some time every day to do something that brings a smile to your face and makes you feel good about yourself. If you are plagued by negative emotions this simple task could work wonders for you. While you are focused on doing something you enjoy, you can only feel good. Your brain will be flooded with positive emotions. The more you distract yourself with something you enjoy, the more accustomed your brain will become to focusing on the positive and it will then seek to see positivity far more.

19. Employ a life coach or therapist to help you

If you find you are having too much trouble trying to overcome emotions by yourself then think about employing a life coach or therapist to help you.

They are trained professionals who can work through your thinking and can help you to change your thought patterns, implement tools to switch your thinking and give you the support and the accountability to make a real and lasting change.

Final Thoughts

You are always going to experience different emotions good and bad. Life is always going to throw up situations which will make you think in different ways. Learning how to manage your emotions is the key.

Your emotions are caused by your thoughts so paying attention to what is going on in your mind and handling your thoughts can help you to cope with your emotions.

Work on ways to handle your emotions so they are working for you and not against you.

Apply the tips above and you should begin to see a real improvement in the way you are able to stop emotions over coming you.

If you would like to listen to the audio version of this blog post click below;

If you have enjoyed this blog post and would like to add a comment share below