How to properly deal with painful or unpleasant emotions?

There are those who assume that the perfect human being is the one who is guided mainly through rationality and logic. In fact, there are not a few philosophers who throughout the centuries have seen emotions as an obstacle that prevents us from living in a totally virtuous way; as if getting excited and experiencing intense feelings were just a distortion of our ability to understand our surroundings.

However, today Psychology and behavioral sciences in general have already developed enough to make us understand that emotions are part of what allows us to adapt to the challenges and difficulties of everyday life, and that they usually play in our favor. Now, that does not mean that we cannot learn to take advantage of its beneficial aspects and mitigate its effects when they play against us. Therefore, in this article you will find some tips for dealing with painful emotions appropriately when they become too encyst in your way of thinking or take away your ability to find solutions to your problems.

• Related article: "Emotional psychology: main theories of emotion"

What are negative emotions really?

Typically, the term "negative emotions" refers to those emotions that produce discomfort in us in the immediate moment in which they emerge in us, regardless of whether in the short, medium or long term they help us to adopt an attitude or behavior patterns that work in our favor. That is, a negative emotion is what makes us have a bad time simply by feeling it, such as sadness or disgust.

Although the subjective component of negative emotions is associated with everything that we do not like, the possibility of feeling them is usually advantageous, since that allows us to learn what are the situations to which we should not expose ourselves more or the actions that we should not repeat in a given context. That is are part of innate psychological and biological mechanisms that allow us to correct our behavior patterns.

Now, in the same way that some natural and normal elements of our body in the human being can give rise to diseases or experiences unpleasant in some situations, this predisposition to feeling unpleasant emotions can also lead to problems or unnecessarily uncomfortable experiences or painful That is why it is worth learning to detect these situations to better channel our emotions and feelings.

• You may be interested in: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

4 keys to coping well with painful emotions

As we have seen, although in most cases emotions help us, sometimes they can lead us towards situations problems that we could have avoided, because there is no mechanism of adaptation to the environment that allows us to "hit" forever. What to do to deal with emotions when they make us feel bad in a way that does not help us learn? Let's see a summary.

1. Get used to associating the emotions you feel with words

It is not about trying to reduce all your emotions to what can be understood verbally, but about, assuming that your emotional side will always overflow the world of words, try to understand them better through of this. In this way you will not fall so many times into confusing some emotions with others, you will be better able to identify them, and you will be able to manage them in a more specialized way.

To achieve this there are several effective strategies; One of the most used in psychotherapy consists of filling in an emotions diary, in which frequently write down how you feel and in what situations these emotions have arisen and feelings.

• Related article: "Emotional labeling: what is it and what is it for in psychotherapy"

2. Learn to combat rumination with activities that stimulate you

Rumination is that tendency to turn over and over the same type of thoughts, in such a way that in the end it is the very anticipation of those thoughts that draws them to our consciousness. It is something that usually occurs with emotionally painful memories, such as when we We remember a time when we made a fool of ourselves in front of someone important, or when we lost a mascot.

To combat this vicious circle dynamic, it is best not to try to block these thoughts, but to direct our attention towards activities that stimulate us psychologically. In this way our consciousness will be "on track" by a totally different route that will catch our attention for the time necessary to weaken rumination.

• You may be interested in: "Rumination: the annoying vicious circle of thought"

3. Structure your activities with a schedule

If in your day to day you expose yourself a lot to those situations in which you do not know what to do, it is more likely that you end up attracting over and over again, see to your consciousness those painful emotions that have been affecting. Because, it is advisable to plan in advance how your day will be structured, what will be the sequence of activities that you will carry out.

• Related article: "Time management: 13 tips to take advantage of the hours of the day"

4. Apply relaxation techniques

Those unpleasant emotions that are linked to stress and anxiety can be managed through relaxation techniques (such as controlled breathing or progressive muscle relaxation of Jacobson). Are allow you to return to a state of normal brain activity and prevent those situations in which you start to get stressed by the possibility of having stress.

• You may be interested in: "Jacobson's Progressive Relaxation: use, phases and effects"

Are you looking for professional psychological assistance?

If you are looking for psychotherapy services to improve your management of emotions, get in touch with our team of professionals.

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On Advance Psychologists We have more than two decades of experience treating patients, and today we work helping people of all ages, both from psychological therapy directed towards the individual and from family therapy and couple. We also offer in the areas of neuropsychology, psychiatry, coaching and speech therapy. We can attend you both in our psychology center located in Madrid (in the Goya neighborhood) and through the modality of online therapy by video call.