Emotional flooding: what it is, how it affects us and how to deal with it

Everyone has been immersed in a situation where emotions and feelings have flowed out of control. Whether it is anger in an argument, crying because someone has told us something we did not like or frustration Because things do not come out to order, the truth is that we can live a true emotional flood.

We drown in our own feelings. The flame of rationality goes out when it is flooded by a stormy emotional tidal wave. Reason and emotion are usually balanced, but when this situation is lost we can end up feeling very bad and making bad decisions.

The emotional flood is a situation that everyone has felt on more than one occasion, something very human but, also, very dysfunctional of not being managed properly. Next we will discover why and we will also see some strategies to calm down when it occurs.

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What is emotional flooding?

The emotional flood has a name that makes a good show of what it represents. It is precisely that, a flood,

a tide of sensations, of mostly negative emotions that take control of ourselves and prevent us from thinking clearly. It is as if a huge wave of intense emotions dragged us away without being able to escape, like the swimmer who is caught by currents and gales in his beach dip.

Our body manifests tension physically. The muscles tense, the internal temperature rises, the stomach turns and many more organic sensations are felt. But, of course, the nature of this tension is not exclusively physical. Our mind, flooded by emotions, isolates itself from what is happening around us. Negative thoughts become very vivid, their mental volume increases. They deafen us with a noise that comes from our mind.

The emotional floods are very common psycho-emotional experiences in interactions with anyone. They are especially frequent in the middle of a relationship, but they can also occur with friends and, above all, with family, a source of emotional support but, at the same time, of conflicts and misunderstandings. Each person is trapped by their own thoughts and emotions such as outrage, frustration or anger. Our feelings become so intense that it is impossible to listen calmly and serenely to what others have to say to us.

The emotional flood is just another example of how our uncontrolled emotions can completely block our rationality. The problem with this very human phenomenon is that, if we do not put a brake on it when it occurs and try to regain our composure, we may decide things or say many others that, cold, we will end up regretting. The emotional flood affects our decision making.

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Causes: Why do we feel this way?

One may wonder at this point if the emotional flood is something pathological. The truth is It is a completely human and normal phenomenon, which can be experienced by even the most calm and rational people in the world.. The reason for this is simple: as much as we believe it, there are no rational people and emotional people, but we are all a combination of both components.

In fact, there are many situations in which we make rational use of emotions, in addition to The inverse relationship occurs, in the sense that reason is not entirely independent of reason. emotionality. The point is that everything has a balance, a point at which reason and emotion come together so that we make the most logical decisions but without neglecting what our heart tells us.

In addition to this, it should be said that emotional flooding may be related to our sense of survival. It has been hypothesized that it is an involuntary reflex that is activated when the brain detects some stimulus perceived as threatening, be it rational or irrational. Our emotions have an adaptive functionality, they are the product of evolution, and they help us to cope with the demands of the environment.

When you experience something that is understood as an injustice, a lie or harm, this can be the trigger for the whole wave of negative emotions that shape the emotional flood. Emotions such as fear, disappointment, sadness, anxiety, anger and others will not only manifest themselves in the form of psychological discomfort for those who have them, but also initiate a whole set of physiological changes.

The problem with the emotional flood is that this reason-emotion balance is lost, causing that for a moment all kinds of emotional states come to the surface that blind our judgment and prevent us think. It is something that every human being who has found himself in an emotionally stressful situation will have lived, which is not pathological on its own. However, it does require putting in some effort to prevent the emotional escalation from going further and harming us at the level of mental health.

Scientific research indicates that in order to control situations of emotional flooding it is key manage to manage the level of activation of two areas very involved during the occurrence of this phenomenon: the amygdala and prefrontal activity.

The amygdala is a brain structure that, apart from other functions, plays an important role in emotionality, while the prefrontal area is related to the famous executive functions, such as concentration, decision-making, working memory, planning… When the amygdala is over-activated, emotions are intensified and our rational and reflection capacities are seen reduced.

Therefore, taking all this into account, the ideal would be manage to reduce the activity of the amygdala and increase that of the prefrontal cortex to manage and avoid these emotional floods.

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What can we do to control it?

As we have seen, the emotional flood would be that process of emotional overflow in which every iota of rationality is silenced by the escalating intensity of our emotions. There are several strategies that we can use to control the emotional flood.

1. Take time off

Continuing with the metaphor of the sea, emotional flooding can be understood as a wave that traps us, threatens to drown us with the water around our necks. The best we can do in these cases is to try to swim to shore, catch our breath and calm down, away from those threatening waves at the beginning.

To prevent our emotions from overwhelming us or, in case it has already happened, try to reduce them by one one of the best things we can do is take a break by getting away from the situation emotionally tense. Each person requires her time, but as a suggestion, with about 20 minutes it will go well.enough to regain composure and calm.

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2. Breath deeply

A classic in every recommendation to calm our emotions is that of deep breathing. It is not a miracle cure, but it helps prevent our tension from going to more and can calm us down in a few minutes.

Deep breathing can reduce our tension load, relieve stress, and regain our concentration and rationality.

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3. Dialogue with yourself

Trying to reflect is tricky when we are drowning in an emotional flood. Therefore, it is appropriate to do it once we are better, calmer, enjoying physical and mental calm. The balance between our emotions and our reason allows us to reflect on our desires, experiences and feelings in a lucid and holistic way.

Dialogue with ourselves is a good way to discover what it is that has caused us to find ourselves so emotionally tense and what we could do to avoid it. This dialogue we can do it with a Socratic conversation asking ourselves questions like the following.

Where does this frustration come from? Am I being realistic about what triggers it? Am I exaggerating things?

Are my thoughts realistic? What justifies them? Does the way I react make me feel better or worse?

What could you do to change this?

Most of us have many distorted thoughts about reality, which are fueled by our negative emotions. It is necessary to detect and question them, rationalize them to the point of managing to remove the emotional filter that distorts or exaggerates them.

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4. Reassess stressful situations

By reassessing stressful situations we can induce a cognitive change that aims to understand what has happened to us so that, the next time it happens, we can carry out greater emotional control. To achieve this, it is essential to know ourselves better and to know what the triggers of our emotional flooding are.