Managing Your Emotions: How To Control Your Emotions And Communicate Your Feelings

If you’re an emotionally expressive person, you may have received feedback to be “less emotional,” “calm down,” or “stop being sensitive.” While these suggestions may come from a place of positive intent, they can also hurt to hear and may not be realistic to emotional experiences. In complex or stressful moments, you may struggle to stop a tide of emotions from rushing to the surface. 

Emotions are essential to communicating and relating to other people, and suppressing your feelings doesn’t make them go away. Alternatively, mental health professionals encourage clients to embrace their emotions while developing strategies to manage them, including painful emotions that persistently affect their mental health and relationships.

For those wondering how to “stop” being emotional, looking at a nuanced perspective on the value of emotions, the meaning of emotional management, and four strategies to manage your emotions and communicate more effectively with others may be helpful.

What is emotional management?

Emotional management, sometimes called emotional control, is the process of becoming aware of your emotions and learning to manage them effectively with various coping strategies. It does not involve judging or ignoring your emotions, as emotional suppression has been linked to poor physical and mental health.  

The process of emotional management may require time and a willingness to learn and relearn as you navigate new experiences and challenges. To assist their clients, psychotherapists, and other mental health professionals may outline the following goals for emotional management: 

• Accurately perceive the feelings
• Label the feelings
• “Make sense” of the feelings and their potential origins
• Take action to manage emotions for optimal results, such as improving communication with a loved one or taking deep breaths when stressed

Using emotional control, you can learn how to affect your emotional state by increasing positive emotion and decreasing negative emotion while accepting that emotions are part of being human. All emotions can offer helpful information about mental health and relationships. In some cases, uncomfortable, so-called “negative” feelings can alert people to dangerous situations. 

Emotional management vs. emotional control

In some situations, the distinction between emotional management and emotional control may be unclear. To accurately define and use these terms, psychologists may separate emotional control as a facet of emotional control or management. Using this framework, emotional control is one technique to positively manage your emotions and change an emotional response.  

To control your emotions, you can use cognitive strategies to “manage the generation, experience, or expression of an emotion,” as the Berkeley Well-Being Institute describes. Cognitive strategies could include mindfulness meditation, repeating mantras in your head, or another thought-based exercise.

Alternatively, you can use behavioral strategies, like working out or calling a loved one, to influence an emotional response positively. 

Healthy ways to manage and communicate your emotions

Although there can be many healthy forms of emotional control, some people may be able to think of a time when they engaged in harmful behaviors to manage difficult emotions. Substance misuse, withdrawal from loved ones, and emotional denial are examples of unhealthy behaviors that people may employ in response to fear, sadness, and other upsetting feelings. 

Noting the distinction between helpful and harmful forms of emotional control, consider the following four ways to control and communicate your feelings to the people in your life. 

If you are struggling with substance use, contact the SAMHSA National Helpline at (800) 662-4357 to receive support and resources.

Allow time for reflection

In the busyness of daily life, you may struggle to find time and space to reflect on your feelings adequately. As you balance work, friends, family, and other obligations, pausing and reflecting on your feelings can help you become more in tune with your needs and desires. 

To hit the “pause” button during an emotional moment, consider strategies like counting to 100 or reciting the alphabet backward. You may also use that brief window of time to stop, breathe, and acknowledge your feelings before expressing your emotions. 

Create a list of coping strategies

You may not always be able to predict or fully prepare for an emotional or stressful moment. Still, you can create a personalized list of coping strategies that consistently make you feel better. After reflecting on your feelings, reach into your emotional “toolkit” of tried-and-true coping mechanisms. 

Every person’s list may differ, but some healthy emotional coping strategies could include: 

• Watching a funny video, movie, or comforting TV show
• Organizing a space in your home or office
• Playing with your child or pet
• Reading a favorite book or passage
• Taking a walk or a nap, depending on your energy levels

Depending on your needs at a particular moment, you may prefer another activity that encourages you to process your feelings, provides a mood boost, or addresses an essential need like sleep or nourishment.

Use emotional reappraisal

As an alternative to emotional suppression, emotional reappraisal involves changing your thoughts about a difficult or “negative” feeling before having an emotional response. Several studies show that people who habitually use reappraisal tend to have higher well-being, more positive emotions, and fewer negative emotions. 

The emotional control skill of reappraisal takes time to cultivate. Still, the following tips may help you incorporate this strategy into your daily life and communication with strangers and loved ones. 

Reframe the emotional meaning of difficult or confusing situations

If your friend takes a long time to respond to your text message, you can interpret that they’re ignoring you, which could lead to hurt feelings. Contrarily, you could assume they are busy, which may make you more understanding and less worried about their response time.

Reevaluate conflicts from a different perspective

If you’re involved in an argument, reevaluate the situation by temporarily adopting the other person’s perspective. Changing your point of view can help you empathize with the other side and potentially reduce the “emotional burden” of the situation. 

Practice your creative thinking skills

In a 2023 study of reappraisal and creative potential, researchers found that emotional reappraisal requires and potentially boosts creativity. 

While this study finds that creative people are more likely to control their emotions using reappraisal, the researchers also emphasize that creativity and reappraisal are not fixed traits and can change and improve with regular practice. 

Learn about other adaptive strategies for emotional control

In a foundational 2001 study, researchers outlined nine conceptually different cognitive emotion control strategies. Compared to “maladaptive” strategies for emotional control, such as rumination and catastrophizing, adaptive cognitive emotion strategies include positive reappraisal as well as: 

• Positive refocusing
• Putting a situation into perspective
• Acceptance
• Planning

These strategies are interconnected but may be applied separately, depending on a person’s personality and social context. Adaptive emotional control may support better well-being, communication, and higher income, according to a 2014 study of emotional control and life outcomes. People who consistently practice emotional control skills may more successfully communicate their attitudes, goals, and intentions to others, which can facilitate their success professionally and personally.

Develop skills to control your emotions in therapy

If you struggle to control your emotions and communicate effectively with loved ones, you may be interested in addressing these challenges with a licensed therapist. Some people prefer to work on emotional control with an in-person therapist, but others prefer the convenience and flexibility of an online therapy platform like BetterHelp. 

Research suggests that online therapy can be a powerful tool for emotional health, including a 2018 study of the effectiveness of an online mindfulness-based intervention on reducing psychological distress and the mediating role of emotion control. After completing the eight-week program, the 76 participants reported significantly fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression and higher levels of mindfulness. Although the online program only had a medium effect on emotional control difficulties, this result may be due to the small sample of participants, indicating the need for more research on this topic. 

Online therapy platforms allow clients to match with a therapist, often within 48 hours. When you sign up, you can indicate your preferences for treatment goals, therapeutic modalities, and therapist identity. In addition, you can choose between phone, video, or live chat sessions.