When an emotion is not justified or is unhelpful, act opposite to what the emotion drives you to do, engaging fully with your mind and body in the new behavior. This significantly improves how you feel and your quality of life by shrinking negative emotions and creating positive lived experiences.
Apply the TIP method for quick physiological shifts: Temperature (submerge face in ice water for 30 seconds while holding breath), Intense Exercise (burpees or running in place for 1-2 minutes), Paced Breathing (inhale for 5, exhale for 5), and Progressive Muscle Relaxation (tense and release muscle groups). These techniques quickly shift physiology, reduce heart rate, lower blood pressure, and create mental space to cope with stress.
Connect your current stress to a larger sense of purpose or noble cause, such as feeding your family or improving your life. This makes difficult situations more tolerable and meaningful, helping you manage emotions and bounce back faster.
Intentionally plan and schedule moments of joy and pleasure, then actively savor them by repeating the highlight in your mind or saying it aloud. This expands inner resources, cultivates positive emotions, and creates a buffer for stress, offsetting it like ‘money in your bank account’.
Guard against dwelling on what’s stressful, worrying about it, and fearing it, as rumination turns brief stress into chronic stress. This habit correlates with increased risk of depression and anxiety and is detrimental to mental health.
Mentally rehearse upcoming stressful situations by realistically imagining how you will cope, such as closing social media, setting a timer, and focusing on the task. This swaps dread with ‘coping ahead’ and sets you up for success, using the same brain parts as actual performance.
Learn to radically accept what is, just as it is, in the present moment, even if it feels overwhelming. When you stop fighting reality, more options become available, and even relaxing your facial expression can create a more accepting mindset.
Swap ‘why’ thoughts (e.g., ‘Why did this happen?’) with ‘how’ thoughts (e.g., ‘How can I move forward?’). ‘Why’ thoughts are a dead end, while ‘how’ thoughts lead to empowered plans and problem-solving.
Notice and categorize your current state of mind (e.g., ’emotion mind’ when governed by feelings, ‘reasonable mind’ for facts, ‘wise mind’ for intuition). This helps you recognize when you are in ’emotion mind’ and prevents it from exacerbating negative feelings, acting as a ‘spam filter’ for your thoughts.
Label your emotions by putting a specific word to what you’re feeling (e.g., ‘frustrated,’ ‘annoyed,’ ‘sad’) and even rate their intensity on a scale. Labeling activates the part of the brain that helps regulate emotions, creating working distance and taking the ‘oomph’ out of intense feelings.
When stressed, avoid ‘procrastivity’ (pseudo-productivity like clearing your inbox instead of important tasks) by setting a workable goal and focusing singularly on it, facing one thing at a time. This helps you effectively tackle stressors and move out of feeling overwhelmed.
Create a ‘hope kit’ – a collection of items (notes, photos, scented candles, playlists) that touch your senses, remind you of things that have enriched your life, and give you a sense of faith, perspective, and joy. This allows you to quickly access wisdom and bounce back from difficulties.
Engage in expressive writing by detailing upsetting events for 20 minutes, then writing about their past and present/future effects on subsequent days. Writing creates working distance, allows deeper processing of feelings, and has been shown to reduce depression and rumination.
Actively look for humor in situations, laugh, and play with your thoughts (e.g., giving anxiety a funny name). Humor shifts perspective, elevates positive emotions, reduces anxiety and depression, creates distance from problems, and benefits both yourself and those around you.
Accept feelings like shakiness or stress as normal responses to important situations, rather than faking calmness or suppressing emotions. Allowing yourself to feel these emotions puts you in a better position to perform and engage in opportunities.
Comfort yourself with touch, such as putting two hands on your heart, massaging your shoulder, or giving yourself a hug. Touch communicates self-validation, normalizes feelings, and provides self-compassion, which is a fundamental human need for comfort.
Set reasonable, specific goals for when you will be present and not ruminate, such as during specific evening or morning hours. This helps break free from the habit of constant rumination and sets you up for a better day.
Believe that stress is the price of a meaningful life, recognizing that doing hard things and pursuing pleasure, accomplishment, and social connection (which can be stressful) is the path forward. This changes your mindset about stress and helps you understand its role in meaningful activities.
Take a step back and ask if your rumination habit is helping you achieve goals or removing you from better perspective and emotion management. This metacognitive step helps you decide if you want to work on breaking the habit.
If you experience panic, practice ‘interoceptive exposure’ by intentionally recreating the physical sensations of panic (e.g., hyperventilating for a minute) in a safe environment. This helps you lean into and become familiar with these sensations, reducing the fear response and breaking the cycle of fighting panic.
Strategically place planned joyful activities in your calendar, using them as ‘hard stop times’ to increase productivity and monotasking in the time leading up to them. Knowing you have a scheduled pleasant activity can motivate you to tackle stressful tasks more efficiently.
Compassionately notice if you fall into patterns like overthinking, avoiding, or acting in ways that exacerbate stress. This self-awareness allows you to be kind to yourself and work towards reducing stress.
Reflect on what you do when living your best life and acknowledge that these meaningful activities might also be stressful. This helps change your mindset about stress by connecting it to positive life experiences.
Remind yourself that emotions come in waves and are transient, rather than believing they will last forever. This helps you avoid grossly underestimating your ability to bounce back and encourages anchoring in the present moment.
Anchor yourself in the present moment to experience the transient nature of emotions and moments of awe. This helps avoid getting stuck in negative emotional states and allows appreciation of positive ones.
List the things that matter to you (health, relationships, hobbies, career), how you want to show up in each domain, and depict their relative weight (e.g., in a pie chart). This helps gain perspective, see your life more holistically, and become more willing to do hard things by connecting them to your values.