When was the last time you felt consumed by an overwhelming emotion and lost your ability to think, listen, engage with others, or problem-solve? Maybe you were engulfed in anger, your body charged up with adrenaline, your muscles tensed and ready for action? In clinical psychology terms, we call this state of overwhelm emotion dysregulation (Linehan, Bohus, & Lynch, 2007).
Emotion dysregulation is a natural reaction that occurs when you are flooded by strong emotions that dictate your actions. In the midst of emotion dysregulation, your emotions can cloud your ability to think clearly, address the triggering situation effectively, and determine how best to manage your emotions. When we are stuck in emotion dysregulation or blindsided by it, we’re more likely to do and say things we regret, resulting in more emotional suffering later. This subsequent suffering often comes in the form of embarrassment, disappointment, sadness, or shame. Moreover, we are especially prone to emotion dysregulation during challenging conversations with the people we care about deeply or when the topic is something important to us.
So, what happens in the body when we’re emotionally dysregulated? Your body is equipped with a natural reaction to intense emotions and stressors called fight, flight, or freeze. When faced with high levels of emotional distress, your nervous system turns on this fight-flight-or-freeze mode, attempting to protect you from the stressor. Stressful interactions, such as an argument with your partner, feeling unappreciated by your boss, or a snide comment from a friend, can quickly activate our nervous system to help us react to and address the stressor. A rapid-fire nervous system can be quite helpful when you are faced with a true threat to your safety, such as encountering a bear while on a hike. However, sometimes our nervous system activates too frequently, misinterprets a stressor as threatening when it isn’t, or overreacts to small threats or challenges. In these circumstances, nervous system activation can become a barrier to effective communication.
In fight mode, your body will prepare to defend you, verbally or physically. This could look like lashing out at others, firing off a harsh email to a colleague who’s annoyed you, dismissing someone’s concerns, or getting defensive.
In flight mode, your body sends signals to quickly remove yourself from the stressful situation. Examples of this include abruptly leaving the room, ending the conversation, or canceling something you’d planned to attend at the last minute.
In freeze mode, you might feel frozen and immobilized and unsure of what to say. Freeze mode occurs when your body’s signals send messages of system overload. Freezing can look like shutting down, taking in minimal, if any, information during an interaction, or difficulty finding the words to respond.
Fight-flight-or-freeze reactions are automatic and natural; as much as we may wish we could control when they are triggered, we cannot. Similarly to responding to our emotions, we can’t turn this mechanism off, but we can learn how to respond to nervous system activation effectively with repeated practice.
As much as we may wish we didn’t have to feel certain emotions, they have many benefits. Emotions can provide vital messages about our values, needs, and interests. In fact, sometimes our emotion messages are crucial. Anger is a great example. Anger can bring our attention to an injustice, a boundary violation, or threats to our safety, amongst other things. If we don’t spend time experiencing anger when we feel it and exploring its message (without being reactive and emotionally dysregulated), we can easily miss that message.
When an emotion message isn’t seen or heard, we experience more and more challenging emotions. If we don’t notice or listen to the message, our emotions will get louder and louder until we do. Returning to anger again, there may be a variety of messages. Is the message to assert ourselves? To change jobs because our boss is a micromanager and we’re losing confidence in our abilities? Does our anger tell us to advocate for others? The messages we can decode from our emotions can help us clarify our values and point us in the direction of honoring them.
As you surely know, emotion dysregulation is an intense, overwhelming experience. When it occurs during interactions with others, it can derail an important conversation, result in ruptures in relationships, set the stage for misunderstandings, and lead to saying and doing things we regret, causing more suffering in the future.
Emotional Intelligence Essential ReadsThis might be surprising to read, but having strong emotions is actually not the problem. Our agency lies in how we choose to respond to our emotions. Thankfully, there is a pause button we can all access, with repeated practice. Once you’re aware of your fight-flight-or-freeze reactions, you can learn how to respond to them effectively. The key is emotional intelligence.
So, what exactly is emotional intelligence (EI)? And how do you improve in it? Emotional intelligence is a combination of the following skills:
Put simply, EI involves managing emotional discomfort while communicating skillfully and adjusting your communication approach to suit the context. If this sounds complicated, rest assured, EI is teachable. Not only can you improve your skills in a short period of time, you can also measure EI to track your progress over time (Mattingly and Kraiger 2019).
Emotional intelligence has a host of benefits. Research shows that it serves as a buffer against developing mental and physical health issues (Mao, Huang, and Chen, 2021). In a large meta-analysis (with a sample of 7,898), researchers found that higher EI was associated with better mental health and better physical health (Schutte et al., 2007). People with higher emotional intelligence tend to have more positive mood, higher self-esteem, and can more effectively recover from negative experiences (Schutte et al., 2002); higher EI is related to greater resilience in the face of distress. Lastly, people with higher emotional intelligence have more social support and are more satisfied with the social support they have (Ciarocchi, Chan, Bajgar, 2001).
What can we take away from this information? Emotional intelligence supports resilience-building and is a protective shield against developing mental and physical health issues. Additionally, emotional intelligence can assist in having a stronger social support network. For a social species that is heavily reliant on collaboration, communication, and connection, emotional intelligence is a foundational skill set we can all learn and benefit from.
Ciarocchi, J., A. Y. C. Chan, and J. Bajgar. 2001. “Measuring Emotional Intelligence in Adolescents.” Personality and Individual Differences 31(7): 1105–1119.
Linehan, M., Bohus, M., & Lynch, T. (2007). Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Pervasive Emotion Dysregulation. In Gross, J. & Thompson, R.A. (Eds.), Handbook of Emotion Regulation (p. 581-605). Guilford Press: New York, NY.
Mao, L., L. Huang, and Q. Chen. 2021. “Promoting Resilience and Lower Stress in Nurses and Improving Inpatient Experience Through Emotional Intelligence Training in China: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Nurse Education Today 107: 105–130.
Mattingly, V., and K. Kraiger. 2019. “Can Emotional Intelligence Be Trained? A Meta-Analytical Investigation.” Human Resource Management Review 29(2): 140–155.
Schutte, N., Malouff, J., Simunek, M., McKenley, J., & Hollander, S. 2002. Characteristic Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Well-being. Cognition & Emotion 16(6): 769-785.
Schutte, N. S., J. M. Malouff, E. B. Thorsteinsson, N. Bhullar, and S. E. Rooke. 2007. “A Meta-Analytic Investigation of the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Health.” Personality and Individual Differences 42(6): 921–933