How Can You Improve Emotional Regulation?
Emotional regulation is the process of influencing how we experience and respond to emotions.
It does not mean ignoring emotions, suppressing them or trying to remain calm at all times.
Emotions provide information. The useful skill is being able to recognise what is happening and choose how to respond rather than allowing the first emotional reaction to determine what happens next.
At work, this might mean managing frustration before responding to an email, changing how you interpret difficult feedback, redirecting your attention when pressure starts to overwhelm you or recognising when a situation needs to change rather than simply trying to tolerate it.
One of the most established frameworks in emotion regulation research is James Gross’s process model. It suggests that we can influence emotion at several different points, from the situation we enter, through what we pay attention to and how we interpret events, to how we manage the emotional response itself.
This is useful because emotional regulation is not one technique.
Different situations may require different strategies.
The five approaches below translate these principles into practical actions that can be used in everyday working life.
I would then rebuild the existing five strategies around:
1. Choose the situation where you can
2. Change what you can about the situation
3. Direct your attention deliberately
4. Reframe how you interpret the situation
5. Manage your response
1. Choose the Situation Where You Can
One way to regulate emotion is to think ahead about the situations you enter. This does not mean avoiding every difficult conversation, challenge or uncomfortable task.
It means recognising that some situations predictably trigger stronger emotional responses and deciding whether anything can be done before that happens.
For example, you might know that:
- difficult conversations are harder when you are already under time pressure
- certain meetings become unproductive when everyone is tired
- checking messages late at night increases anxiety
- tackling a complex issue without preparation makes you more reactive
Where you have a choice, you can reduce unnecessary emotional strain by changing the timing, setting or circumstances.
You might schedule an important conversation when you have more time, prepare before entering a difficult meeting or avoid dealing with sensitive issues when you know your capacity is already low.
This is not avoidance.
It is using foresight to create better conditions for an effective response. Of course, many workplace situations cannot be chosen. When that happens, the next strategy becomes more important.
2. Change What You Can About the Situation
Sometimes you cannot avoid the situation, but you can change aspects of it. This is known as situation modification.
The aim is to reduce unnecessary emotional pressure by changing something about the environment, expectations or way the situation is being handled.
At work, that might mean:
- asking for more information before making a decision
- clarifying expectations before a project begins
- requesting support when workload becomes unrealistic
- changing the structure of a difficult meeting
- taking a conversation somewhere more private
- setting clearer boundaries around interruptions
The important point is that emotional regulation is not always about managing what is happening inside you. Sometimes the most effective response is to change something outside you. If a situation repeatedly creates frustration, anxiety or conflict, it is worth asking:
What can I change about the situation itself?
This is particularly useful when the emotional response is being driven by ambiguity, overload, poor communication or lack of control. Not every situation can be changed. When it cannot, attention becomes another useful point of influence.
3. Direct Your Attention Deliberately
Attention plays an important role in emotional experience. What we focus on can intensify an emotional response or help us regain perspective.
Under pressure, attention can become very narrow. You may focus only on what has gone wrong, replay a difficult comment, anticipate the worst outcome or become absorbed by one frustrating detail.
Directing attention deliberately does not mean pretending the problem is not there. It means choosing where to place your focus so that you can respond more effectively.
Useful approaches might include:
- stepping away briefly before replying
- focusing on the facts rather than assumptions
- separating what you can control from what you cannot
- returning attention to the outcome you are trying to achieve
- using breathing or grounding techniques to interrupt escalating emotion
- deliberately listening instead of mentally preparing your defence
Mindfulness practices can also help strengthen attentional control by improving awareness of thoughts, emotions and physical reactions without immediately acting on them.
The goal is not to eliminate emotion.
It is to prevent attention from becoming trapped in a way that makes the emotional response stronger or less useful.
4. Reframe How You Interpret the Situation
The meaning we give to an event can influence the emotion that follows. This is where cognitive reappraisal, or reframing, can be useful.
Reframing does not mean forcing yourself to think positively. It means considering whether your first interpretation is the only reasonable explanation.
For example:
“They challenged me because they do not respect me.”
might become:
“They may have information I do not have, or they may be concerned about the decision.”
“This project has failed.”
might become:
“This approach has not worked, so we need to understand what we have learned and adjust.”
“I should already know how to deal with this.”
might become:
“This is a difficult situation, and I may need more information or support.”
The aim is not to excuse poor behaviour or minimise genuine problems. It is to test whether your interpretation is accurate and useful.
A simple question can help:
What else might be true here?
Creating alternative interpretations can reduce unnecessary emotional escalation and make more responses available.
5. Manage Your Response
Sometimes the emotional response has already arrived. You may feel angry, anxious, disappointed or overwhelmed.
At this point, regulation focuses on what you do next. The first goal is often to create enough space between the emotion and the behaviour that follows.
That might mean:
- slowing your breathing
- pausing before speaking
- delaying an email response
- taking a short break before returning to the conversation
- naming the emotion you are experiencing
- choosing a calmer tone
- asking a question instead of reacting
- deciding that the conversation should continue later
Managing your response is not the same as suppressing emotion. Suppression involves trying to hide or push down emotional expression, which does not necessarily change the underlying emotional experience.
Effective regulation is more deliberate. It involves recognising the emotion and choosing a response that is more likely to support the situation, the relationship and the outcome.
A useful question is:
What response will help me handle this well?
That question shifts attention away from the immediate urge to react and towards the behaviour you want to choose. Used together, these five strategies show that emotional regulation can happen at several different points.
You can influence the situation you enter, modify the situation itself, direct your attention, change how you interpret what is happening and manage the response that follows. The most effective strategy will depend on the situation.
The skill is learning to recognise which point of intervention gives you the best chance of responding well.
The flowprofiler® Perspective
Emotional regulation is one of the five behavioural dimensions measured within eqflow®. flowprofiler® looks at behaviour in two states, day to day and under pressure.
That matters because people may regulate emotion effectively in normal conditions but respond very differently when workload, uncertainty, conflict or consequences increase.
The assessment can help make those behavioural shifts more visible. For example, someone may become more reactive, less patient or more avoidant under pressure. Another person may suppress emotion so strongly that communication becomes distant or difficult to read.
The purpose is not to eliminate emotion. It is to understand how emotional responses influence behaviour and where greater choice may help someone respond more effectively.
Used alongside reflection, feedback and practical development, that insight can help people build emotional regulation strategies that are more deliberate and more sustainable.
Build Stronger Emotional Regulation at Work
Emotional regulation improves through practice.
The five strategies in this article provide different ways to intervene, from changing the situation itself to managing the response that follows.
If you want to understand why emotional regulation matters particularly in leadership, read: Emotional Regulation in Leadership: Why It Matters
References
Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271
Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation: Current status and future prospects. Psychological Inquiry, 26(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2014.940781
Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348
Hülsheger, U. R., Alberts, H. J. E. M., Feinholdt, A., & Lang, J. W. B. (2013). Benefits of mindfulness at work: The role of mindfulness in emotion regulation, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(2), 310–325. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031313
Koole, S. L. (2009). The psychology of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Cognition and Emotion, 23(1), 4–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930802619031
Webb, T. L., Miles, E., & Sheeran, P. (2012). Dealing with feeling: A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation. Psychological Bulletin, 138(4), 775–808. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027600
