Emotion is the complex psychophysiological experience of an individual’s state of mind as interacting with biochemical (internal) and environmental (external) influences.

Emotions are merely chemicals in your brain which are either an outcome or reactions towards an external influence.

So can you detach yourself from emotions?

Yes.

Have you ever tried feeling sad at one moment, but then get cheered up by a friend and forgetting all about it. That is one way to do it. Other ways are people keeping themselves busy with work to get over a breakup. There are many ways, but what they all conclude is emotions are just a state. We are always in an emotional state. Happy, Sad, Excited, Bored etc. However we are not our emotions. If you can sit back analyze your own emotions and why you are feeling the way you are feeling. Then by default you are not your emotions. Because one can not detach oneself from what one is e.g. I can’t not be a Human.

“Emotions are merely the expressions of the emotional state that we are in…”

Being in personal developments. I’ve dealt with many personal demons. Some took months to get over and as time goes by new ones comes along. Learning how to deal with negative emotions is a very helpful skill to have. In my field of work it’s easy to get negative and worked up over nothing. I’ve learned to be more light-hearted and just deal with whatever comes my way. It allows me to appreciate life a lot more, especially my time with my family, my friends and the simple pleasures in life. Because I know if I’m not satisfied with something, I have the ability to do something about it. I have complete self trust in myself and my ability.

Even our language has a huge effect on our emotions on a day-to-day basis. Using the word “I” will automatically make you identify with something. So when you say I’m sad you identify with that emotion and start feeling it in every inch of your body. Words have a surprising influence on our emotional states.

Being emotional doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad thing. Being emotionally happy or excited are positive emotions and we want more of that. But what we want to try to do is to increase the time we spend being happy and decrease the bad emotions such as sadness, negativity and stress. But most people are addicted to emotions even the bad ones. It’s like a drug.

That’s why in some relationships you have pointless fights. Where everything seems perfect for the first few weeks then all of the sudden the negative need kicks in, and you argue over the most pointless stuff. You keep going back and forth until the relationship dies. Humans are emotional junkies. There’s a reason why it’s so hard for us to control them.

Anyways you are here to learn some quick tips on how to control your emotions right?

So let me give you a few tricks that I personally use to either get me out of a bad emotional state, or help me forget something bad and be productive.

Changing your physical state.

You can do this by either running, working out or just simply taking a walk and get some fresh air. By changing your physical state it effects your emotional state. That’s why physical workout is such a great way to relieve stress because you are focusing on the executions of the exercise and not what happened earlier today. When focusing on something you tend to forget what bothered you initially.

Screaming at the top of your lungs

This is very similar to the above example because it does the same thing, it’s changing your physical state which also changes your emotional state. This is a quick fix like a shot of espresso. Don’t expect it to be a permanent thing just use it when needed. There’s a reason why we shout or moan. It’s to let out our frustration e.g. if your if you feel you’re not performing well or expressing pleasure. Try and stand up and just shout for duration for at least 8 seconds. It’s going to be awkward at first but you’re going to get out of your head. Then take right action straight away. This is especially good for when you see a girl you want to talk to but you’re being too much of a pussy. Go to a quite corner in the bar and shout. Then immediately go approach the girl before you brain tells you otherwise. You are literally tricking your brain.

Focusing on good memories

Every time we try to think of past memories. We also feel them. Our brains are designed to remember with our emotions too. Because as I said earlier, we are always in a emotional state, if you’ve had an awesome memory that means you also felt it. When you start remembering about the good times you will actually start feeling some of the good emotions you had on that day. This also works the other way around with negative emotions like remembering about a loss or a bad experience. So what you want to do is overwrite the bad emotional state by thinking and focusing on something good. Really try and relive that moment in your head. You’ll slowly start to feel those positive emotions you’ve experienced at that time. It’s pretty neat actually.

Start a new hobby

Let’s say you lost something. Maybe a close friend or a breakup. Whatever the case you probably will have a lot free time to think and be sad over it. If you however don’t want to do that then the best thing you could do is, to utilize this new free time and start a new passion/hobby. Go try that martial arts school you’ve always been thinking about, spend more time with friends, go workout and get the killer body. If you can’t come up with anything I suggest you sit down and think about what areas you can improve in your life. Write it down and go get it.

These are some quick sure fire ways to help you deal with whatever emotional garbage you might have.

Try them before you judge them. If you don’t wholeheartedly want this to work then no force on earth will make it work.

It all comes down to this. When in doubt “Action is always the answer”.

These are very simple methods to help you deal with any negative emotional state you are in. Especially if you don’t want to go down the excessive alcohol or food route. I’ve used these simple methods in times when I’ve been a bit low or if I had something that kept nagging me. This is not a magic pill. It takes time with consistent application for a prolonged duration depending on how bad the emotional trauma is. If it’s just a one day hissy fit then you would probably be able to deal with it on that day and put a lid on it.

Sitting down and feeling bad for yourself is not going to help. Mourning time is understandable if you lost something dear to you, but there will come a time where you just need to take action. Any action. If you look above all these examples are pretty much you taking action in one way or another.

Now remember these aren’t a quick fix method. It takes time. If you are going through something rough, you now have the tools to help you when things get really bad. Use these tips to help minimize the time you are in a bad emotional state. Keep applying the methods again and again until you feel you’re over it

Remember you are not your emotions.

Abour Author

This post contributed by Alex Wise, a featured writer for Loveawake.com. Alex is a well-accomplished bilingual writer for magazines, websites and newspapers about relationships, online dating and marriage. Alex teaches online marketing and self-motivation on his down time.