I have worked with many folks in therapy over the years who will get “worked up” with an emotion (anger, panic, frustration, etc.) and feel completely out of control. They have no ability to interfere with their thoughts or behaviors and often will say or do things that they later either regret or impact their lives negatively. During those times, these people have struggled to regulate their emotions.

In those cases, we want to understand the emotions and where this all stems from and how to prevent them from even happening in the first place, but they first need real techniques to help them to be able to change the intensity of the emotions in the moment. That’s where grounding techniques come into play.

4 Techniques for Emotion Regulation

Grounding techniques are any action that pulls you away from an intense emotion and more into the present moment. They help us to feel less out of control, less overwhelmed, and also less likely to act impulsively. This can be anything and is going to differ from person to person. However, in this video, I share with you four techniques that you can use if you ever find yourself out of control with a particular emotion. 

I highly recommend practicing these techniques often, when you are not feeling out of control, so that you know what to do when you need them. That way, when you feel the intense emotions rise, you don’t have to think about it and can just do one of these techniques. 

Let us know in the comments below how you manage really intense emotions!