Can you control emotions

Wouldn't living in a Nazi concentration camp be about as bad as any you can imagine? He lived in a bleak, filthy barrack on the verge of starvation--in constant pain from hunger or wounds. Daily, he performed backbreaking, menial work and witnessed the guards--and other prisoners--perform incredibly inhuman and sadistic acts. Many prisoners became animals--who would do anything to survive. Many prisoners could not tolerate this environment and died.

Frankl wrote that the key survival factor was the will to live, and that whenever someone lost that will, he would die shortly thereafter. Many "ran into the wire" of the electric fence to end their misery.

Others became ill. Some simply became immobilized in a catatonic state until they died. Frankl kept both his life and his humanity. His survival secret was to create his own positive inner world. He created a fantasy life with his wife and spent many hours in their imaginary life together outside the camp. Listen to the words of a man who overcame one of history's most inhumane situations. The salvation of man is through love and in love.

I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying.

Frankl found that concentration on other higher, mental values also created happiness. As the inner life of the prisoner tended to become more intense, he also experienced the beauty of art and nature as never before.

Under their influence he sometimes even forgot his frightful circumstance. This positive spirit was contagious. Feeling good himself helped him care more for others. Whereas many prisoners were cruel to each other, Dr. Frankl performed many acts of kindness. These acts added happiness. How many of us--facing far less difficult situations than Victor Frankl--are tempted to give up?

Reminding myself of Frankl's situation helps me put my own problems in perspective. If he could choose to live by higher values and choose to be happy in that environment, surely, we can choose to be happy in almost any circumstance. Changing feelings is different from denying feelings. We all know of people who pretend to be happy or put on a happy face for others when they are really unhappy inside. We may do that ourselves.

We also know of people who deny their negative feelings. I remember a client who was red-faced and so tense from his anger that he was about to squeeze the chair arms in two. He looked straight at his wife and between gritted teeth said, "I am not angry. He was not only trying to fool her, but he was also trying to fool himself.

He truly seemed to be unaware of his own anger at the time. He had shut off the focus of his attention from all of the internal bodily sensations such as the tenseness and rapid heart rate that were giving him feedback that he was angry. This is a good example of denying feelings.

Denial is unhealthy because it robs us of valuable information that we can use to understand a problem. To change our feelings from negative to positive, we need to first recognize, understand, and accept the negative feeling. That is step one. Step two is to find out what is behind the feeling and then try to find ways of changing those feelings.

Simply pretending that we do not feel what we feel is not usually adequate to overcome the negative feelings. Years ago my wife, Sherry, thought that trying to control emotions by changing thoughts was a superficial change method that was similar to denying how we really feel.

I will let her speak for herself,. I used to believe that feelings were something that just happened to you. I thought that you had no control over them and you just feel how you feel.

For example, one study found that participants who thought emotions were helpful also reported being happier and having more social supports than those who found emotions a hindrance.

Additionally, the more participants viewed emotions as helpful in their lives, the better they performed on a timed reasoning task—which is somewhat surprising, given how often people pit reason against emotion. Similarly, other research has found that believing that happiness is very valuable can lead people to be less happy , as they struggle to meet their own high expectations and experience disappointment.

On the other hand, mindfulness meditation—which trains people to be nonjudgmental of their experiences, including emotions—can lead to better psychological health. Overall, it seems that being accepting of whatever emotions arise, while having strategies to counter difficult emotions, might be valuable for our well-being.

Fortunately, a recent study by Smith and his colleagues suggests they can. In the study, middle school students from all over the United States were randomly assigned to one of two online courses: one about the importance of their feelings, their malleability, and how to handle difficult feelings using strategies like reappraisal; or a similarly engaging unit on how the brain works the control group.

Before and four weeks after the course, students reported on their theories about emotions, their emotional well-being at school, their sense of belonging at school and satisfaction with school, and their general well-being in life.

Interestingly, the differences between the groups were due to large declines in well-being in the control group over the four weeks, while those who learned about emotions had less steep declines. This just goes to show how hard middle school can be.

Of course, there may be many good strategies for handling difficult emotions—such as mindfulness meditation training or expressive writing.

More research is needed to tell us which ones or which combinations of practices are most effective. Given how young people—particularly young teens—are developmentally primed to experience emotions more intensely, providing them with tools to manage those emotions better seems like a no-brainer.

And we could probably all use this lesson, if we want to enhance our well-being. But we do control the meaning we take away from events. But when his friends arrive, they love the warm rain and immediately start splashing around in it.

They had no expectations of perfect weather; they just knew they were having a good time. By attaching a negative meaning to what was going on, Tony let his emotions run the show. When you learn how to control your emotions, you can derive more positive, productive meanings, even from seemingly negative events.

What emotions are now flying around? Tony believes he needs to create a certain kind of environment for his friends to be happy. Meanwhile, his friends are having a great time. They belong to you. By letting your emotions run the show — and attaching negative meaning to them — we can damage our relationships and our lives. When you step back and react emotionally to circumstances, you allow the world to happen to you instead of for you. So what can you do to regain emotional control, or prevent yourself from losing it?

Change the meaning and you change the emotion. Another key factor in the cycle of meaning is what words you use. You can develop emotional control by using one of the following tactics:. Instead of reacting right away — whether positively or negatively — give yourself a moment to process what just happened. Are you sad? Emotions are complex and often piggyback onto one another.