It can be helpful and healthy to think of emotions as signposts - and by listening to them, you can more effectively work out what it is that you want or need to do in order to be happier in your daily life. Of course, if you are not paying close attention to your emotions, they can often spiral out of control, which is essentially just them demanding to be felt and recognized.

The question is: what can you do to better manage your strong emotions when they arise? There are a few methods worth considering, so let’s take a look at some of them right now.

Divert Attention to the Senses

If you are really struggling to deal with how an emotion feels, you might want to consider diverting some of your attention to the bare data being processed by the senses. In other words, try to focus on the warmth or coolness you can feel in the body, the things that you can see around you, the things you can touch, and so on. This can be a very effective grounding technique, and it can help you to get to a place where you can then much more effectively deal with whatever emotions you have arising within you.

Try DBT

If you have never heard of DBT before, it stands for Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and it actually started as a branch of the more famous CBT. There are a lot of DBT methods which are centered around being able to deal with strong emotions, and it’s amazing how powerful and effective it really can be. In particular, you should try the DBT accepts method, which gives you a 7-point plan for dealing with strong feelings when they arise. Once you have this in your toolbox, you’ll find yourself wanting to use it all the time.

Try Not to Dwell

Although it can be easy to dwell on your emotions when they arise, in truth this is rarely a very good way of dealing with them. In fact, it can often make them worse. There is a tricky balance that needs to be found here, because you don’t want to suppress your emotions either, as that can be really bad for you in the long run. The essence here is to feel whatever emotions that might come up, but then to allow them to pass, trying not to feed them continually with thoughts. If you can do that, you’ll find it really helps.

Watch for Early Signs

Everything that you can do to help manage strong emotions is a lot easier if you catch it early, so it is invaluable to watch out for early signs that a strong emotion might be coming. If you are going to be doing that right, it requires that you have a good degree of mindfulness, so you might want to think about practicing mindfulness every day even when you feel good. Then you can tap into that ability when you really need to.