We live in high-conflict times where anger and negativity are more common than ever. This is affecting all of us, but those of us who struggle with emotional sensitivity are at risk of running into emotional triggers on a daily basis.
When mental and physical stress and mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, or borderline personality disorder (BPD) combine with the day-to-day pressures of life, it can be very difficult to moderate your reactions to emotional triggers. You may feel out of control, like your emotions are taking over, but because they feel so urgent and overwhelming, it’s hard to see what to do to change things.
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for emotional regulation offers you life skills to understand, accept, and experience your emotions in ways that are healthy and rooted in self-compassion, instead of resorting to destructive or repressive reactions. DBT gives you the emotional resilience to both feel big, difficult emotions AND choose your responses in the moment.
Emotional overwhelm can make you more reactive to everyday experiences
Have you ever thought about the phrase “at the drop of a hat”? Dropping your hat is often no big deal, but when you’re at the very edge of emotional overwhelm all the time, “dropping your hat”, or any small everyday stressor, can lead to a huge reaction.
Lashing out, shutting down, rudeness, accusations, all-or-nothing thinking, insults, breaking or throwing things, becoming physically aggressive, yelling and screaming, are all signs of emotional overwhelm. They’re also destructive reactions, harming your relationships and often leading to deep shame, sadness, anger, and fear, which can then overwhelm you all over again, perpetuating a cycle of reactions.
Trauma triggers are a major contributor to emotional reactivity
Many of us are carrying around unresolved trauma. That trauma, when triggered, can pull us mentally and emotionally back to the moment of trauma, again and again. This can lead to emotional dysregulation and reactivity, which can be confusing when you haven’t yet made the link between old trauma and current reminders. Triggers can be hard to spot, and can be as small as a change in tone of voice, a smell, or a fleeting feeling that then snowballs into a reminder of trauma.
Why is DBT for emotional regulation one of the most effective therapies for emotional reactivity and Emotional Triggers?
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was developed specifically for people who experience overwhelming, negative emotions that push them to engage in destructive behavior. Because it focuses primarily on changing troubling behaviors and moderating the impact of emotional triggers and negative thought patterns on your life, it’s a therapy that is uniquely suited for people who are stuck in reactive cycles.
When you hit emotional overwhelm, and your emotions are dictating your behavior in ways you know you don’t want to continue, you can lean on the guidance of DBT skills to help you cope in the moment.
Emotional regulation in DBT helps you understand and manage your emotional reactions
In emotionally overwhelming moments, giving yourself space to notice what you’re experiencing and process your feelings before proceeding can help you prevent reactive behaviors. The STOP skill gives you a step-by-step way to do this, asking you to:
- Stop. Totally freeze, physically and mentally.
- Take a step back. Can be literal, but also take a mental step back from the situation, creating some space for you to process what’s happening.
- Observe. What’s going on for you physically and mentally? What’s happening around you?
- Proceed mindfully. Once you’ve connected to the moment, you can choose how to proceed.
DBT can add skills on skills to help you through an entire emotional trigger
STOP can help you defuse an emotional reaction, but how do you choose what to do next?
“Is this effective?” becomes a helpful question to ask yourself before you take any action. Effective, in this instance, means something that helps you meet your short- and long-term goals. If you find that the first thing you want to do after using STOP is not likely to be effective for you (for example, yelling and screaming, or throwing things, or storming away from a conversation), you can use the Opposite Action DBT skill to guide you.
When you have an urge to do something you know is ineffective, try doing the opposite. If you want to yell, speak softly. If you want to run out and slam the door, instead ask politely to take some time to yourself, quietly walk out, and very intentionally close the door quietly. If you want to pick a fight and start throwing insults (or objects) around, put your hands in your pockets and take a walk around the block.
By choosing the opposite of your reactions, you show your body and mind that you are the one who makes behavior choices for yourself. You show yourself that you are strong enough to resist emotional overwhelm and make calmer, more constructive choices until the emotional storm passes.
Building self-trust through DBT skills can help you prevent overwhelm
How often have you found yourself ignoring the amount of strain or stress you’re under, powering through even though your intuition is urging you to rest, say no, or put up a boundary? Mindfulness and emotional regulation in DBT encourage you to both take time to focus on what’s happening in your body and mind, naming your feelings and acknowledging your thoughts without judging them as good, bad, lazy, etc.
When you start mindfully approaching understanding yourself, naming your feelings, and noticing thoughts without immediately reacting to them, you give yourself time and space to make choices. Instead of pushing yourself until you’re running on fumes, making emotional reactivity much more likely, you can listen to your intuition when it’s telling you it’s time to take care of yourself.
DBT even gives you a guide on how to take good care of yourself. The ABC PLEASE skill emphasizes mental and physical care that can reduce emotional overwhelm and set you up for successful navigation of difficult emotions and experiences.
ABC PLEASE encourages you to:
- Accumulate positive emotions
- Build mastery in enjoyable pursuits
- Cope ahead by rehearsing difficult situations
- Treat physical illness
- Balanced eating
- Avoid mood-altering substances
- Maintain good sleep
- Get exercise
DBT skills groups give you a chance to practice building healthy relationships
In a DBT skills group, you’ll practice DBT emotional regulation skills, as well as mindfulness, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness skills with people from all different backgrounds, with one key thing in common: you’re all looking to change how you respond to emotional overwhelm. Getting to practice DBT skills with a wide variety of people helps you practice building rewarding relationships in many different ways, while the understanding you receive and the support you offer to group participants can help build you up.
Being understood and feeling like you belong are powerful ways you can support your mental health, so alongside all the crucial emotional regulation skills DBT offers, the structure itself has the added benefit of improving your mental wellbeing and expanding your relational skills.
Suffolk DBT provides supportive, comprehensive DBT therapy to help you find emotional balance, even in moments of overwhelm
Suffolk DBT provides high-quality dialectical behavior therapy in Manhattan, Long Island, New York, and online. Our experienced therapists offer DBT that includes individual therapy, DBT skills group therapy, and on-call phone coaching to help teens, children, adults, and college students struggling to manage their emotions. If you’re ready to change how you respond to emotional overwhelm, contact us for a complimentary screening call, so you can get started right away on building a life worth living.