Managing Emotions Through Physiology

In the first article in this series, I explained how different emotions are associated with different physiological states. Both anger and fear are associated with:

• Fast, shallow breathing
• Tense muscles

Consciously changing your physiology can also help you to manage your emotional state.

Managing Anger

Managing Emotions Through Breathing

The first step in changing the physiology associated with anger is to start breathing deeply. Try practising this simple exercise:

1. Place your two hands, palm down, at the bottom of your rib cage, in between your chest and your belly button. Your two middle fingers should just touch.
2. Breathe in slowly and deeply, counting to three as you go. You should notice that the muscle separating your lung cavity from your abdominal cavity causes the tips of your two middle fingers to separate.
3. Hold your breath as you slowly count to three a second time.
4. Breathe out slowly, ensuring that you empty your lungs of all air, counting to three as you go.
5. Repeat this 3-10 times.

After slowing down your breathing, it is time to relax your tense muscles. The way to do this may seem counterintuitive because it involves tensing and then relaxing each muscle group. When you are angry, it is your jaw and facial muscles that tense up, so you will want to focus on these areas.

• Lift your eyebrows as high as you can, hold for three seconds and then relax
• Bite down hard while pulling the corners of your mouth back, hold and then relax
• Pull chin towards the chest but keep it from touching the chest, hold and relax

Managing Worry or Fear

Fear, like anger, is characterized by rapid and somewhat shallow breathing. You can therefore use the breathing exercise I outlined above to combat fear as well as anger.

Fear is also associated with tense muscles, but unlike with anger, this muscle tension is spread throughout the body. I therefore recommend  that you systematically work your way through tightening and relaxing different muscle groups throughout your body. As you finish each muscle group, spend some time building your awareness of how that group feels in a relaxed state and then try to relax them just a little more.

Emotional Intelligence Through Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Tagged as: emotion, relaxation