Negative emotions are unpleasant and disruptive emotional reactions that make it hard to function in your normal daily life and interfere with your ability to accomplish goals. Everyone feels negative emotions from time to time, but in some cases, these feelings can be a sign of a mental health condition such as depression or anxiety. There are many productive ways to deal with difficult emotions.
Understand Your Emotions
- Look within and pinpoint the situations creating stress and negative emotions in your life
- Looking at the source of the feeling and your reaction can provide valuable information
- Negative emotions can come from a triggering event, such as an overwhelming workload
- The way that you interpret what happened can alter how you experience the event and whether or not it causes stress
Accept Your Emotions
- Learning to accept negative emotions is also an effective way of managing these difficult feelings
- Acceptance means acknowledging that we are feeling afraid, angry, sad, or frustrated
- Instead of trying to avoid or suppress these feelings, you allow them to exist without dwelling on them
Change What You Can
- Minimizing or eliminating some of your stress triggers may make you feel negative emotions less frequently.
- Ways to accomplish this include: cutting down on job stress, often by delegating tasks, developing boundaries and seeking support, learning the practices of assertive communication to manage relationship conflicts
Find an Outlet
- Meditation can help you find some inner space to work with so your emotions don’t feel overwhelming
- Try a few other methods to find what works for you and your situation. Once you have found techniques that are right for you, you’ll feel less overwhelmed when negative emotions arise
