emotional regulation

Cooling Off in the Heat of the Moment

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Finding calm amidst irritation, stress, or anger is challenging, but crucial for preventing relationship strain and project disruptions. Emotional regulation is key, enabling us to navigate intense moments skillfully and repair potential damage. In this blog, I introduce the POP Stress Now™ method – Pause, Observe, Proceed – as a quick and effective way to cool down and respond thoughtfully.

The Impact of Overwhelm

When overwhelmed, our cognitive functions (reasoning, concentration, discernment) suffer, making regrettable actions more likely. Whether it’s an outburst or a subtle gesture, these missteps can hinder trust and communication, affecting individuals, groups, and teams. So, before you say something you regret, or send an email you wish you could retrieve, or otherwise do something that hinders connection and trust, practice POP — Pause, Observe, Proceed – and avoid long-term negative consequences.

Mastering Emotional Regulation: A Guide to the POP Stress Now™ Method

This 3-step POP process can take as little as 30 seconds. And you can do it right where you are. It calms the nervous system that is naturally activated when we’re agitated, stressed, overwhelmed.

POP Stress Now: Pause, Observe, Proceed

  1.  PAUSE: Stop, take a moment, and become aware of your breath. Sense the breath moving in and out of the body. Three cycles of breath can help calm the nervous system.
  2. OBSERVE: Notice thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. Tend to what you notice with curiosity and kindness. Acknowledge and “name it to tame it,” following Dr. Dan Siegel’s advice.
  3. PROCEED: With a bit more connection, take the next step. It can be anything — responding to someone, working, eating, exercising, prioritizing your to-do list, getting a cup of tea, continuing to sit quietly, or whatever you decide is best for you now.

Try this POP Stress Now Recording!

Versatility of POP

POP isn’t just for heated moments; it’s a valuable tool for pre-meeting preparation, difficult conversations, presentations, or post-upset calming. You can even use it after moments of success or pleasure to fully savor the experience.

Practice a few times a day so it’s a familiar go-to tool. As you get more comfortable with it, you will be able to access it more easily during those inevitable heated moments.

Practical Application: My POP Story

A personal anecdote illustrates the power of the POP method. Feeling excluded from a crucial meeting, I was angry and hurt and on the verge of a confrontation. Through POP, I paused, acknowledged my emotions, and decided to take the classic “sleep on it” tactic. I decided to wait until the next morning to calmly talk with him. When the next morning arrived, however, I’d received his invite with an apology for inadvertently leaving me off the initial invitation. If I’d reacted the day before from my initial response of anger and hurt, the exchange would have been quite different.

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  • YouTube for guided mindfulness practices and talks about stress, the brain, and the body

Getting to Know your Stressors

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Hiking in the Marin Headlands, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, a coyote and I shared the trail for a moment. When I saw him, I froze. We exchanged glances, and he meandered away, seemingly uninterested, unafraid. I, on the other hand, felt threatened. As a result, I experienced a healthy stress response in my body, mind, emotions.

Body: My heart was pounding, my breath was shallow, legs were shaky. I felt as if the hair on my head and body were standing up. I froze, couldn’t move. (classic “freeze” of the fight, flight, freeze response of the sympathetic nervous system)

Thoughts: “I am going to be attacked. Who will find me?” (thoughts went off to “what if… “) 

Emotions: fear, anxiety, terror (I was so afraid! It just happened without any action on my part. My body reacted instantly.) 

The limbic area of my brain had detected threat (my fear of coyotes even though I’ve since learned that they are generally harmless to humans). That perceived threat activated the sympathetic nervous system, the body‘s stress response, setting in motion the secretion of cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress hormones.

As the coyote walked away, I took a few deeper breaths. My body normalized. The relaxation response kicked in, and thanks to the message in my brain that there was no threat, I became “unfrozen.” I slowly backed up a few steps. The coyote turned to look at me a couple of times, one of which I snapped this shot.

Stressors come in all shapes and sizes.

Stress can be an external stimulus, like a coyote, a traffic jam, the illness of a loved one, a looming deadline, an angry text, a difficult conversation, a look. Stressors can also be internal thoughts such as a self-critical voice or a memory of a difficult conversation. What causes stress for one person may be a welcome opportunity for another, e.g., public speaking.

Identifying your stressors can help you regulate your emotions. Consider these questions:

  1. What is a common (or recent) stressor in your life?
  2. Where do you feel the sensations in your body when faced with that stressor?
  3. What thoughts and emotions accompany the stressor(s)?
  4. How do you usually respond to the stressor? Does your response help or hurt the situation?

The situation, or stressor, may not change, but our response can. We can better regulate our response and our emotions. The more conscious we become of our personal stressors and their accompanying sensations in the body, mind, emotions, the more we can learn to respond to them skillfully. The stressor may remain, but it doesn’t have to derail you or the situation at hand.

So back to the coyote — since learning that they aren’t a threat to humans, the next time I see one, the stress response may not kick in. And if it does, I will probably recover more quickly with the help of deep breaths that will activate my parasympathetic nervous system and help calm my body.

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