Calming strong emotions in the moment

When panic, rage or hurt hits, your thinking brain gets crowded out. These evidence-based tools help you get back in control in minutes, so you can choose what to do next.

Step 1: pause before you act

• Strong emotions create an urge to act now: send the message, shout, quit. Your first job is to create a gap between the feeling and the action.
• The NHS suggests giving yourself time to think before reacting, for example by counting to 10.
• Physically step away if you can: go to the bathroom, get a glass of water or walk outside for a few minutes. Mind suggests asking for a short break if needed.
• Use a ready phrase: 'I need a few minutes, I'll come back to this.' It works with parents, friends, teachers and colleagues.

Step 2: slow your breathing

• NHS method: sit or lie comfortably, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, breathe in steadily counting 1 to 5, then out counting 1 to 5, and repeat for at least 5 minutes.
• Cyclic sighing: breathe in through your nose, take a second, deeper breath to fill your lungs fully, then breathe out slowly through your mouth until the air is gone. Repeat for about 5 minutes.
• In a 2023 Stanford trial with 111 healthy volunteers practising 5 minutes a day for a month, all breathing groups reported less anxiety and negative mood, and cyclic sighing produced the largest daily gain in positive feelings.
• A simple rule from Mind: breathe out for longer than you breathe in.
• The NHS says you get the most benefit by practising regularly, not just in a crisis, so the skill is ready when you need it.

Step 3: name it

• Say or write the precise feeling: 'I'm humiliated', 'I'm panicking about the deadline'. Labelling an emotion has been linked to reduced activity in the brain's alarm system (see the lesson on naming emotions).
• Add a rating from 0 to 10. Seeing it drop from 8 to 5 after breathing shows you that feelings pass.
• Notice where you feel it in your body, such as a clenched jaw or tight chest. This helps you spot the same feeling earlier next time.

Step 4: reframe the thought

• Reappraisal means changing how you interpret a situation so its emotional impact changes. Suppression means hiding your feelings on the outside while they continue inside.
• In Gross and John's 2003 studies, people who habitually reappraised felt more positive and less negative emotion, got on better with others and had better wellbeing. Habitual suppressors felt more negative emotion and reported less social support.
• Those studies were correlational and mostly with university students, so they show a link, not proof that reappraisal causes the benefits.
• Use the NHS 'catch it, check it, change it' method. Catch: notice the thought ('I'm going to fail everything'). Check: what is the evidence, what would I tell a friend? Change: 'I'm behind in one subject, and I can ask for help this week.'
• Watch for unhelpful thinking styles the NHS lists: expecting the worst, filtering out the positive, black-and-white thinking and self-blame.

Step 5: choose your response

• Once calmer, ask: what do I actually want to happen here, and what action makes that more likely?
• Sometimes the best action is to solve the problem (email the teacher). Sometimes it is to accept what you cannot change and look after yourself.
• Online, Mind suggests waiting, perhaps half an hour or until the next day, before replying to something that upset you, and asking whether you could regret the message later.