Seven Ways to Shift Your Difficult Emotions

A new book gives guidance on research-based ways to manage our emotions more effectively without suppressing them.

There are times when my emotions really get in my way. When I perform on stage, fear of failure makes my heart race and throat clench. Or when a friend says something hurtful to me, I can’t stop ruminating about it. Neuroscientist Ethan Kross’s new book, Shift, offers another way forward that’s both respectful of our emotions and helpful for managing them effectively. “The goal is not to run from negative emotions, or pursue only the feel-good ones, but to be able to shift: experience all of them, learn from them, and, when needed, move easily from one emotional state into another,” he writes.

Why we need emotional management skills

We all experience both positive and negative emotions that rise up in response to our experiences, and science is clear that these help us stay safe, healthy, and happy. For example, if we are out alone at night and hear a sudden noise, we’ll feel a rush of fear that focuses our attention and prepares us physically to respond to perceived danger.

But, while fear can be useful in dangerous situations, we can also overreact with too much fear—or not be able to recover from the emotion when it’s no longer needed. That’s why it’s important to find ways to be more emotionally nimble; honouring our feelings but not being thwarted by them.

Research finds that when people have good emotional skills, they enjoy more fulfilling relationships, do better at school and work, are physically and psychologically healthier, and find more life satisfaction, he writes. There’s another good reason to learn emotional management, according to Kross: Emotions are contagious, and they can spread to those around us. If we are more able to manage things like fear, sadness, and worry—and nurture feelings of happiness, excitement, or gratitude—we will affect people around us in positive ways.

Of course, no one can expect to feel good all of the time. Nor should we tamp down negative feelings indiscriminately using false positivity, he argues. It’s more about recognizing when we’re stuck (our emotions are too intense or lasting too long) and nudging ourselves in a different direction. 

How to shift our emotions

1. Harness your senses. We experience our world through our senses—touch, taste, sight, sound, and smell—and our emotions are deeply connected to our sensory experience, often below our conscious awareness. If we want to shift our emotions, we can deliberately add sensory experiences to shift us in a different direction.

For example, if we are feeling lonely or sad, and we feel stuck in that emotion, we can put on happy music, take time to smell a rose, walk on the beach barefoot, watch a beautiful sunset, or take a bite of a delicious treat. Since it’s easy to engage our senses without a lot of thought, it can be a very effective way to take us out of a sticky emotion.

“When we use the primitive pathways of sensation, we access a relatively effortless way to shift,” writes Kross.

2. Change your focus. While many experts say that it’s bad to turn away from our distressing feelings, Kross disagrees with this as an overarching principle. As long as you are not chronicallyavoiding difficult emotions, he argues, it can be good to take a break from them by focusing your attention elsewhere.

Most emotions are short-lived and fade with time, he argues, and don’t require us to hold on tightly to them. So, distancing ourselves can help us to avoid reacting to difficult feelings by doing something we’ll regret later—like sending a nasty email when we’re angry or bingeing on snack food when we’re bored. Being flexible about using distraction to lessen the intensity of our emotions and allow time to pass can be a good way to help regulate difficult feelings.

When might turning away not be healthy? If you always avoid feelings and don’t learn from them, says Kross. In that case, distraction is unlikely to do the trick. But if that’s not the case, then walking away from a conflict or picking up a juicy novel may do you more good than you think. It might help you to later approach tricky situations more calmly and have an easier time figuring out what to do next.

3. Alter your perspective. Reframing how you think about an upsetting experience can help you alter your perspective and tone down emotional reactivity. For example, if your wife shows up late to dinner and you feel angry about it, consider the possibility that her lateness isn’t about disrespecting you but is rather about being kept late by her boss. That will likely make you feel differently about the situation.

Though reframing is a very effective tool—and is often used in cognitive behavioural therapy, for example—it can take time and effort we may not readily have access to, says Kross.

“To reframe a situation, we often need to look at it from a different vantage point so we can shift our thoughts about it,” he writes. “The problem is, when we are washed over by negative feelings, we tend to narrowly focus on the problem at hand.”

Because of this, Kross suggests a shortcut for reframing: talking to yourself as if you were someone else. For example, if you’re nervous about an upcoming interview, you might tell yourself something like, “Hey, I know you’re worried, but it’s also an exciting opportunity for you. And, if you don’t get this job, no worries. Something better will come along.”

“Self-distancing” like this has been found to help people tone down problematic emotions in many situations, such as “when people are reflecting on past heartache or future worries and when they grapple with negative feelings in the heat of the moment after a date or big interview,” writes Kross.

4. Change your location. Our outer circumstances are constantly affecting our emotions, both directly and indirectly, writes Kross. Therefore, learning ways to change them deliberately can affect our emotional reactions in positive ways.

For example, if you are stressed about a work assignment and unable to focus, taking a short walk in the woods or in a quiet neighbourhood might calm you quickly, allowing you to think straight. Alternatively, you can add things to your space that soothe you, like a nice photo of a loved one or a beautiful flowering plant that sits on your desk.

If you have a chronic emotional issue that’s keeping you from reaching your goals, says Kross, you can ask yourself, “What [in your environment] is taxing you, draining you, tempting you, pulling you away from the things you want to do, the person you want to be?” Identifying these things can spark ideas of how to change it to better support you.

5. Reach out to the right people for guidance. We all need people in our lives to help us through hard times—someone to talk to who can make us feel better. But often, writes Kross, the people we choose to confide in add fuel to our emotional fire without offering perspective, which likely won’t shift us in the right direction.

“There are two key ways other people can help us when we go to them for emotional support: They can satisfy our core need for empathy and validation, on the one hand, and they can help us shift our perspective, on the other,” he writes. “We routinely balance this formula incorrectly, failing to strike a balance between these two critical elements.”

Kross says that identifying people in your life who provide you with the right blend of kind, empathic support and good advice is very helpful for managing difficult emotions. Of course, that’s what therapists are for; but if one isn’t available to you, then you can turn to a good friend or family member or anyone with those skills.

6. Find a culture that suits you. Our cultural backgrounds affect how we feel about our emotions and how we handle them, writes Kross. Whether we’re talking about a national culture or the culture of the groups to which we belong, we should be conscious of the messages we are receiving and whether or not they are helping us with our emotional lives.

In some cases, it might be good to find a culture that will support your own emotional needs—whether that’s a religious group, a sports team, a therapy group, or something else. Only you can decide what you need, though, and it may take some reflection and trial and error to figure that out.

7. Practice helps. Sometimes when we are overwrought, it may be hard to reach for these tools easily. That’s why Kross encourages people to practice the techniques in less emotionally charged situations, to see how they work for you. He also offers tips on what to do if you feel stuck or something isn’t working well.

His goal isn’t to provide a one-size-fits-all or to eliminate all negative emotion from your life, but to help you find the right tools to nudge yourself emotionally when that’s what you need. Learning to manage your emotions better will not only improve your own well-being and success in life, it will also help those around you.

“How we handle [our emotions] shapes everything from the unfolding of a single day in our own individual lives, to our children’s emotional world, to our workplaces and communities, to political conflicts that unfold around the globe,” he writes. “It’s for these reasons that I genuinely believe that understanding how to manage our emotions is one of the greatest challenges we face.”

By Jill Suttie | February 4, 2025

Greater Good Magazine; science based insights for a meaningful life

By Aundraea Stevens

Convenor of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Committee