Everyday life presents hundreds of emotion-provoking encounters, requiring some action.

When one’s emotional regulation fails, individuals do or say things they later regret and wish they had kept their emotion in check. Controlling one’s emotions is important in the way individuals run their lives.

The ability to manage one’s feelings is pivotal because emotions take their toll in many ways.

They have biological, social and psychological consequences.

For example, one may feel upset during a meeting, bang the tables in anger and trigger high blood pressure in the process.

The result could be death, stroke or strained personal relationship with others.

Certainly, most of the pains individuals experience may be caused or worsened by poor handling of their emotions. For example, when one is angry, muscles in the back of their neck and scalp tense up. This causes headache.

Over time, poor anger management damages body tissues such as blood vessels and the heart, causing deadly conditions.

This partly explains the origin of hypertension in individuals with poor anger management.

The key to keeping one’s immune system strong lies in how one deals with emotions. Consequently, one may become more susceptible to diseases when emotions overwhelm the body’s ability to fight off infections.

 Some have been jailed after taking the law into their own hands, wounding or killing others.

Ever looked at some terrible decisions others have made and wondered what they were thinking in the first place?

Actually their reasoning and thinking capacity may have been distorted out of anger. They may have acted on emotion, not logic.

When overwhelmed by emotions, one’s judgement may get clouded.

Ideally, the emotions a healthy individual should be a well-balanced emotions and logical. When emotions run high, logic dwindles.

The resultant irrational decisions may lead to suicide and other forms of self-destruction.

A story is told about a man who was upset by his extramarital sexual partner and angrily reported her to his wife.

Surely, there is no recorded benefit of poor emotion management. On the contrary, there are limitless regrettable consequences.

Studies show that individuals who effectively regulate their emotions are ever jovial with their lives.

It is said that those who can control their emotional reaction to disgusting situations are happiest in life and tend to have the highest disposable income and social status.

Clearly, excellent emotion regulation is closely related to social and financial success.

 The undesired impacts of poor emotion regulation can be prevented by harnessing skills that help keep one’s emotional system healthy and functioning.

The first step towards effective anger management is becoming a boss of your own emotions. This entails pausing between feelings and reactions.

Taking control of one’s emotions encourages individuals to slow down for a while and act objectively after evaluating a situation. Valuing engagement also helps a great deal. When one acts impulsively, less of what is happening inside is given attention.

This leads one to deviate from one’s core values or faith.

With self-regulation or moderation, one gains the power to stay calm under pressure and prevent oneself from acting against core value, ethics or faith.

Another vital skill is emotional support.

This entails building a robust emotional repertoire and not investing one’s mental energy in negativity.

Seek emotional support within oneself by practising self-awareness or seek help from positive communication with others.

The post Cost of uncurbed emotions appeared first on The Nation Online.