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Wellbeing Lothian NHS Lothian | Our Services
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Managing Emotions

Emotions are a normal part of life and everyone experiences them. Sometimes people can experience particularly strong or painful emotions that are difficult to cope with. The resulting distress can be very intense and can make it difficult for people to manage themselves, or the situation they’re in. In fact, feeling very distressed can make people react in ways that can make the situation worse. If you’re not managing your emotions well, you may find yourself lashing out, isolating yourself or using substances such as drugs or alcohol to cope. Difficulties in managing emotions can be associated with other mental health problems, or they can be problems in their own right.
Managing Emotions is associated with:
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Learn

Tell me more
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Daylight

Daylight is your expert guide through worry and anxiety, whenever and wherever you need it.

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Managing Emotions

Emotions are a normal and healthy part of your internal world. They are internal feelings and reactions that you experience in relation to things that happen to or around you. It’s normal to struggle with your emotions at times and everyone has this experience. However, if you have difficulties managing your emotions for a long period of time, it can lead to mental health problems.

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Coping with Changes

We all experience changes in our lives. Learn about how change can affect our wellbeing.

Self-Assess

Tools for self-assessing

Are you struggling to manage your emotions?

People who struggle to manage their emotions have feelings that are so extreme or intense that they get in the way of their every-day life. Here are some of the more common experiences:

How your body might feel:

  • You might experience an adrenaline rush (fired up, tense, energised, shaking, sweating, breathing, fast heart rate, difficulty concentrating).
  • You might feel slowed down (tired, lethargic, loss of interest and appetite, restlessness, feeling physically ‘numb’ or ‘not with it’).

Thoughts you might have:

  • You might overestimate the possibility of danger, whilst underestimating your ability to cope
  • You might assume the worst or that the problem is enormous
  • You might assume that other people are unfair or intentionally trying to hurt you
  • You might view things in ‘all-or-nothing’ terms or think that everything is hopeless

Feelings you might have:

  • Extreme panic or fear
  • Extreme anger, rage or fury
  • Extreme hopelessness, despair or dismay

Things you might do:

  • Run away, escape or avoid what’s happening
  • Fight, shout, argue, smash things
  • Withdraw, isolate yourself or ‘numb out’ to what’s happening
  • Use drugs, alcohol or other substances to control how you feel

If any of these sound familiar,  you can find out more about emotional difficulties in the ‘Learn’ section above. You’ll also find some helpful tips and advice on managing your emotions in the ‘Manage’ section below.

Manage

Ways to manage
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Ways to Help Manage Your Emotions

There are lots of things you can do to help manage your emotions. Here are some handy tips and resources that may help if you are struggling in this area.

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Emotional Regulation Skills

This information sheet provides some quick, practical strategies for managing distressing emotions in the moment.

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Emotional Regulation: Managing Emotions

Emotions are a big part of life for us all. In any day we can experience many different emotions that come with their highs and lows. Some of these are easy to deal with, while others are more intense and difficult to manage. It’s normal to struggle with your emotions at times, and everyone has this experience. However, if you have difficulties managing your emotions for a long period of time, it can lead to mental health problems.

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Dealing with Distress

This leaflet aims to suggest introductions to alternative, healthier ways of coping, but like with anything else in real life, it’s not easy or a quick fix – it has to be worked consistently hard at, and the only certainty is that it takes a lot of practice, practice, practice!

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Tips on Managing Change in Our Lives

We all have to cope and manage with change in our lives for lots of reasons. Here are some tips and thoughts on navigating through a period of change.

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Relaxation

If you feel tense a lot of the time, you can try learning some relaxation skills, as these should be helpful.

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Computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – CBT – is a psychological therapy based on the relationships between what we think, what we do and how we feel. CBT teaches you how to recognise and tackle problems in the here and now, rather than in the past.

Support

Local support and resources

With support from the people in your life and maybe with a little help from other sources like the ideas on this website, you’ll most likely find ways that help you manage distressing emotions.  However, if you have concerns about your mental health more generally and think you may need further support, please speak to your GP in the first instance.

Here are some other sources of support you might want to consider: 

  • Living Life offers a range of structured psychological interventions and therapies to improve mental health and wellbeing. This service is appointment-based and specifically for low mood, or mild/moderate depression or anxiety. Living Life are open Monday to Friday, from 1pm to 9pm, and you can phone them on 0800 328 9655 for an assessment appointment.
  • Computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (cCBT) is a highly effective treatment for people with mild-to-moderate mental health difficulties. There are several online user-friendly programmes that NHS Lothian can provide access to. To find out more, speak to your GP, or visit the cCBT section on this website.

The Lothian Health and Social Care Partnership websites are also a good place to look for locally available support:

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The Wellbeing Lothian website has been developed to provide information, self-help resources and links to help you manage your mental health and wellbeing.

We want to help you make changes in your own lives and point you in a direction to start doing so. This is Wellbeing Lothian’s aim.

Learn More about Wellbeing Lothian

This website is not intended in any way to replace the advice of a clinician. Specific advice should be sought in specific situations from a properly qualified health worker.

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If you have any questions about our website or are having difficulty finding something in particular,  please fill in a few details below and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

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