Emotional Regulation Skills to Manage Covid-19 and Lockdown

 
 

Emotional regulation is a set of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skills that help you manage your emotions. These skills can be adapted in different circumstances.

This post is a step-by-step guide to demonstrate how you can make use of some of these skills to manage your emotions during Covid-19.

1.     Check in with yourself

It is important to be aware of your emotions.  Pay attention and notice how you are feeling.

 

2.     Name your emotions

Give your emotion a name if you can.  For example, sadness, anxiety, anger, frustration, sorrow, grief, fear, loneliness etc.

 

3.     Emotional Validation - be kind to yourself and your emotions

This is an important step of managing your emotions.  Once you are aware of your emotions, do not judge your emotions, or criticise yourself for feeling certain way.

Judging your emotions make you feel worse. 

For example, you may feel anxious about being anxious, or sad about being angry.  Judging your emotions intensifies your emotions. Emotions love emotions.

Remind yourself that “it is okay to feel this way”, “it is not wrong to feel this way”, or “the challenges that I’m going through are reasonable and understandable”.

 

4.     Identify what you can and cannot control

For what you can control – identify the issue, and an action plan.

Ask: What is effective for me to do right now? What is the smallest step that I can take?

For what you cannot control – this is usually the environment, the pandemic etc.

Reminder yourself to focus on the present moment, let go and accept just this moment / just today.  

Take it one step at a time.

 

5.     What can you do?

  • Identify meaningful activities

    This doesn’t have to be something intense, such as throwing yourself into a big project!  See if you can identify small things in your life that gives you meaning.  This can be a short-term goal or a long-term goal.  Or it can simply be small tasks such as texting a friend to check in on them, or pick up a skill.

  • Self-soothing activities

Make use of your five senses, that is sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste.  Do something that makes you feel good.  This can be drinking a cup of tea, having a warm bath, lighting a candle, putting on your perfume as home etc.  Let yourself keep an open mind, and be curious about how you feel afterwards.

Note: These skills do not replace therapy. Please seek support as necessary.

Yuedda SioDBT