Hack Your Emotions

Summary

The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos

Episode: Hack Your Emotions
Release Date: January 20, 2025
Host/Author: Pushkin Industries

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Introduction

In the episode titled "Hack Your Emotions," Dr. Laurie Santos delves into the intricate science of emotion regulation, exploring how individuals can effectively manage and harness their emotions to lead happier, more fulfilling lives. Joining her is psychologist Ethan Kross, a leading expert in the field, who shares profound insights and practical strategies rooted in scientific research.

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Emotion Regulation: The Basics

Dr. Laurie Santos opens the discussion by highlighting the universal challenge of managing negative emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, and overwhelm. She emphasizes that while these emotions are inherent to the human experience, they can significantly impact our energy, performance, and overall well-being.

"Negative Emotions Feelings like fear, anger, sadness, and overwhelm are just part of being human. But that doesn't make them any easier to manage."
— Dr. Laurie Santos [01:58]

Santos introduces the concept that with the right strategies, individuals can not only manage these tough emotions but also leverage them to their advantage.

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Guest Introduction: Ethan Kross and His Work

Ethan Kross, the founder of the Emotion and Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan and author of "Managing Your Emotions So They Don't Manage You," joins the conversation. Kross shares his personal journey and the inspiration behind his focus on emotion regulation.

"I don't have to be at the mercy of our big feelings. Research shows that with the right strategies, we can not only manage tough emotions effectively, but also use them to our advantage."
— Ethan Kross [02:43]

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The Influence of Family Stories on Emotion Regulation

Kross recounts the profound influence of his grandmother’s experiences during World War II on his research interests. Her resilience and the emotional suppression she practiced inspired him to explore how individuals can regulate their emotions without being overwhelmed.

"I ended up devoting my career to doing exactly what she told me not to do, which is asking, why?"
— Ethan Kross [04:37]

This personal narrative sets the stage for understanding the depth and practicality of emotion regulation techniques.

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Historical Approaches to Managing Emotions

Kross and Santos explore the historical methods humanity has employed to regulate emotions, some of which are quite extreme and outdated. From exorcisms and bloodletting to the controversial frontal lobotomy, these methods reflect our long-standing struggle to control emotional states.

"The first surgical technique we believed was developed for emotion regulation was drilling holes in people's heads... a way to manage extreme emotions."
— Ethan Kross [08:29]

They also touch upon cultural practices, such as the emotional narratives in the Bible, illustrating how emotion regulation has been a constant human endeavor.

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Sensory Tools for Emotion Regulation

A significant portion of the episode focuses on how sensory stimuli can be powerful tools for altering emotional states. Kross emphasizes the role of music, touch, and environmental changes in managing emotions.

Music as an Emotion Regulator

Kross shares a personal anecdote about using the song "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey to uplift his daughter’s mood during a soccer game.

"Don't Stop Believin' comes on the radio, and I start singing along. I notice she's beginning to jam out too. It completely shifts her mood."
— Ethan Kross [14:37]

Touch and Self-Soothing

They discuss the importance of physical touch, both from others and self-administered, as a means to regulate emotions.

"Affectionate but not creepy touch, like a fist bump, activates an emotional response."
— Ethan Kross [21:56]

Environmental Modifications

Changing one's physical space can also have a profound impact on emotional well-being. Santos shares how moving to a different apartment alleviated her burnout symptoms, demonstrating the power of changing one's environment.

"I moved from my huge house into a smaller apartment, and within weeks, I felt completely better."
— Dr. Laurie Santos [36:05]

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Attention Management: Distraction and Processing

Kross and Santos explore how managing attention through strategies like distraction can aid in emotion regulation. Contrary to popular belief, healthy distraction can provide the necessary space to process emotions more effectively.

"Distraction, when done positively, can give you some space from the experience to re-approach it with a healthier perspective."
— Ethan Kross [26:59]

Examples include engaging in cognitively demanding tasks like solving puzzles or going for a run, which help divert focus from overwhelming emotions.

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Perspective Shifting: Linguistic Tools and Mental Time Travel

Shifting perspective is another vital strategy discussed. Kross introduces linguistic tools such as referring to oneself in the third person to gain emotional distance and employing mental time travel to envision future emotional states or draw strength from past experiences.

"Using your own name and 'you' can be a useful tool for allowing yourself to view your problems as if advising someone else."
— Ethan Kross [31:57]

"Mental time travel helps you realize that emotions like sadness are temporary and will fade over time."
— Ethan Kross [33:01]

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Physical Space as an Emotion Regulator

Changing physical surroundings serves as a macro-level tool for emotion regulation. Santos shares her experience of moving to a different city to escape burnout, highlighting how altering one's environment can reset emotional states.

"Changing your space can help manage your emotions without having to actively do anything; simply being in a positive space can have a restorative effect."
— Ethan Kross [40:02]

They also discuss practical ways to modify immediate environments, such as adding pictures of loved ones or incorporating plants to create calming spaces.

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Emotional Contagion and the Role of Relationships

The episode concludes with an exploration of emotional contagion—the phenomenon where emotions spread among individuals within a group. Kross explains how leaders and individuals can influence group emotions positively or negatively through their own emotional expressions.

"A smiling leader can create a positive, energetic group, while a frowning leader can dampen the entire team's spirit."
— Ethan Kross [43:05]

Santos emphasizes the importance of surrounding oneself with positive influences to foster a supportive emotional environment.

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Practical Takeaways and Recap

In the closing segment, Dr. Laurie Santos recaps the essential strategies discussed:

1. Prepare a Big Emotions Playlist: Use uplifting music to shift your mood.

   "If you're scared or sad, dispel that mood by hitting play on some feel-good music."
   — Dr. Laurie Santos [49:09]

2. Divert Your Attention: Engage in activities that capture your focus to distract from overwhelming emotions.

   "Try going for a run or solving a Wordle puzzle."
   — Dr. Laurie Santos [49:09]

3. Take a Step Back and Gain Perspective: View your problems as an outsider would to reduce emotional intensity.

   "Ask yourself what a coach or mentor would advise you to do."
   — Dr. Laurie Santos [49:09]

4. Get Physical Distance: Remove yourself from stressful environments to reset your emotional state.

   "Escaping a stressful environment can work wonders."
   — Dr. Laurie Santos [49:09]

5. Surround Yourself with Positive People: Foster relationships that uplift and support your emotional well-being.

   "Take a break from friends or coworkers who are spiking your negative emotions."
   — Dr. Laurie Santos [49:09]

Santos concludes by reinforcing the idea that emotions are functional signals meant to guide action, and understanding how to manage them can lead to a more balanced and fulfilling life.

"Remember that your emotions are functional. Once they've done their job, it's time for them to move on."
— Dr. Laurie Santos [49:09]

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Conclusion

"Hack Your Emotions" provides listeners with a comprehensive toolkit for emotion regulation, blending scientific research with practical applications. Through insightful discussions with Ethan Kross, Dr. Laurie Santos equips her audience with actionable strategies to navigate and master their emotional landscapes, ultimately fostering greater happiness and resilience.

Transcript

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Negative Emotions Feelings like fear, anger, sadness, and overwhelmare just part of being human. But that doesn't make them any easier to manage. Whether it's the sense of dread we get before a challenging task or the frustration of dealing with unmet expectations, our big feelings can drain our energy, mess up our performance, and make us feel like crap. The good news is that we don't have to be at the mercy of our big feelings. Research shows that with the right strategies, we can not only manage tough emotions effectively, but also use them to our advantage, no matter what life throws our way. So in today's episode of the Happiness Labs how to Season, we will dive into the science of emotion regulation. And to help us, we have one of my favorite experts on the topic. Here to teach you how to shift your emotions is my friend, psychologist Ethan Cross.

[Ethan Kross]

Great to see you guys. Let me put on some background here.

[Co-host]

No, no, you're good.

What do you think?

[Ethan Kross]

I'm just going to blur it here.

[Co-host]

Yeah, blur is fine.

[Ethan Kross]

Okay.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Ethan founded the Emotion and Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan, and his this book tackles the topic of dealing with big feelings head on. It's called managing your emotions so they don't manage you. We'll get to Ethan's specific tips in a moment, but I wanted to begin with how Ethan got interested in emotion regulation in the first place. Ethan credits a lot of his interest in the topic to his grandmother.

[Ethan Kross]

Well, my grandmother had this remarkable story.

[Co-host]

So she was growing up in Poland around the time of World War II.

[Ethan Kross]

And when it hit, she basically lost everything. So her family was, for the most part, slaughtered.

[Co-host]

She ended up living in the forest.

[Ethan Kross]

For quite a while, bouncing around from.

[Co-host]

One ghetto to the next.

[Ethan Kross]

And she ultimately survived, moved over to.

[Co-host]

The States with nothing.

[Ethan Kross]

This kind of classic immigrant story.

[Co-host]

And I remember as a kid just being totally fascinated about her experience, as.

[Ethan Kross]

I think so many of us are when we're little. We want to just know about where we come from, where the people we love come from.

[Co-host]

And so I would ask her repeatedly.

[Ethan Kross]

Like, bubby, what happened back then? Like, how did.

[Co-host]

How did you feel and how did you survive? And she would not engage with me on those topics.

[Ethan Kross]

You know, there's this great quote that she once said which was, like, don't ask why. Why is a crooked letter, which is actually a really interesting phrase that makes you think.

[Co-host]

Or it didn't mean, like, what does that mean?

[Ethan Kross]

Well, what she meant was, you know, asking why is just a source of.

[Co-host]

Pain, so just don't go there.

[Ethan Kross]

And it was interesting that she had mastered that command of. Of English language, because if you spoke to her, she spoke terrible English. She had, like, you know, very accented and never quite really learned how to.

[Co-host]

Speak fluently, but she had mastered that. That little bit.

[Ethan Kross]

Of course, I proceeded to not listen to her, and I ended up devoting my career to doing exactly what she told me not to do, which asking, why?

[Co-host]

About our emotional lives. Why do we have the emotions we do?

[Ethan Kross]

And when we find them getting tweaked in ways that we don't want them to be tweaked, they get activated too.

[Co-host]

Intensely or for too long. What can we do to rein them in? And so I do attribute a lot of where I am today to those.

[Ethan Kross]

Early experiences with my grandmother, who, for.

[Co-host]

The record, aside from not talking to.

[Ethan Kross]

Me about the pain of the war.

[Co-host]

Was an incredibly emotive and warm individual.

[Ethan Kross]

So just to put that out there.

[Co-host]

She was capable of experiencing emotion, and she did.

[Ethan Kross]

She just didn't really like to talk about it too much.

[Co-host]

It also seems like she was really not interested in talking about the negative emotions. What are some of the negative emotions you expected she experienced, but you didn't.

[Ethan Kross]

Hear her talking about terror, fear, anxiety? You know, I did discover later on.

[Co-host]

In her life, she did recount her.

[Ethan Kross]

Experiences for a project at the United States Holocaust Museum, which is where I.

[Co-host]

Learned a lot about her story.

[Ethan Kross]

And I also heard about her stories.

[Co-host]

Once a year, she would allow herself.

[Ethan Kross]

To go back to what happened. There's, like, a grassroots organization of survivors.

[Co-host]

From the town and the towns nearby.

[Ethan Kross]

Where she grew up, and they get together and they just talk about what happened.

[Co-host]

And I remember learning about an experience.

[Ethan Kross]

Where several of her immediate family members were killed, but her dad and her had made it. And they're in this small ghetto, and her dad says, they're coming. They're coming to kill us.

[Co-host]

Hide. She hid somewhere in the apartment. I can't remember where.

[Ethan Kross]

And then her dad left, and then he just never came back. So when I think about that, or.

[Co-host]

When I think about her experience standing.

[Ethan Kross]

On a line, knowing that she would be taken to be killed, and if it wasn't for my grandfather essentially convincing the police officer to look the other.

[Co-host]

Way while she ran away, like, I.

[Ethan Kross]

Think to myself, how would I feel in that situation? And it's terror, it is anxiety, it.

[Co-host]

Is dismay, this complex cocktail of negative emotions.

[Ethan Kross]

And so, you know, I guess in retrospect, it made a lot of sense why she didn't really want to talk.

[Co-host]

To me about that stuff.

[Ethan Kross]

These are not pleasant states to be in. But, you know, Laurie, the thing is.

[Co-host]

In my mind, my grandmother was superwoman.

[Ethan Kross]

For not only being able to survive those experiences, but for then, arguably by.

[Co-host]

Many metrics of success, being able to.

[Ethan Kross]

Thrive, moving over here, living the dream, working super hard, eventually buying her own home, restarting her family. And it was really that story that captivated me from a young age.

[Co-host]

And in your book, you talk about how we've wanted to figure out ways to regulate our emotions, especially our negative emotions, for a long time. And I didn't know the history of some of the kookier ways that people. People went about this. So share some of these kind of strange, like, historic ways that we've tried to regulate our emotions.

[Ethan Kross]

So the best way I can convey my experience reading up on the history.

[Co-host]

Of emotions and emotion regulations is to.

[Ethan Kross]

Use the phrase blew my mind. It's just remarkable. So we have likely been struggling with.

[Co-host]

Our ability to manage our emotions for as long as we have been roaming the planet.

[Ethan Kross]

Why do I say that? Well, if you look at some of.

[Co-host]

The earliest writings Ever discovered writing on clay tablets. These were writings that talked about the pain of emotion, of being rejected, the pain of a broken heart and how that was managed. The first surgical technique, the first technique that we believed was developed for surgical technique was drilling holes in people's heads. And there are likely many reasons that it was believed to be used, but.

[Ethan Kross]

One of them, according to medical historians.

[Co-host]

Is to help people manage extreme emotions, dysregulated states. And like, you know, if you think.

[Ethan Kross]

Back 8 to 10,000 years ago, when.

[Co-host]

That first came on the scene, you.

[Ethan Kross]

Have this instance of people, people being consumed with emotion. And what do we got to do? Well, our theory about what may have been driving that was there were some evil spirits in there, so you gotta.

[Co-host]

You gotta purge yourself of those. And that kind of purging mentality existed for quite some time.

[Ethan Kross]

Exorcisms, leeches, bloodletting.

[Co-host]

But then if we fast forward to the 1940s, there's another giant spike on the emotion regulation timeline. A Portuguese physician wins the Nobel prize.

[Ethan Kross]

For what I would describe as an emotion regulation intervention. That is right.

[Co-host]

Someone has won the Nobel prize for emotion regulation intervention. What was it called? The leucotomy, or in modern terms, the frontal lobotomy.

[Ethan Kross]

So flip back the eyelid, poke a.

[Co-host]

Few holes in your frontal cortex, and.

[Ethan Kross]

Turn the volume down on how we are feeling.

[Co-host]

Nobel prize.

[Ethan Kross]

But, you know, one other really fun kind of historical fact that I forgot to put in there is if you go to the bestselling book of all.

[Co-host]

Time by a wide margin.

[Ethan Kross]

Let's tell everyone. What is the bestselling book of all time?

[Co-host]

The Bible.

[Ethan Kross]

No, you got it.

[Co-host]

The Bible. I feel like I'm on Jeopardy. I was like, I think it's the Bible.

[Ethan Kross]

But, yeah, Bible has sold many, many copies.

[Co-host]

What is one of the most famous stories from the Bible? It is the story of Adam and Eve. This is a story about emotion regulation or the failure to regulate emotions.

[Ethan Kross]

So we've been struggling with this stuff.

[Co-host]

For a really long time.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

And I get it.

[Co-host]

I mean, there have been times when if I knew it was medically reasonable to drill a hole in my head and I would stop ruminating or being sad or kind of, especially after, like, breakups and things like that, like, I would have gone for it, you know.

You know, the pain is real. And if you look at the statistics, they're shocking. You know this, Lori better than most.

[Ethan Kross]

And folks who are listening to the.

[Co-host]

Podcast are no doubt familiar with these statistics too.

[Ethan Kross]

But the wellness industry, by some estimates.

[Co-host]

Is a trillion dollar industry.

[Ethan Kross]

You see increasing amounts of resources being.

[Co-host]

Devoted to helping people with mental health with well being writ large.

[Ethan Kross]

Culturally. I think we are now at an.

[Co-host]

Inflection point where we really recognize the.

[Ethan Kross]

Role that our emotions are playing in.

[Co-host]

Our lives and understand the need to manage them.

[Ethan Kross]

So here's the really good news. What fills me with hope is that we have learned a lot about how.

[Co-host]

We can manage our emotions without having.

[Ethan Kross]

To take these extreme steps of damaging our brains. Which, to be clear, I think I.

[Co-host]

Could speak for you, Laurie.

[Ethan Kross]

I'm saying we do not endorse that on this podcast.

[Co-host]

We're not endorsing brain holes. No.

[Ethan Kross]

Yes.

[Co-host]

No brain holes.

[Ethan Kross]

No.

[Co-host]

No holes.

[Ethan Kross]

Like, let's just leave the holes out of the equation. Like, we've got, we've got a fantastic.

[Co-host]

Array of non invasive tools that we can use if we know what those tools are and how they work. This is not to say we know.

[Ethan Kross]

Everything about emotion regulation.

[Co-host]

We have a lot to learn. That's exciting. But we have learned quite a bit.

[Ethan Kross]

And what also, to use my favorite.

[Co-host]

Phrase, blows my mind, is if you ask most people, hey, were you ever.

[Ethan Kross]

Taught these tools growing up?

[Co-host]

By far and away, the majority will say no. If I ask an audience, hey, when is the first time you learned, like.

[Ethan Kross]

How to exercise physically?

[Co-host]

Most people will say, probably like first or second grade. We have gym class. Yeah. Jumping jacks, push ups.

[Ethan Kross]

You know how to do those? We may not like to do it.

[Co-host]

But we know what to do. Okay, when is the first time you learned how to manage, like formally learned.

[Ethan Kross]

How to manage your emotions? Most people will say never.

[Co-host]

And that to me is a travesty. And I think it's something that we.

[Ethan Kross]

Have the opportunity to address by, you know, quite frankly, what, what you're doing on this podcast, which is to take.

[Co-host]

Science and to share it with folks.

[Ethan Kross]

In ways that can benefit them.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I still find it amazing that we teach physical education and even driver's ed to our young people, but we don't always give them the tools they need to cope with their big feelings. It's time for a short break, but Ethan will soon be back to share the first of his evidence based how to tips for regulating big feelings. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Big emotions often feel pretty out of control. When feelings like fear overwhelm and anger kick in, they often feel like they're here to stay. But psychologist Ethan Cross, author of Managing your emotions so they don't manage you argues that there are lots of ways to get big feelings under control. And his first tip for doing so is to find the right outside sensory stimulus. A hug from a friend, hearing a kind word, or maybe even sipping a warm drink. Research shows that using our senses can be a great way to break out of big feelings. In fact, Ethan has a particularly good example of his own emotions being altered by a cheesy song, or let me rephrase, by a stone cold rock classic.

[Ethan Kross]

So Journey Don't Stop Believing.

[Co-host]

I will admit, huge fan.

[Ethan Kross]

It's one of my go to feel good pump up songs.

[Co-host]

If we go back in time about.

[Ethan Kross]

Five or so years, I was coaching.

[Co-host]

My daughter's soccer team on the weekends. She was around 5 or 6.

[Ethan Kross]

And I love, love, love coaching kids soccer. Not because I'm particularly good at it. It's also I'm not getting super immersed. It just, it's just a fun contrast to everything else I do. And so I would look forward to these games with her on the weekend throughout the week. And normally she was just a ball of excitement and ready to go. But there was this one day that really sticks out in my memory where she was just really bumming me out.

[Co-host]

She was super glum.

[Ethan Kross]

She like, it was like I was.

[Co-host]

Pulling her to get into the car to go. She did not want to be there.

[Ethan Kross]

And you know, I start driving, look.

[Co-host]

In the rear view mirror, her head's.

[Ethan Kross]

Kind of like draped over her shoulder, no smile. And then all of a sudden don't stop believing comes on the radio and I'm instantly kind of getting a little bit more excited. And then I start audibly, you know, kind of humming and singing along and turn the volume up a little bit. And then I look in the back seat and I notice that she's Beginning to jam out also. And she's bopping her head and she's kind of humming along. You know, fast forward about seven minutes. We get to the park, and before.

[Co-host]

I can even park the car, she.

[Ethan Kross]

Like just opens the door, bolts out of the car, and scores what I remember to be 7,000 goals that game.

[Co-host]

Not true, but it was really in.

[Ethan Kross]

Many ways that experience with my daughter.

[Co-host]

And Jody, a light bulb went off. From that point on when I would.

[Ethan Kross]

Look at my dashboard and see the, you know, the music console, I no longer just saw an LED dashboard. I now saw an emotion regulation device.

[Co-host]

This is such an important idea because I also use music without realizing it to regulate my emotions all the time. But I think this is a spot where I kind of mess up, right? Because unlike you, who had this moment where your daughter is feeling glum and you put on Don't Stop believing, which is like the most happy pump up, get out dancing and go to your soccer match, elated song ever. When I'm feeling kind of glum, I don't gravitate towards the journey, or I gravitate towards journey, but different journey songs. That kind of sad, you know, Chicago. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's like the whiny, you know, love bites kinds of songs. Right. And so what am I doing wrong there? Because I'm using music to kind of move my erosions around, but it seems like it's not shifting.

[Ethan Kross]

Well, I wouldn't say you're doing something wrong unless it's counter to your goals. And let me unpack that for a second. So one really important message I hope to convey in this book is that.

[Co-host]

All of our emotions are functional when they are experienced in the right proportions, not too intense or not too long.

[Ethan Kross]

What do I mean by that?

[Co-host]

How could anger or sadness or envy ever be useful? Well, if you look at what those.

[Ethan Kross]

Emotions are doing, they're often being triggered.

[Co-host]

In particular situations where the way they.

[Ethan Kross]

Are motivating you to think, feel, and behave can actually be adaptive.

[Co-host]

So let's take sadness as an example.

[Ethan Kross]

Because you brought up the kind of.

[Co-host]

Chicago Adele genre of songs. We typically experience sadness when we experience.

[Ethan Kross]

Some loss that we cannot regain. So the loss of a loved one, we don't get a job, we can't ever get it. And in that circumstance, when we feel.

[Co-host]

This emotion, what research shows, it motivates us to do it, it slows us down physiologically. It leads us to turn our attention inward to introspect, to try to make sense of the situation. There is a need for meaning Making.

[Ethan Kross]

Often when you experience sadness, well, the.

[Co-host]

World is no longer the way I.

[Ethan Kross]

Expected it to be or have experienced it. I gotta like reconfigure how I make.

[Co-host]

Sense of this world now. So let me take some time by myself to engage in that reflective process.

[Ethan Kross]

But because going off in the corner by myself may be a little dangerous, right? We don't want to leave people totally alone.

[Co-host]

We have evolved to send warning signs to other folks to let them know that we're experiencing sadness and might need.

[Ethan Kross]

A little help, which is often a sad expression. When you see a sad expression on someone else's face, you mimic them.

[Co-host]

My kids, by the way, have mastered this.

[Ethan Kross]

I can be like really appropriately upset for some negative behavior and they do this exaggerated stick out the lower lip and it is so powerful, it gets me every time. In any case, I digress.

[Co-host]

So, so sadness can be functional. It can help us think through some problems. So your intuition to like listen to journey, that is a way of you.

[Ethan Kross]

Going deeper into that potentially sad state.

[Co-host]

To facilitate that introspective meaning making process.

[Ethan Kross]

Here's the big but that I want to convey though, and I think it's.

[Co-host]

Where you originally were going. If you are feeling sad and you don't want to feel sad, don't listen.

[Ethan Kross]

To sad music, then what you want to do is you want to resist.

[Co-host]

That urge to, to listen to the.

[Ethan Kross]

Music that is congruent. So we're talking about this emotional congruency effect and you want to go in the other direction. So this is what I do strategically. If I've got like a high stakes presentation coming up and I have a.

[Co-host]

I have some jitters, right?

[Ethan Kross]

I'm not going to listen to music that just amplifies that and say I'm going the journey route, right?

[Co-host]

I'm going to other terribly, terribly cheesy bump up music.

[Ethan Kross]

Living on a Prayer being another great example with a little bit of Metallica Enter the Sandman mixed in, right?

[Co-host]

Like this is a way in which I'm strategically harnessing my senses to push.

[Ethan Kross]

My emotions on a different trajectory.

[Co-host]

And the senses should not be underestimated as a tool that could be strategically.

[Ethan Kross]

Used to do that. Because we know that the links between.

[Co-host]

Sensation and emotional experience, these are very strong links that exist in our brains.

[Ethan Kross]

And so if you are aware of how your senses could affect you, this.

[Co-host]

Opens up the door to all manner.

[Ethan Kross]

Of tools that you can recruit to help you out.

[Co-host]

And one of the reasons I loved reading your book is that of course I've known about the music Example, maybe not for shifting in the right direction, but I knew that that was a powerful sensory tool I could use. Your book really reminded me there are lots of sensory tools you can use. Right. I can use touch of like a comfy blanket. Right. I could use just the visuals, like turning the light on more to kind of wake myself, myself up more. There's just so many different kinds of sensory experiences you can use to shift your emotions around. I kind of remembered Audition, but I kind of forgotten about some of the other ones.

[Ethan Kross]

Yeah, I mean, this, this was my experience too. In fact, one of my graduate students.

[Co-host]

Michaela Rodriguez, we actually wrote a paper after I dug into this literature, I'm.

[Ethan Kross]

Like, why aren't we talking about our senses more? So we wrote this paper called Sensory.

[Co-host]

Emotion Regulation, in which we looked at.

[Ethan Kross]

Each of the major senses, and all.

[Co-host]

Of them have this capacity to relatively effortlessly shift our emotions. And I think the effort piece is.

[Ethan Kross]

An important one to put on people's radar. I talk about a ton of different.

[Co-host]

Tools in shift from pushing our emotions around. Some of them are quite effortful. They take resources for us to implement these tools.

[Ethan Kross]

And there's nothing wrong with that. There's a time and place for that.

[Co-host]

But what we know about all of us human beings is that in general.

[Ethan Kross]

If we don't have to exert effort.

[Co-host]

We'Re not going to do it. We tend to be a lazy species.

[Ethan Kross]

In that regard because we're trying to conserve our resources. Our senses push our emotions around really, really fast. And so touch is another great example.

[Co-host]

That I like to remind folks about.

[Ethan Kross]

I call this tool affectionate but not creepy touch, because you have to be.

[Co-host]

Careful about how you wield that tool.

[Ethan Kross]

But, you know, like a fist bump.

[Co-host]

At work, that's a tactile exchange that.

[Ethan Kross]

Activates an emotional response. Right?

[Co-host]

Like, what is the first tool we use with kids when they are born into this world to soothe them, to regulate them?

[Ethan Kross]

It is skin to skin contact. Those kinds of tactile experiences, they stay.

[Co-host]

With us throughout our lives.

[Ethan Kross]

The caveat, of course, is research does show that if a tactile experience is.

[Co-host]

Not wanted, which would be the creepy form of touch, it not only mitigates.

[Ethan Kross]

Positive effects, it actually can elicit a negative reaction.

[Co-host]

So to be clear to everyone who's.

[Ethan Kross]

Listening, Laurie and Ethan and I think I can say this for you, Laurie, we are not advocating haphazardly touching people.

[Co-host]

At work and in your lives.

[Ethan Kross]

In the appropriate context, though, this can be powerful.

[Co-host]

And I think we can just use forms of self touch that feel really good. Right. Reading your book, I was reminded there's this blanket that just feels really cozy. And when I'm having a bad day, I can just kind of go to it. Right. I have like slippers that are just really comfortable. Right?

[Ethan Kross]

Yeah.

[Co-host]

I'm also a huge fan of some of Kristin Neff's suggestions that, you know, if you need that kind of self touch, but you're not around somebody for whom it would be effectively appropriate to ask them, you can give yourself some self touch, a little self hug or a little self soothing. Because brains are stupid. They don't know who's. Who's giving you that self touch. So.

[Ethan Kross]

Well, you know, I had a. I'll share with you and I guess everyone who's listening, a somewhat embarrassing implementation of this tool. And I did it unknowingly. I was giving a presentation the other day and it was after lunch, so I had an upset stomach and I found myself like pacing the room and just rubbing my stomach a little bit.

[Co-host]

Rubbing your tummy?

[Ethan Kross]

Yeah, rubbing my tummy. And then I had the metamo. What are you doing? Stop doing this. So I stopped doing it immediately. So here's other one, fun finding in this space. Organizations are leveraging this tool of sensation as a regulator all the time and.

[Co-host]

Often completely out of our awareness.

[Ethan Kross]

So many organizations, for example, have beautiful artwork on the walls and visual stimuli designed to push us into a different emotional space.

[Co-host]

That may not be so surprising, but what was surprising to me were the.

[Ethan Kross]

Ways in which organizations often pump certain.

[Co-host]

Kinds of odors through their ventilation systems to arouse a certain kind of positive response.

[Ethan Kross]

And there are companies that really specialize on in constructing the right odors to.

[Co-host]

Match the organization's goals.

[Ethan Kross]

And so this came full circle to me because earlier on in life, I remember my children, whenever we'd go on.

[Co-host]

Vacation, we'd go to a hotel and.

[Ethan Kross]

I remember they would go, ah, daddy.

[Co-host]

It sounds so nice in here. This is such a nice place.

[Ethan Kross]

And that is exactly the goal. And it is a way that we are being regulated by another organization through this path.

[Co-host]

But the idea is that we can do exactly the same thing ourselves, totally with scented candles or just all the kinds of ways that we can manipulate our sensory environment to feel better.

[Ethan Kross]

That's right. And you know, the.

[Co-host]

The real hope that I have for this book is it lays out all of the tools that exist.

[Ethan Kross]

Some of these tools may be film.

[Co-host]

You may have like encountered some of these tools but not realized it.

[Ethan Kross]

You may not know about some of these tools, but the idea is that.

[Co-host]

When we lay all this out and explain how this works, now we give you the opportunity to start wielding these tools strategically to help you match your emotion regulatory goals. My hope is that that is a boon to people in terms of, you.

[Ethan Kross]

Know, improving their lives.

[Co-host]

And so let's jump to tool number two, which is how we can shift our emotion using our attention. A big one that I know I tend to use a lot when it comes to shifting my emotions with attention is through distraction. Am I alone? Is distraction a kind of go to strategy for lots of folks?

[Ethan Kross]

Distraction, That's a biggie. And it is a go to for lots of folks. And what's interesting is it doesn't always get the props that it deserves. There's a common belief that when you experience big significant emotional events in your life, you should not avoid them, you.

[Co-host]

Should not distract, you should approach them, work through them.

[Ethan Kross]

This message is often reinforced in popular culture and it turns out if you look at the science, it is not entirely true. So what we have seen is that.

[Co-host]

Really the key to wielding your attention.

[Ethan Kross]

Effectively is being strategic in how you do so. Approaching certain kinds of experiences to work.

[Co-host]

Through them when the conditions are right.

[Ethan Kross]

But also if you can distract in a healthy way. What I mean by that is not by substance abuses or risky behaviors, which some people, some people do. But a positive form of distraction can.

[Co-host]

Often be really useful for giving you.

[Ethan Kross]

Some space from the experience to then let you re approach it with a healthier perspective. My grandmother is actually really effective at using attention strategically. She would not dwell on the experience over and over.

[Co-host]

She didn't get lost in rumination and chatter about this event. She would focus on things that were under her control. Her kids, her job. But when the conversation with other people one time a year, or even if.

[Ethan Kross]

She ran into fellow survivors lend itself.

[Co-host]

To thinking about this experience, she would, she would grapple with it. So she wouldn't avoid it to the.

[Ethan Kross]

Point where it was a chronic form.

[Co-host]

Of avoidance that we know is really harmful.

[Ethan Kross]

You know, there are, there are various, I think, steps that people can follow to figure out when they should approach.

[Co-host]

And when they should avoid or go back and forth between their experiences.

[Ethan Kross]

Step one is just like recognizing there's.

[Co-host]

No one size fits all solution here. Not for wielding your attention or for that matter, for using any of the.

[Ethan Kross]

Different shifters and emotion regulation tools I talk about in the book. What we know is that variability is the rule, not the exception.

[Co-host]

Different tools work for different people in different situations.

[Ethan Kross]

I liken it to physical exercise If I take 10 people in my social network and I ask them what they do to keep physically fit, I'm likely going to get 10 different physical health routines. The data that we and others have collected suggests that emotion regulation is very, very similar.

[Co-host]

We rely on different tools in different situations.

[Ethan Kross]

Let's say you encounter an experience that provokes you in some way, and you decide to distract. And so what's your favorite distraction, Lori?

[Co-host]

The Wordle archive, where I kind of go back and do old Wordle puzzles that I haven't done before.

[Ethan Kross]

That is a really, really good distractor because it is pleasant, but also it is cognitively demanding. So it captures your attention, which is.

[Co-host]

Useful for a distraction.

[Ethan Kross]

You want a distraction to capture your attention to prevent it from going back.

[Co-host]

Right away to the situation that's just provoked you.

[Ethan Kross]

So, okay, so let's say, you know, you have. Let's say a podcast interview doesn't go the way you want.

[Co-host]

That would never happen. Ethan, come on.

[Ethan Kross]

No, it would never happen. So, you know, so that happens, and you distract, and then when you're done distracting, turns out you're done. You're not thinking about that problem that. That interview again. Well, if that's the case and it doesn't resurface into awareness, like, fantastic, keep.

[Co-host]

Doing what you do. Move on with your life. Your psychological immune system has done its job behind the scenes. Time has passed, the intensity of the emotions has subsided, and you're off to the next challenge, the next interview. If, on the other hand, you take.

[Ethan Kross]

A break, you distract, and then you find yourself thinking about the experience again when you're done, well, then that could be a signal to.

[Co-host]

Then, okay, let me re. Engage with it. And now with the gift of time, which often moderates the intensity of our emotions. Now let me try to work through this experience a little bit more productively, and maybe I'll even layer another shifter, another tool on to help me do that.

[Ethan Kross]

So maybe I'll try to figure out, well, why did this happen?

[Co-host]

Why didn't this interview go very well? I'll think about it from a distance perspective.

[Ethan Kross]

All right, Laurie, why do you think this didn't go so well? So you'll try to process it from. From a more objective standpoint.

[Co-host]

So you're layering in other tools there.

And this is a really nice transition to the third shifter that you mentioned in your book. The fact that we can get a little bit of perspective when we need to regulate our emotions. Now, this is something we've talked about on this show before, but explain Again, why perspective can be so important to shifting our emotions.

Well, the reason perspective is so useful is we all have the capacity to.

[Ethan Kross]

Reframe how we think about our circumstances.

[Co-host]

But it can often feel really hard to do that when we are totally immersed in the situation and the emotions are flooding us.

[Ethan Kross]

Actually, the name of this chapter, it's named after an anecdote with one of my close friends. I don't know how I could actually say this. You know, I was driving back from dinner one day with another couple, and the other couple was talking about a difficult experience that, that my friend was.

[Co-host]

Was having at work.

[Ethan Kross]

And his wife said to him, well, why don't you just think differently about it? And his response was easier, bleeping said.

[Co-host]

Than done to convey, I think, this very common experience we have, which is.

[Ethan Kross]

We know that we can think differently.

[Co-host]

And we should think differently.

[Ethan Kross]

We should reframe how we're thinking about.

[Co-host]

This, be more optimistic. But we just have hard time doing.

[Ethan Kross]

That in the moment.

[Co-host]

And so what we've learned is that.

[Ethan Kross]

In those situations, taking a step back, thinking about our circumstances from a more distanced perspective, almost like we're giving advice to someone else, can be really helpful.

[Co-host]

For allowing us to do that.

And you've come up with a super easy way we can do that linguistically, just how we use different pronouns, right?

That's right. So using your own name and you.

[Ethan Kross]

Can be a useful tool for allowing.

[Co-host]

Us to do this.

[Ethan Kross]

So we usually use the word you when we give advice to other people. So when you use the word you.

[Co-host]

To refer to your own problem. So, Ethan, why are you doing this and what do you think you should do?

[Ethan Kross]

What that does is it automatically switches your perspective. It puts you in this frame of.

[Co-host]

Mind where now you're giving advice to essentially another person. It's another person who happens to be you. So you have full access to everything that's happening inside that person's mind. But it's just easier to do so because you're doing it from that more objective standpoint.

[Ethan Kross]

So that's one really simple distancing tool.

[Co-host]

That you can use. Another powerful way of broadening our perspective.

[Ethan Kross]

Is to do what I call mental time travel.

[Co-host]

So you jump into this mental time travel, which we all possess.

[Ethan Kross]

You could go into the future and think, so how are you going to feel about this next week, next month, next year, when you ask yourself that question and notice I'm doing that, still.

[Co-host]

Maintaining the linguistic distance. Right. How are you going to feel about.

[Ethan Kross]

This down the road?

[Co-host]

What that does is it makes clear to you something you've experienced your entire life.

[Ethan Kross]

But we often lose sight of it in the moment, which is as awful.

[Co-host]

As our emotions are.

[Ethan Kross]

As time stretches on, they typically fade.

[Co-host]

It's a very common trajectory that characterizes emotional responses. As time moves on, they kind of peter out.

[Ethan Kross]

And so how am I going to feel about this next year?

[Co-host]

I'm going to feel better about it.

[Ethan Kross]

I've lived through that countless times in my life. So mental time travel machine into the.

[Co-host]

Future helps you with that.

[Ethan Kross]

You could also go back in time.

[Co-host]

It's another way of broadening our perspective.

[Ethan Kross]

It works a little differently if I'm struggling with a really difficult situation at.

[Co-host]

Work or in my my personal life. I could jump into the mental time.

[Ethan Kross]

Travel machine and go to the the Polish woods in the 1940s with my grandmother. Right now I'm thinking about the adversity that she experienced back then. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, if she was able to get through this.

[Co-host]

I can handle what I'm dealing with now.

[Ethan Kross]

So that's time travel to the past. Those are some other distancing tools.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Self talk and mental time travel are great ways to put your emotions in perspective. But if big feelings are still dragging you down, Ethan has a more radical suggestion for getting some distance between you and whatever's bothering you. That radical suggestion is coming up right after the break.

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[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Of all the tips Ethan Kross outlines in his new book, Managing youg Emotions so they Don't Manage youe, the one that resonates with me most is the strategy of putting some physical space between you and your problems. What I didn't realize was that his insights about the power of physical distance were partly inspired by me.

[Ethan Kross]

It's funny you bring that up, Laurie, because it was you, Laurie, who I talked to about this. And so maybe I could turn the.

[Co-host]

Tides here and ask you about this.

[Ethan Kross]

So, you know, as I was researching the book, I was struck by the power of spaces to push our emotions around. I think spaces, like our senses, are.

[Co-host]

Often a tool for managing our emotions.

[Ethan Kross]

That we see literally every day as long as our eyes are open, but.

[Co-host]

We totally take for granted.

[Ethan Kross]

And you have a really powerful story about how changing your spaces powerfully modulated.

[Co-host]

Your own emotional response. So would you mind telling folks what you told me?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's in the book now, so I guess everybody's going to read it anyway. Yeah, no. This was around the time that I was experiencing a lot of burnout in my role as a head of college, working on Yale's campus, where it was just after the pandemic, I was feeling incredibly burned out, and I made the tough decision to leave that role. But when I left that role and had some time off, I had to face the question of, like, okay, well, where do I want to be?

Right.

I have a house in my hometown in Connecticut. I could have moved there, but my husband and I weren't tied to anything. And so I said, well, why don't I go to a different place? A place that's really far away from the physical place where I was experiencing burnout, but also a place that had certain memories for me or certain associations. And so I decided to move back to where I went to grad school in Massachusetts, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And I moved from my huge head of college house into this smaller apartment. And honestly, I think it was the thing that wound up making me feel much less burned out. Right. I was just in a completely different place with totally different sensory experiences than I was in before. It was a nice way to distract myself from some of the things that were tricky during my life at Yale, and some of the stresses I was facing. It allowed me to focus my attention more on running this podcast rather than worrying about my lab and some of these other things. And within, like, weeks, I was feeling completely better. And I thought that this was just kind of an accident of my little burnout story. But you wanted to use this story to explain a deep principle about the importance of place for shifting your emotions.

[Ethan Kross]

Well, I think it's such a powerful story. And, you know, our spaces, the spaces around us often impact multiple shifters that exist inside us. So, like you were talking about, they.

[Co-host]

Certainly impact our attention, like, what we're Exposed to and by.

[Ethan Kross]

By impacting what we're exposed to, they have implications for our senses.

[Co-host]

We also form connections to places. And what really stood out to me.

[Ethan Kross]

About your story, when I think about it, is when you moved back to Cambridge.

[Co-host]

Cambridge had these warm associations attached to it.

[Ethan Kross]

This is where you were a student and you had these formative experiences.

[Co-host]

And what we've learned in the science.

[Ethan Kross]

That I think doesn't get as much.

[Co-host]

Attention as it deserves is we routinely form attachments to places in a way that is similar to the way we form attachment to people, to other people.

[Ethan Kross]

So we talk a lot about attachment.

[Co-host]

To other individuals in our lives. Attachment figures who.

[Ethan Kross]

When we're in the presence of those figures, this provides us with a sense.

[Co-host]

Of safety and support. Parents, caretakers, partners, friends.

[Ethan Kross]

Well, we also form attachments to places. And when you're in the presence of.

[Co-host]

A place that you are positively attached.

[Ethan Kross]

To, that likewise gives you this sense.

[Co-host]

Of safety and security.

[Ethan Kross]

I'll bring this back to my kids.

[Co-host]

It's funny when you learn new material and you filter it through the lens of your own experiences. I remember when my kids were upset, they always used to do this curious thing when they were little. They just wanted to go home.

[Ethan Kross]

And when we got home, they'd want to go in their room.

[Co-host]

And that just provided them with a sense of security. And so it turns out that's not.

[Ethan Kross]

Just true of little kids, it's true.

[Co-host]

Of all of us. And I think the invitation that extends to us is to do some thinking ahead of time before the triggers ignite. Like, what are the spaces in our.

[Ethan Kross]

Lives that have those restorative properties that.

[Co-host]

Make us feel safe and secured?

[Ethan Kross]

I have. I have several of these positive spaces.

[Co-host]

Located around Ann Arbor that I've, like, marked on a map, figuratively.

[Ethan Kross]

And I know where to go.

[Co-host]

It's like in the movies, you know, where there's a safe house for the CIA agent when they need to escape.

[Ethan Kross]

People who are getting going after them. Like, I've got my.

[Co-host]

My safe spots. There's the law school quadrangle here, which is just this magnificently beautiful space. There's the arboretum. There's my home.

[Ethan Kross]

Those are places I can go to. And they are managing my emotions without.

[Co-host]

Me having to do anything by just being in that place.

But you've also talked about ways that we can manage our spaces in more local ways. Right. Like, my situation is a case where I literally move cities. Not everybody can do that. You're talking about kind of within your town, specific spaces. You can go to You've talked about how we can take our local spaces and make them more emotionally regulatory. How do we do that?

[Ethan Kross]

Yeah, this is, I think, a really important point, because changing your space is.

[Co-host]

A luxury we don't always have the.

[Ethan Kross]

Ability to engage in. You could think of that as like a macro way of moving our emotions around via spaces.

[Co-host]

But then there's a more micro way you can do this.

[Ethan Kross]

There's a way of harnessing your immediate.

[Co-host]

Spaces, and there are lots of things you could do here.

[Ethan Kross]

There's research that we and others have.

[Co-host]

Done where you put pictures of attachment figures in your surroundings. So pictures of loved ones. Research shows that when you glance at a picture of a loved one after.

[Ethan Kross]

Thinking about something negative, it speeds the.

[Co-host]

Pace at which you recover from emotional turbulence. Right.

[Ethan Kross]

So, you know, after I did that research, I went on a picture frame shopping spree and I put pictures of loved ones all around my offices. So that's putting something new in your.

[Co-host]

Environment to push you in a direction.

[Ethan Kross]

Where you want to go. Another example of that would be plants. We know that looking at images of green things, so plants and trees, flowers. This also has restorative, calming effects, so you can imagine decorating your space in that way.

[Co-host]

You can also modify your space, though, by removing things that are pushing your emotions in the wrong direction. Lots of ways you could do this.

[Ethan Kross]

We're talking right now, and I have.

[Co-host]

My cell phone turned over.

[Ethan Kross]

So I've now modified my space to reduce a distractor, which would get in.

[Co-host]

The way of our conversation.

[Ethan Kross]

I tell a story in the book True Story. This is true. I've done this many times.

[Co-host]

I tend to over order pizza whenever.

[Ethan Kross]

We have people over to watch football. And I know that if I don't.

[Co-host]

Give every single slice of pizza away.

[Ethan Kross]

Before our friends leave the house, I will come down to the kitchen at between 10 and 12 at night and I will eat the cold pizza. And I will have such a positive emotional experience while doing so that will then end the second I finish consuming it.

[Co-host]

And then I won't be able to sleep at night. So the solution, I'm modifying my space.

[Ethan Kross]

To remove that as a distractor, as a temptation. So you can modify your spaces and.

[Co-host]

Really architect your surroundings to help you achieve the emotions that you want to achieve.

And that gets us to the final shifter that we'll talk about in this episode, which is something that exists in our space and definitely something that I tried to do when I physically moved spaces, which is I wanted to surround myself with different people. Our relationships can also Be big shifters. Explain this idea of emotional contagion and why it could be a powerful tool for changing our emotions around.

[Ethan Kross]

So other people. We are a social species, and our emotions are powerfully calibrated against other people.

[Co-host]

And how we think about them and interact with them. And emotional contagion is a great example of this.

[Ethan Kross]

There's lots of research that shows that.

[Co-host]

When we are not sure of how.

[Ethan Kross]

To respond in a given situation, we.

[Co-host]

Reference other people because other people are.

[Ethan Kross]

A rich source of information now that can push us in good or bad directions.

[Co-host]

Right?

[Ethan Kross]

So, you know, one frowning face in.

[Co-host]

A room can quickly lead to many other frowning faces. Smile and joy can spread as well.

[Ethan Kross]

I do this exercise often with groups when I.

[Co-host]

When I lead workshops to demonstrate the.

[Ethan Kross]

Power of emotional contagion, where I break people up into groups. Then I ask each member of the.

[Co-host]

Group to volunteer a leader.

[Ethan Kross]

And so I take the leaders out, and then I count off 1, 2.

[Co-host]

1, 2, 1, 2.

[Ethan Kross]

And I say, all right, ones, I'm.

[Co-host]

Going to go back into the room with you in a few minutes. I'm going to give you a really hard problem to solve.

[Ethan Kross]

I want the ones to be an ultra supportive cheerleading leader. And then I turn to the twos. They kind of know what's coming. They're kind of nervously laughing. And as eri twos, you know who I want you to be?

[Co-host]

I want you to be the a holes.

[Ethan Kross]

I want you to be stoic, disapproving, don't give much positive reinforcement. I assure them that I will debrief everyone the moment the exercise is over. And then they go back into the rooms, they work on this problem, and the leaders follow the orders I've given them. It is remarkable, Lori, to see how.

[Co-host]

These different groups respond. Within seconds, the groups of the positive leaders, they're brainstorming out loud, they're giggling, they're laughing, they're having fun. In the other groups, like, no one is talking.

[Ethan Kross]

They're just looking at the piece of paper, right?

[Co-host]

Because the emotion of the leader has then spread throughout the rest of the group. We see this, of course, playing out not just in person to person contexts.

[Ethan Kross]

It happens on social media a lot in ways that can have really consequential effects. So this is often how moral outrage spreads. There are also instances in which you.

[Co-host]

See positivity spreading within networks, too. So simply being aware of this, I.

[Ethan Kross]

Think, can be very important for all of us.

[Co-host]

Number one, if you are in a leadership point of view, whether it be.

[Ethan Kross]

In an organization, in a friend group, In a family, recognize that the emotional.

[Co-host]

Tone that you bring to a situation directly impacts other people, often without any explicit direction. If you're a leader, you might also.

[Ethan Kross]

Want to be aware of the fact that if you want this group to be pushing in a particular direction and.

[Co-host]

There'S one voice or one person there.

[Ethan Kross]

That maybe isn't abiding by that, you want to be sensitive to that, too.

[Co-host]

And nip that reaction in the bud right away. But emotional contagion is a really powerful.

[Ethan Kross]

Illustration of how other people can affect us.

[Co-host]

It also really gives us an opportunity. You know, sometimes we can think about emotional contagion as this sort of terrible thing of like, oh, I'm just at the mercy of everybody's emotions on my team, or whatever. But I think you also can recognize that that's an opportunity. You can see the emotions that you really want to see in the group, like, through your own actions. And in some ways, this is what you were doing as the leader of your family. With your daughter in the car with don't stop believing, right? You could have kind of caught her glum emotion and felt bad, but you're like, no, no. If I shift myself, it's going to shift her, too. And I think this is the real opportunities that we can use ourselves as these pivot points to not just shift our own emotions, but emotionally regulate for the people we care about, too.

Couldn't agree more.

[Ethan Kross]

And, you know, that's a really profound.

[Co-host]

And eloquent way of summarizing how a.

[Ethan Kross]

Lot of these shifters come together, because they have implications for not only the.

[Co-host]

Way you manage your own life, but how you affect those around you.

[Ethan Kross]

And ideally, you're motivated to affect those around you in a positive direction.

[Co-host]

But you can also mushroom out even further because our understanding of how these principles of emotion regulation work, they also have the opportunity to shape the cultures.

[Ethan Kross]

Of the groups that we belong to. So, you know, I belong to a bunch of different groups characterized by different cultures, and I'm constantly trying to be explicit about the values and beliefs I.

[Co-host]

Have about emotion and emotion regulation.

[Ethan Kross]

These are states of being that I think are really important, and I think.

[Co-host]

We need to spend more time investing.

[Ethan Kross]

In, because doing so is going to.

[Co-host]

Help people think and perform more effectively at work.

[Ethan Kross]

It's going to improve the quality of.

[Co-host]

Relationships and their health. So I'm being really clear about what.

[Ethan Kross]

My beliefs are for this culture, and I'm backing that up. I'm not just saying that I'm interacting.

[Co-host]

With folks in ways that establish norms that reinforce my values and beliefs.

[Ethan Kross]

And I'm even giving people some tools to try to hone these, these abilities to shift. And so that's the way you go.

[Co-host]

From knowing about something to try to actually shift a culture around a topic.

[Ethan Kross]

Which I think is a really important challenge. We all, we all have in front of us.

[Co-host]

That's great. We've come a long way from holes in the head.

[Ethan Kross]

I think we thankfully have come a.

[Co-host]

Very long way from putting holes in our head.

[Ethan Kross]

And I think, you know, look, there's.

[Co-host]

There'S a lot more we have to learn. But, but we have amassed a pretty.

[Ethan Kross]

Compelling set of insights regarding how we manage this wacky, you know, thing called.

[Co-host]

Emotions and our emotional life.

[Ethan Kross]

And I think we'd all be a whole lot better off informing ourselves of what we've learned and using it to help us live the emotional lives we want to live.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

I'm so grateful that Ethan and so many other scientists have given us practical tools for regulating our big feelings. Between work stress and life stress, not to mention politics and the state of the planet, I experience big feelings like fear, anxiety and overwhelm a lot these days. I'm so happy I've gotten Ethan's tips for helping me find peace there might much better than having someone drill a hole in my head. Let's quickly recap. First up, prepare a big emotions playlist. If you're scared or sad, dispel that mood by hitting play on some feel good music. Personally, I think some dad rock like Journey is definitely the way to go. Ethan's second tip, divert your attention. There are plenty of quick ways to distract yourself away from big emotions. Try going for a run or my favorite, solving the wordle. Tip three is to take a step back and view your problems as a.

[Amazon Healthcare Representative]

Stranger might see them.

[Dr. Laurie Santos]

Are things actually so bleak? What would a coach or mentor say about what you should do? The fourth way to regulate your emotions is to get some physical distance from what's upsetting you. Get out of your home or workplace. Remember that escaping the environment that's stressing you out can work wonders. And Ethan's final strategy to tame big feelings is to surround yourself with positive people. Just like getting away from a location that's upsetting you, we can benefit by taking a break from the friends, co workers, or loved ones who are spiking our negative emotions. But above all, a meta tip, if you will, is to remember that your emotions are functional. If you're feeling lonely, or if your boss says something that upsets you, or if a politician enacts some policy that gets you red with anger. That's a signal for you to take action. But once you've figured out what your big feeling is, there to teach you. That big feeling has done its job. And it's time for that, that big feeling to move on. It's also time for our how to season to move on. Next up, we'll be looking at something that's super useful in small doses, but can prove very harmful when it's allowed to rule our lives. We'll be exploring how to fight stress. That's next time on the Happiness lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

[Amazon Healthcare Representative]

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