The Many Ways We Regulate Emotions: A Map of Emotional Regulation

In the article“You don’t need to control your emotions. You need to regulate them,” we explored why emotional regulation has very little to do with self-control, discipline, or “staying calm,” and much more to do with safety, nervous system capacity, and learned patterns of response.

Once we move beyond the idea that emotions need to be controlled, a more nuanced question naturally follows: how do we actually regulate emotions in real life? Not in theory, not in ideal conditions, but in moments of stress, conflict, loss, or overwhelm.

Emotional regulation does not happen in a single way. It unfolds through multiple pathways, some automatic, some intentional, some shaped by cognition, others by the body; some learned in relationship, others developed as survival strategies.

Many of these patterns were formed long before we had conscious choice, and yet they continue to shape how we react, cope, disconnect, or reach for others.

In this article, we move from definition to differentiation.

What follows is a map of the main types of emotional regulation, not to label yourself, but to recognize your patterns. Because awareness is the first step toward choice.

Implicit and Explicit Emotional Regulation

When Regulation Happens Automatically—and When We Intervene

Before looking at specific strategies, it helps to understand when emotional regulation actually takes place. Some regulatory processes happen automatically, without intention or awareness, while others require conscious participation.

Implicit emotional regulation happens spontaneously and involuntarily, as part of early emotional processing. An emotion arises, and the body reacts immediately: anger appears, muscle tension increases, the heart rate rises, breathing becomes shallow. The nervous system is already responding before we have time to think about what is happening.

Explicit emotional regulation, by contrast, involves intention and choice. It refers to the voluntary processes we use to shape our response to an emotional stimulus or experience. I notice that anger is rising and I consciously take a deeper breath. I step away from a situation that is activating me so I can regain internal balance.

This form of regulation involves evaluation and has a cognitive dimension. It may look like observing bodily sensations, recognizing emotional hijack, and applying regulation tools such as breathing exercises or self-talk that restores a sense of safety in the body.

This distinction matters because it reminds us of something essential: emotional regulation is not always a decision. Sometimes it happens beneath awareness, and sometimes it requires effort, intention, and capacity. But timing alone does not explain how regulation works.

Regulation Through Response and Meaning

What We Do With Emotions and What We Tell Ourselves About Them

Beyond when regulation happens, there is also the question of how it operates. Some regulatory mechanisms work by changing our emotional response directly, while others reshape the meaning we assign to what we are experiencing.

Certain strategies aim to reduce emotional impact by avoiding the emotion altogether. We may not allow ourselves to feel because we are afraid of being overwhelmed, or because we learned that feeling certain emotions is wrong or unacceptable.

Others do the opposite and become trapped inside the emotional experience, replaying the same event over and over, mentally torturing themselves for what happened or for how they feel.

Common patterns here include rumination (thinking about the same situation repeatedly without resolution) or negative reappraisal, where the interpretation of events becomes global and self-blaming: everything is about me, I am at fault, I am not enough.

Other forms include losing control completely inside the emotion, where the feeling takes over and there is no longer a sense of self observing it, or emotional suppression, where we disconnect entirely in order not to feel at all.

These are all attempts at regulation. Some may reduce distress in the short term, but many carry long-term costs when they become rigid or automatic.

What this shows is that emotional regulation is not only about calming the body. It is also about attention, interpretation, and the internal narratives we run in moments of emotional intensity.

Intraphysical and Interpersonal Regulation

Why Emotional Regulation Is Learned in Relationship

So far, emotional regulation may sound like an internal process, something that happens inside our own minds and bodies. But this view misses a crucial piece.

A large part of emotional regulation happens in relationship with other people. We are social beings, and regulation is learned, modeled, and shaped through interaction with our primary attachment figures.

As children, we learn how to regulate emotions by observing the adults around us and by the responses we receive when emotions move through us.

If a caregiver expressed anger through yelling, throwing objects, or becoming violent, there is a high chance the child internalizes this as a template for handling anger. If a caregiver rejected or dismissed emotional expression, the child may learn to suppress emotions and associate them with rejection or loss of connection.

This is where attachment styles become highly relevant.

People with an avoidant attachment style tend to regulate emotions on their own. They often feel uncomfortable sharing what they feel and withdraw when distressed.

Emotional self-sufficiency becomes a survival strategy.

I see this pattern clearly in my own relationship. My partner has an avoidant attachment style, and during conflict he finds it difficult to put emotions into words. He shuts down and avoids discussion, even though the tension is often visible in his body, tight posture, shallow breathing, suppressed movement. The emotion is still there, even when it is pushed away.

People with an anxious-preoccupied attachment style tend to seek regulation from others. They struggle to calm themselves and often depend emotionally on close relationships to soothe distress.This was my pattern for much of my life. When sadness or overwhelm appeared, I could not stay alone with it. I needed to be around people so I would not be left alone with my thoughts, because being alone felt physically suffocating.

People with disorganized attachment oscillate between these two strategies—clinging to others while simultaneously reacting defensively to intimacy.

Seen through this lens, emotional regulation is not simply a personal skill. It is a relational capacity, shaped early in life and continuously reinforced or challenged through connection.

Adaptive and Non-Adaptive Emotional Regulation

When the Same Strategy Helps—or Hurts

At this point, it may be tempting to divide regulation strategies into good and bad. In reality, emotional regulation is highly context-dependent.

A strategy that is adaptive in one situation can become non-adaptive in another.

For example, suppressing emotion during a difficult moment can be helpful. If you are in a conflict at work with a colleague or your boss, the situation may not allow for immediate introspection. You may need to stay functional, regulate enough to find a middle ground, and move forward.

In that moment, suppressing anger temporarily and focusing on solutions can be adaptive.

What matters is what happens afterward.

Once you are home, in your own space, adaptive regulation means returning to the experience with curiosity. What triggered me so strongly? What boundary was crossed? Do I still feel the emotion in my body now?

If the answer is yes, it can be helpful to do a brief body scan, notice where the emotion lives, and use breathing exercises to support regulation.

If instead the emotion continues to be suppressed, discharged onto a partner, or avoided altogether, it remains stuck and it becomes non-adaptive. The event keeps activating the nervous system long after it has passed.

What makes a strategy adaptive or non-adaptive is not the strategy itself, but whether it allows emotion to eventually move, integrate, and resolve.

When Regulation Becomes a Defense

Under-Regulation and Over-Regulation

When certain regulation strategies are used repeatedly and rigidly, they can shift from flexible coping mechanisms into defensive patterns. Broadly speaking, these patterns fall into two categories.

Emotional under-regulation involves doing little or nothing to modulate emotional states. Emotions are intense and overwhelming, and the person feels powerless in the face of them. This pattern is often seen in anxious-preoccupied attachment.

Common beliefs include: “I can’t calm myself,” “I have no control when anger appears,” or “this is just how I am.”

Neurobiologically, the amygdala is highly activated, while the prefrontal cortex struggles to down-regulate that activation.

On the other end of the spectrum is emotional over-regulation, more common in avoidant attachment. Here, emotions are minimized, inhibited, or pushed away. Emotional independence becomes extreme, and closeness feels threatening.

In this case, the prefrontal cortex strongly inhibits the amygdala, which often shows very low activity. The cost is emotional disconnection.

A Lived Example: Emotional Under-Regulation in Crisis

These patterns become much clearer when viewed through lived experience rather than theory.

During my suicidal postpartum depression, looking back, I can clearly see how deeply I was functioning in emotional under-regulation. Emotions came in waves, and I was at their mercy. Combined with rumination, a profoundly non-adaptive strategy, it became a perfect storm.

Severe sleep deprivation further reduced my prefrontal capacity, making regulation even harder. The explanatory style I had learned in childhood was global and self-blaming: Why is this happening to me? Why do others cope better?

Constant comparison with the outside world pulled me into a very dark place. Emotional overwhelm was almost always present. I felt powerless, as if I had no influence over my life.

The paradox is that I did have influence, not over external circumstances, but over the way I interpreted them. I just did not know it yet.

My strategies were extreme: either overthinking everything or completely shutting down when overwhelm became unbearable.

Through therapy and coaching, I learned to work with these internal narratives, to question them, and to step away from the idea of a permanent negative state. I slowly began rewriting my story, one regulated moment at a time.

Understanding emotional regulation is not about becoming calm all the time. It is about flexibility, capacity, and choice. It is about recognizing patterns that once protected us, and learning when they no longer serve us.

In the next article of this series, we will look more closely at how these patterns can be softened and reshaped, moving from survival-based regulation toward greater internal safety and freedom.