Emotional Dysregulation may not be a familiar term in your home, but it is a very common mental health symptom that involves trouble controlling your emotions and how you act on those feelings. A person who struggles with emotional dysregulation may feel that their emotion and reaction is fitting to a situation, while others around them will see those reactions out of proportion.
When people can manage (or regulate) their emotions, they can guide how they feel and react. Most people learn this in the mental production stage as a child, and develops as they get older (children tend to throw temper tantrums, but learn how to guide their emotions as they grow and experience).
You could, for example, look at emotional regulation as the volume control for your feelings. When you use the volume controls on your stereo, you can keep it from being too loud. With emotional dysregulation, your brain struggles to regulate emotional signals. In effect, your volume control doesn’t work like it should, making your emotions “louder” and more difficult to manage.
WHAT DOES EMOTIONAL DYSREGULATION LOOK LIKE?
Emotional dysregulation is most noticeable in what a person says, and how they act. Some examples of emotional dysregulation are:
- Mood swings
- Having trouble sterering your mood causing negative moods like depression and anxiety
- Impulsive behaviour
- Mania or hypomania (abnormally elevated, extreme changes in mood, emotions, energy level and activity level)
- Being prone to losing temper
- Becoming easily frustrated by small inconveniences or annoyances
EMOTIONAL DYSREGULATION IS MOST LIKELY TO HAPPEN IN 3 MAIN GROUPS OF PEOPLE:
- People with mental health conditions. These conditions usually involve disruptions in mood, personality and self-control ability.
- People who are neurodivergent. These are people whose brains develop or work differently than expected (People whose brains that developed and worked as expected are “neurotypical”)
- People with damage to their brain. Accidents, blunt force traumas to the head, bacterial infection in the brain, are some examples
Many people who have emotional dysregulation can learn to manage its effects. But in some cases, treatment is needed to help manage them further. Psychotherapy, medications, and supportive and symptomatic care, are some methods of treatment. These treatments can be very successful, but other natural methods are essential to aiding your treatment. Things like exercise, meditation, social interaction and diet, play an important role to recovery. These natural methods should be practiced consistently as a first step before treatment is considered. Can-Am Interventions promotes healthy mental living and has a pedigree of knowledge working with individuals who suffer from these types of issues. If you, or someone you know is suffering from emotional dysregulation, contact Can-Am interventions today. We are here to support you.
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