Stop Overreacting

by Judith Siegel

  Mending an overreaction with the people we love is also an important way to defuse the feelings before they are filed away in the memory drawer of other events that ended badly. If the events filed in the “all bad” drawer had been properly mended to begin with, they wouldn’t have ended up in that drawer. And offering an apology and acknowledging that your reaction was over the top will help your family members or friends defuse their emotions so that they are less likely to add this altercation to other resentments they may harbor.

  To allow this experience to work for both of you, remember that your overreaction has most likely been created by (or been part of) another person’s overreaction. Just as we all have different boiling points, we all have different patterns of simmering down. If you try to mend things when you are calm but the other person is still very angry, your attempts will be rebuffed.

  Try the following to help your efforts succeed:

  Make sure you are truly calm when you decide to start.

  Remember that your purpose is to mend a relationship rupture, not to show that you were right.

  Ask if your friend or family member is calm enough to speak with you about resolving the incident. If this person still seems emotionally reactive, explain that you would really like to try to mend this and that maybe the two of you could try to talk again when both of you have had enough time to create a little distance from the emotions.

  Protect your amygdala. You will get emotionally stimulated all over again if you sense danger. Try to remember to scan for those physical responses you learned about in chapter 2 that indicate you are moving into a state of high arousal. If you notice that you are having those responses, you can end an unproductive conversation before it escalates into another overreaction.

  Keep your goal in sight. Establishing a conversation in which you are calm and receptive can make all the difference in the world. Remember the exercise you did in chapter 2 to learn how to make connections? It is easier to provide interest and empathy when a person is describing an event that doesn’t involve you at all; when people start to tell you what you have done to hurt them, it is more challenging to listen without feeling blamed. To mend an overreaction, you need to shift your focus away from yourself and onto the person you wish to mend things with. If you can listen without interrupting and can identify one or two feelings that the person may have been experiencing, you have taken a huge step in the right direction.

  If we are not able to repair the damage we create when we overreact, we are more likely to experience guilt, shame, or self-blame, which, in turn, can add to the patterns that contributed to the overreaction in the first place.

  Section 4

  New Strategies

  By now you have learned a lot about what is happening in your mind and body when you overreact. You have evaluated your own response patterns and thought about areas you are particularly sensitive about. Through the exercises and stories of others, you have seen how tension, stress, and old emotional beliefs can work against your better judgment. Finally, you have considered examples of triggers that many people encounter at work and in their personal lives. In this section you will learn how to put all of this information together to find new ways of preventing and dealing with episodes of overreaction.

  Chapter 12

  Getting Centered

  Overreactions are a product of brain chemistry, emotional memories, schema-based expectations, and unhelpful defense mechanisms. The most important thing you can do when you sense that you might be overreacting is to momentarily distance yourself from the situation that has triggered your reaction and try to calm down. Sometimes that might involve physically removing yourself from a situation, particularly if there is a risk that your reaction could be dangerous to anyone. At other times, your only option will be to create a psychological boundary so that you can find a different mind-set through which to think and feel. In this chapter, I will review the importance of getting centered, which means returning to a state of emotional equilibrium. It also involves learning to thoughtfully explore your reaction until you have a clear understanding of your feelings and the situation that triggered that reaction. You can reach a state of emotional equilibrium only when you have identified the emotional memories that are adding to the intensity of the experience and found ways to challenge any defensive splitting or flooding that may have been activated.

  Identify the Changes in Your Body

  When your amygdala is activated, altered brain chemistry produces physiological responses that you can learn to identify. Adrenaline and cortisol put us into a state of agitation that has been described as diffuse physiological arousal. Our activated central nervous system creates changes in our heart rate, breathing, and gut (Schore 2002). As we ready ourselves to fight or flee, our energy surges into our muscles, preparing us for a physical response while at the same time making it almost impossible to process information. This state of response is actually experienced throughout your body, and it is your signal that your amygdala has started to fire. While your attention may be directed to the problem that has triggered your response, it is far more important to pay attention to these symptoms.

  The body scan exercise in chapter 2 helped you become familiar with your physical response style. You learned to notice how different parts of your body felt when you were relaxed and to identify the way your body changed when you thought about specific emotional memories. Your ability to scan and register changes in your body can be extremely helpful to you in preventing overreactions. Every time your brain perceives a threat to your well-being, the information registers throughout your body. The earlier you can catch yourself being thrown off balance, the easier it is to find your center again.

  The next time you are in a stressful situation, check to see if you experience any of the following:

  feeling stiff or tight in your neck

  feeling flushed or hot

  having a quickening or rapid heartbeat

  feeling queasy or like you’ve been punched in the stomach

  starting to sweat

  having clammy palms

  feeling numb

  being unable to concentrate

  feeling distracted or preoccupied by uninvited or racing thoughts

  Knowing your body’s response style to arousal is one of the most important tools you can develop. Once you know your own response style, you can be more alert to the subtle but very meaningful changes that tell you it’s time to use everything you have learned about overreacting.

  Calm Down

  Once your body has alerted you that you are in a state of high arousal, your priority is to return to a state of emotional equilibrium. There are different exercises and strategies that you can try, and it’s impossible to predict which one will work best for you (Augustine and Hemenover 2009). Some of these suggestions might sound weird or unlike anything you have ever considered doing before. Perhaps you have heard of some of them but just don’t see the point. Try to stay open to strategies that have worked for others. After all, what do you really have to lose?

  Picture Your Brain Functions

  Remember that different parts of your brain manage emotions, memories, and judgment. When the connections between these parts shut down, you can’t access all of the ingredients that you need in order to handle the situation in the best way. When you are in a moment of high arousal, just stopping to think about what is happening in your brain can help generate the awareness and self-reflection that can help turn things around.

  Left and Right

  Imagine that you are in a lab where you can have a brain scan. Picture an image that shows how the right side of your brain is all lit up. Notice that the left side isn’t showing any activity at all. Message your amygdala to let it know that it’s done its job for the moment. Let the left brain know that you need a little help right now trying to figure out what’s really going on. You might say something like, “Okay amygdala, I know that something’s up, but can you just slow down for one
minute so I can try to figure it out? Left brain…where are you? I need help naming this feeling so things don’t get out of hand.”

  Bottom and Top

  Imagine that your brain scan shows that the lower part of your brain is all lit up. Notice that the higher brain functions are completely blacked out. Remind yourself that this is a dangerous picture and that following your impulses usually leads to actions you later regret. Talk to the thinking part of your brain so that your experience can add a grain of wisdom. You might say something like, “Okay instincts, I hear you. But let’s see if my experience agrees that this is the best decision. Is this something that I will regret later?”

  Snap Out of It

  Wear an elastic band around your wrist. When you feel that you are entering a state of high arousal, snap the band so that it stings. A physical distraction like this allows some people to divert their attention from negative thoughts back to their body. By taking action, you transfer from a passive position into one of action and agency. Your effort to take control of the situation can keep you focused on regaining your equilibrium and help you remember the next steps you need to take in order to avoid a knee-jerk reaction.

  Name Your Feelings

  Pushing yourself to identify and name your feelings is an important part of getting grounded. In chapter 2, you were asked to become familiar with dozens of different feeling states that contribute to overall experiences of anger, contentment, or insecurity. Drs. Matthew Lieberman and Naomi Eisenberger (Lieberman et al. 2007) have demonstrated how helpful that exercise can be in a moment of emotional intensity. When research subjects were asked to label the feeling that best fit a series of powerful images, their efforts to concentrate on selecting the best description immediately diminished the activity in the amygdala and related regions. As the thinking parts of the brain connect to your emotional response, you will be better able to move beyond that first impulse to either implode or explode.

  Breathe

  Another strategy for getting centered comes from the mindfulness approach to emotional distress (Williams and Teasdale 2007). Mindfulness is an offshoot of Buddhist meditation and combines mindful philosophy with breathing techniques. Mindful practice takes us away from the tendency to overthink and asks us to suspend judgment as we invest all of our energy in the experience of being fully aware of how it feels to be in this particular moment in time. As Drs. Ruth Baer and Debra Huss (2008) point out, the mindful approach requires acceptance of the wide range of sensations and feelings that people experience. From this perspective, emotions are just states that will come and go if we don’t allow ourselves to get too agitated by them. If we can accept them as sensations and information, their urgency passes and they are replaced by other states.

  In a proper mindfulness exercise, your mind is free to roam from thought to thought while you simply observe yourself in the experience. To move beyond a state of turbulence, something as simple as focusing on your breath can help you return to the moment. When you concentrate on how your body feels as you inhale and exhale, thoughts and feelings may flicker into awareness. Acknowledging those thoughts and feelings is not at all similar to obsessing or ruminating over the problem that has triggered your reaction. Tuning your thoughts back to your breath will allow your emotions to ebb and flow.

  As you inhale deeply, follow the movement of the fresh air as it travels through your nasal passages, throat, and chest and into your abdomen. As you breathe out, exhale some of the tension that has been building inside of you. Just concentrate on your breath and breathe deeply and slowly. Focus on how different parts of your body feel as you move through a breathing cycle. If thoughts or feelings creep into your awareness, remind yourself that emotional states come and go and that it will be easier to know what to do when you’re not blinded by emotion.

  Many people find this approach helpful during moments of agitation and even more useful after they have learned to build mindful exercises into their daily lives. Like other techniques, learning to shift your focus away from obsessive thinking is more effective and easier to do if you have practiced it in moments of calm.

  Use Guided Imagery

  While some incidents of overreaction are over in a flash, many people find themselves worked up for hours or even days. They tend to ruminate on the trigger and, as a result, constantly reemerge into states of heightened arousal and intensity. While you might not have the time or privacy to count on guided imagery as your first resort in a moment of crisis, it is a wonderful option to employ as soon as you have a private moment.

  In chapter 2, you were asked to experiment with the power of positive emotional memories through an exercise in guided imagery. You learned how to recall a specific event and shift your concentration to the things you remembered seeing, feeling, smelling, and hearing. Just remembering the details of this wonderful experience has the power to revive your emotional memory and the sense of well-being that you had in that moment. Knowing which memory works best to soothe you or restore your self-confidence makes it easier to turn to that memory when you are ready to open the “good” drawer of your emotional filing cabinet and immerse yourself in the positive. When you choose to do this, you are truly using your mind to switch your response pattern.

  Challenge Your Perception

  Once you find a way to interrupt the escalating response, you need to check for the possibility that your interpretations and conclusions may be suspect. You may be sufficiently aware of your triggers to know that one has been activated, but it may take some time before you can think clearly enough to know that for sure. There are things you can do to help this process.

  Acknowledge Your General Situation

  Research has shown that when we are sleep deprived or under a lot of stress, we are more prone to emotional overreactions. Brain-imaging studies collected by Drs. Matthew Walker and Els van der Helm (2009) show that healthy, competent people who have been sleep deprived have a 60 percent increase in levels of amygdala activity when they are exposed to situations that evoke negative reactions. Even more important, the connections between the amygdala and the thinking parts of the brain appear to fade, while the connections between the automatic or knee-jerk response system and the amygdala get stronger. Similar studies have found changes in brain chemistry and neural imbalances when people are under persistent stress.

  If you know that you are exhausted or have been under a lot of pressure, chances are that you are overaroused and poorly equipped to manage a negative encounter. Rather than persist, ask yourself if there’s any way to simply defer until you are better equipped to deal with the problem. One woman I worked with found herself easily agitated in the hours before her bedtime. She learned to recognize that arguments started in that time period were guaranteed to get out of control, so she decided to tell herself that she would do a better job resolving the issue in the morning. She was able to bring a fresh perspective and a more emotionally balanced self to the conversation after a good night’s rest and was delighted with her ability to handle things in a way that brought her respect from others, on top of good results.

  Search for Splitting and Flooding

  Although the exact sequence of events is not completely understood, a state of heightened arousal is frequently accompanied or triggered by anxiety. Anxiety also has the power to activate our defense mechanisms so that our perception becomes clouded. When we start to see things as all or nothing, we are in a full-blown episode of splitting. The thoughts and feelings that are generated from this position have much more to do with the past and former incidents that have been stored in our emotional filing cabinet than with anything happening in the present.

  Frequently, splitting causes us to have a very strong reaction. While some of the people I work with describe it as intensity, others say that it seems like someone has flicked a switch. The thoughts that are produced when we are splitting tend to be completely one-sided and extreme. Often this takes the form of overgeneralizations, such as “always” o
r “never” and other kinds of black-and-white thinking. Splitting usually leads to flooding, which is sometimes easier to identify. When you suddenly find yourself remembering other instances that confirm your evaluation, you have started to flood.

  The second exercise in chapter 5 helped you figure out if you are the kind of person who tends to think in all-or-nothing terms under certain circumstances. Many overreactions are the product of splitting and flooding that combine to distort our thinking. After you have used one of the techniques described above to help you focus on the present, there are some important questions to ask yourself: “Am I looking at things through the lens of splitting? Am I thinking about things in terms of best and worst, all or nothing? Am I thinking back to other times when something like this happened? Am I saying things like, ‘He always’ or ‘I never’?” Remember, the conclusions you reach under the influence of splitting and flooding cannot be trusted. They are always one-sided and extreme. If you catch yourself in the moment, you can spend your energy calming down rather than working yourself up based on “facts” that often end up being one-sided and inaccurate and won’t lead you to a constructive solution.

  Andy’s Story

  Andy’s business has really gone downhill over the past year, and he has had to give up the lease on his office space. His primary account dried up, and he’s been toying with ideas that involve ­shifting the focus of his product and approaching companies he worked with years ago. He’s also considering starting a new business with a partner who has expertise in advertising, which would complement his own background. Andy told me that he’s had a hard time focusing this week. When he starts to think about all the possibilities and all the things he has to do, he just feels overwhelmed. In the old days he would try to distract himself by tuning out the stress and turning on the solitaire. These days he’s trying to stick with his emotions and fight his tendency to split.