Emotional Dysregulation: What it is and what to do about it
Barbara Heffernan • September 9, 2025
Do you get totally overwhelmed by your emotions?
Or do you suppress your emotions so much you feel numbed out?
Or perhaps you cycle between these two: suppressing your emotions over and over until you finally explode.
Any one of these patterns is an example of emotional dysregulation.
Any one of these patterns is an example of emotional dysregulation.
Now, this is really common. All of us are emotionally dysregulated at times.
However, improving how often you can stay emotionally regulated can truly improve your life.
Today we're going to talk about what emotional dysregulation is and why emotional regulation is important. Then I'll provide a very helpful framework that will assist you in improving your emotional regulation.
What Is Emotional Regulation?
Emotional regulation is the process of managing your emotions to maintain balance and to respond appropriately to the challenges in your life. That is the definition of emotional regulation that I find the most useful.
Emotional dysregulation is a state in which we feel unbalanced and we can't respond effectively to situations. Our emotional arousal is just much too strong or completely non-existent, neither of which help us to effectively deal with stress or conflict. And neither help us choose the behaviors that will be the most helpful for us in the long term.
And of course, the experiential feelings that go with emotional dysregulation are horrible.
The Zone of Tolerance for Emotions
We all have a **zone of tolerance for emotions**.
Our emotions will always go up and down. We don't want to ignore them and we don't want to suppress them.
But when they get too high—when they get outside the zone of tolerance—that's where we might be much too anxious or stressed - unable to sleep at night, raging or anxious. If we tend towards mania, we might engage in behaviors that are destructive for us in the long run. These would be examples of **hyperarousal**.
But when they get too high—when they get outside the zone of tolerance—that's where we might be much too anxious or stressed - unable to sleep at night, raging or anxious. If we tend towards mania, we might engage in behaviors that are destructive for us in the long run. These would be examples of **hyperarousal**.
When we get too low, which is **hypoarousal**, we shut down. We might be very depressed and-or unable to function. We might sleep too much or feel numbed out. This is the freeze mode of the fight, flight, and freeze responses.
Fight and flight result in hyperarousal, and the freeze mode results in hypoarousal.
Where we function best—and where we generally just feel best —is in the **zone of tolerance.** We feel balanced despite continuing to have mood swings. Our moods change many times during the course of a day. Little things happen and shift your mood. That's normal.
Why Emotional Regulation Matters
The topic of emotional regulation and dysregulation is actually enormous, and I am going to do a series of videos and blogs on this. You can definitely put any questions you have in the comments—I do read those and look for ideas for future content.
There is significant and high quality scientific research that ties one's ability to manage one's emotions effectively to wellbeing in many areas of life.
Now, this doesn't mean necessarily happiness—we're not aiming for one particular emotional state. We are going to have moods. Yet keeping these moods within the zone that is tolerable allows us to function and move forward with what we want to do in life—that's what contributes to our mental wellbeing.
One of the things that emotional regulation or dysregulation does is that it impacts what strategies we use to cope with the emotions we're having, and then what consequences those strategies have.
Maladaptive vs. Adaptive Coping Strategies
Psychotherapists like myself will use terms like **maladaptive coping strategies** and **adaptive coping strategies**. A maladaptive coping strategy is not effective at achieving what you want to achieve, or it has some major backlash and negative impact on you later. Adaptive coping strategies are those that are reasonable responses to the situation and overall contribute to behaviors and outcomes that will end up keeping you emotionally regulated.
The other thing to think about with maladaptive versus adaptive strategies is that they contribute to either a solution or a problem. The maladaptive strategies are going to make the emotional dysregulation worse and worse.
Examples of Maladaptive Coping Strategies
**1. Avoiding people or places that bring up uncomfortable emotions**
Instead of learning how to deal with uncomfortable emotions or change what you can about a situation, you just avoid it. Avoiding situations—I talk about this in a lot of my anxiety videos— is only going to make your anxiety worse and make your world smaller and smaller. I'm not talking about avoiding skydiving, which none of us need to do, but avoiding those things that help us function and lead reasonable lives. I'm also not talking about avoiding truly dangerous situations - that is sensible. But if you are avoiding speaking in groups, socializing, driving a car... these are the types of things that can hold you back in life.
**2. Excessive risk taking**
Excessive risk taking can be an effort to deal with uncontrollable emotions, and it can have extreme backlash effects.
This includes engaging in illegal drugs, too much alcohol, or utilizing medications that are biphasic. They swing your emotions—you take one because you want to swing in one direction and then perhaps you take a different one to swing back. Long-term, these drugs are not going to help you emotionally regulate.
**3. Externalizing your emotions**
Acting out your emotions—acting out in rage at your job site, for example—is not going to be helpful for you long-term. Going into a rage at home is not going to help your relationship with your loved ones. So externalizing the excessive anger or rage is a way to release it, but not a helpful one.
**4. Internalizing the emotions**
Internalizing emotions can lead to behaviors like cutting, eating disorders, rumination, negative self-talk and anxiety or depression.
A Helpful Model for Understanding Emotional Regulation
I promised to share a model of how to think about emotional regulation that can help you improve yours. This model was developed by James J. Gross from the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. This model has changed how research about emotional regulation is conducted and how people think about it.
The model basically says that emotions develop from a situation that we're in, what we pay attention to within that situation, and then how we think about the situation. That's what leads to an emotional response to the situation. (Graphically pictured below. For more graphics, you can view the video on this topic: Emotional Dysregulation).
Emotions have three components in this model: a physical feeling (physiological feeling), the experiential feeling, and the behaviors that come from that emotion.
So the situation, what you pay attention to, and how you think about it all creates your emotional response. Then your emotional response acts back on that situation—it has an impact on that situation, and the cycle continues.
Five Points of Intervention
In James Gross's model, he looks at five points of intervention:
**1. Choosing the situation**
**2. Modifying that situation**
**3. What you pay attention to within that situation**
**4. How you think about all of it**
**5. The emotional response**
In James Gross's theory, the hardest place to intervene is after you've already had the emotional response. The interventions that take the most effort and are the least effective are the ones after
you've already been triggered and your emotions have already been created.
Understanding the intervention of "choosing the situation"
I want to come back to the concept that choosing the situation can help with emotional regulation. I don't want this misinterpreted to mean avoiding. If there's a situation that makes you anxious and you avoid it long-term, it's going to make things worse.
So let's take a different example in terms of choosing a situation.
An example that's near and dear to my heart is choosing a movie or TV show to watch before I go to bed. If I watch anything too activating, I will not get to sleep for quite a while in the evening. If I watch something that's mellow, maybe even a little boring (—nature documentaries can be helpful—) I will go to sleep much more easily.
So if I want to have an impact on my emotional arousal and my physiology, I can choose what movie to watch or what TV show to watch. That is choosing a situation that will be beneficial for what you want to accomplish.
Situation Modification Examples
The second place to intervene: situation modification. Let's say you're really, really upset about something, but you just want to go out with a friend who makes you laugh and you don't want to talk about it. You go out and you meet the friend, and then the friend asks about the difficult situation. Can you respond with, "I really don't want to talk about it. I really just want you to make me laugh tonight. I really just want to have a good time"? That is you impacting the situation with your desired emotional state in mind.
And it could be the opposite. You could be thinking, "I want to meet with a friend who's going to let me talk about what I'm upset about." We can process our emotions sometimes effectively through talking about them. So that's both choosing your situation and then modifying your situation.
Directing Your Attention
Let's say you're going to a family event and there's a couple of people in your family who argue politics. It gets you really, really upset.
Before you go, you can make a commitment to yourself that you won't pay attention to them. You can pay attention to the family members you find easier to deal with—perhaps the children who are there. Maybe you can create a game to play with the kids. You can decide ahead of time how to set things up so that you are paying attention to the things that are not going to trigger you into an overblown emotional state.
Cognitive Reappraisal
The fourth point of intervention is the cognitive appraisal or reappraisal. This is about how you are thinking about the situation.
Let's say you're in a job interview and it's not going very well. Instead of thinking, "Oh, I'm not going to get this job. I am lousy. I'm not good enough. Everything is lousy in my life," you could think, "Well, this does not feel like a fit. I wasted time coming here, but maybe there's something I can learn. I'm learning what is not going to work for me."
Let's say you're in a job interview and it's not going very well. Instead of thinking, "Oh, I'm not going to get this job. I am lousy. I'm not good enough. Everything is lousy in my life," you could think, "Well, this does not feel like a fit. I wasted time coming here, but maybe there's something I can learn. I'm learning what is not going to work for me."
One thing that can help you see situations differently is to learn about the cognitive distortions. When you recognize these, and know that they are distortions, it is easier to look for other ways to think. Click here for a blog
and here for a playlist.
Managing the Emotional Response
The fifth place to intervene is after the emotional response. This is the least effective place to intervene, and it takes the most effort. Calming yourself down after you're in a full-blown emotional upheaval—a fight, flight, or freeze response - can be very difficult.
There are effective techniques to calm yourself down physiologically, but they work much better if you practice them regularly. You need to practice them not
when you're in the middle of being emotionally upset.
Moving Forward with Emotional Regulation
I know I'm just scratching the surface of this topic, and I will do more blogs and videos on this, but I think it is useful to understand the process model. If you can think about slowing this cycle down and develop awareness of your own emotional responses, you'll have more ability to keep your emotions regulated.
Blog Author: Barbara Heffernan, LCSW, MBA. Barbara is a licensed psychotherapist and specialist in anxiety, trauma, and healthy boundaries. She had a private practice in Connecticut for twenty years before starting her popular YouTube channel designed to help people around the world live a more joyful life. Barbara has a BA from Yale University, an MBA from Columbia University and an MSW from SCSU. More info on Barbara can be found on her bio page.
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