Hack Your Emotions
Psychologist Ethan Kross, founder of the Emotion and Self-Control Lab at the University of Michigan and author of 'Shift,' shares science-backed strategies to manage powerful emotions. He offers practical tips on using sensory input, attention, perspective, physical space, and relationships to regulate feelings like fear, anger, and sadness.
Deep Dive Analysis
9 Topic Outline
Ethan Kross's Personal Motivation for Studying Emotions
Historical and Extreme Methods of Emotion Regulation
The Cultural Need for Emotion Regulation Education
Shifting Emotions with Outside Sensory Stimuli
Strategic Use of Attention and Distraction
Gaining Perspective Through Distancing Techniques
Regulating Emotions by Changing Physical Space
Leveraging Relationships and Emotional Contagion
Recap of Emotion Regulation Strategies
7 Key Concepts
Emotional Congruency Effect
This describes the tendency to gravitate towards music or other stimuli that match one's current emotional state. While sometimes useful for introspection, if one wants to shift an emotion, it's important to resist this urge and choose stimuli that push emotions in a different direction.
Sensory Emotion Regulation
This refers to the use of our five senses (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste) to relatively effortlessly and quickly shift our emotional state. These links between sensation and emotional experience are strong in our brains, making sensory input a powerful, low-effort tool.
Strategic Distraction
This is the intentional use of pleasant and cognitively demanding activities (like puzzles or games) to temporarily divert attention from overwhelming emotional events. It provides space from the experience, allowing one to re-approach it later with a healthier perspective.
Distanced Self-Talk
A linguistic technique for gaining perspective on one's problems by referring to oneself using 'you' or one's own name (e.g., 'Ethan, what should you do?'). This automatically switches one's perspective, making it easier to give objective advice to oneself as if to another person.
Mental Time Travel
A cognitive tool for broadening perspective by imagining how one will feel about a current difficult situation in the future (next week, month, or year). It helps recognize that the intensity of emotions typically fades over time, or by reflecting on past adversities to gain resilience.
Attachment to Places
This concept describes how individuals form emotional bonds with physical locations, similar to how they form attachments to people. Being in a positively attached place can provide a sense of safety, security, and restoration, helping to regulate emotions.
Emotional Contagion
This is the phenomenon where emotions rapidly spread from one person to others within a group or network, often without explicit direction. It highlights how the emotional tone of individuals, especially leaders, can directly impact the collective emotional state of a group.
7 Questions Answered
Negative emotions like fear, anger, sadness, and overwhelm are an inherent part of being human, but they can feel out of control, draining energy, messing up performance, and making us feel bad.
Historically, people have resorted to extreme methods such as drilling holes in heads (trepanation), exorcisms, bloodletting, and even frontal lobotomies to manage intense emotional states.
Yes, sadness can be functional because it often slows us down physiologically, leads us to turn our attention inward to introspect and make sense of a loss, and can signal to others that we might need help.
Distraction can be useful for giving you space from an experience to then re-approach it with a healthier perspective, especially if the problem doesn't resurface. If the problem does resurface after a break, it's a signal to re-engage and work through it more productively, perhaps by layering in other tools.
Using 'you' or one's own name when reflecting on a problem (e.g., 'Ethan, why are you doing this?') can automatically switch one's perspective, putting you in a frame of mind where you're giving advice to yourself from a more objective standpoint.
Our physical spaces impact our attention and senses, and we form attachments to places that can provide a sense of safety and security, similar to how we form attachments to people. Modifying these spaces, even in micro ways, can help regulate emotions.
Individuals should recognize that their emotional tone directly impacts others, and leaders can use this to establish norms. By bringing a positive emotional tone and acting in ways that reinforce desired values, one can serve as a pivot point to shift not only their own emotions but also those of people they care about.
6 Actionable Insights
1. Understand Emotion’s Function
Recognize that all emotions are functional signals prompting you to take action or understand a situation. Once you’ve understood what the emotion is trying to teach you, allow it to dissipate rather than dwelling on it.
2. Shift Mood with Senses
Actively use sensory input like music, touch, visuals, and smell to alter your emotional state. For example, if feeling sad, listen to ‘pump-up’ music that is incongruent with your mood, or use comforting self-touch like a cozy blanket.
3. Regulate with Strategic Attention
Manage your attention by using positive, cognitively demanding distractions (e.g., puzzles like Wordle) to create space from intense emotions. Avoid chronic avoidance, but also don’t dwell on difficult experiences; instead, focus on things within your control.
4. Gain Perspective on Problems
Reframe how you think about your circumstances by taking a step back. Use distanced self-talk (e.g., ‘Why are you doing this, Ethan?’) or mental time travel (e.g., how will you feel next year, or how did past figures overcome adversity?) to gain a more objective viewpoint.
5. Optimize Your Physical Space
Modify your physical environment to support emotional regulation by getting physical distance from what’s upsetting you, or by proactively identifying and using ‘safe spaces’ with restorative properties. You can also decorate your immediate surroundings with pictures of loved ones or plants for calming effects, and remove distractors or temptations.
6. Influence Emotions Socially
Leverage emotional contagion by being aware that your emotional tone impacts others, especially as a leader. Model the positive emotions you want to see in a group, and address negative emotional influences early to shape a supportive social environment.
5 Key Quotes
Don't ask why, why is a crooked letter.
Ethan Kross's grandmother
All of our emotions are functional when they're experienced in the right proportions, not too intense or not too long.
Ethan Kross
As awful as our emotions are, as time stretches on, they typically fade.
Ethan Kross
We routinely form attachments to places in a way that is similar to the way we form attachment to people.
Ethan Kross
If you're a leader, you might also want to be aware of the fact that if you want this group to be pushing in a particular direction and there's one voice or one person there that maybe isn't abiding by that, you want to be sensitive to that too and nip that reaction in the bud right away.
Ethan Kross
1 Protocols
5 Strategies for Shifting Big Feelings
Lori Santos (recapping Ethan Kross's tips)- Prepare a big emotions playlist: If you're scared or sad, dispel that mood by hitting play on some feel-good music (e.g., 'dad rock' like Journey).
- Divert your attention: Use quick, cognitively demanding distractions to get away from big emotions (e.g., going for a run or solving a Wordle puzzle).
- Take a step back: View your problems as a stranger, coach, or mentor might see them, asking if things are truly so bleak or what advice they would give.
- Get some physical distance: Escape the environment that's stressing you out, whether by moving cities, going to a 'safe spot' in your town, or modifying your immediate surroundings (e.g., adding plants, removing distractors).
- Surround yourself with positive people: Take a break from friends, co-workers, or loved ones who are spiking your negative emotions, and instead seek out positive influences.