How are you feeling today?
If you’re feeling in any way distressed, here’s a tool to help you reduce the intensity of those feelings:
Recent research has shown that simple feeling words can calm your mind.
If you identify and label the feeling that is causing you distress – for example sad, anxious, angry, lonely, scared – this will ease your upset feeling and help you feel more in control.
Attaching a label to an emotion actually moves your brain activity from the fight or flight area (the amygdala) to the thinking area (the prefrontal cortex).
This is also why writing down your feelings is therapeutic and cathartic, because it helps you to identify and process what you are experiencing.
So, if you are feeling in any way distressed right now, which many people are, I highly recommend taking a little time to write out your thoughts and feelings.
As a practice, the ideal time would be just before bed and soon after you wake up however you can of course do this whenever you are experiencing stress, worry and fear.
Kate x
