How to regulate emotions when under great psychological pressure

The key to regulating emotions when you are under high psychological pressure is not to find ways to quickly "eliminate" negative emotions. Instead, you should first stop criticizing yourself for "why you can't handle this little pressure."

A while ago, I accompanied a friend who was working on a project and preparing for a professional title exam to sort out her status. She stayed up for almost two weeks in a row. One day after get off work, she passed by a sweet shop she often went to. The boss didn't give her an extra spoonful of taro balls as usual, so she squatted on the roadside and cried. Her first reaction was to scold herself, "It's so pretentious that this is worth crying for." The more she scolded, the more she couldn't stop. I didn't pull her up to do anything "positive" that day, so I sat with her on the steps by the roadside and listened to her talk about her grievances for half an hour. After crying enough, I went to eat a bowl of hot wonton noodles. She calmed down and said that most of the tension in her chest had dissipated, and she was much more efficient when she went back to work overtime than if she had just held on.

Nowadays, the opinions on regulating stress emotions on the Internet are quite polarized. One group says that you must get active, go to exercise, socialize, and turn your attention away. The other group says that you must not force yourself, and it is effective to just lie down and do nothing. In the cases I have come across, both methods are effective, and some are getting worse. There is no universal standard answer. I once had a visitor who worked in Internet operations. When he was stressed, he broke out in a sweat after running five kilometers and his whole body was clear. However, his colleague in the same department tried it once and couldn't breathe after running two steps. Instead, he felt that he couldn't even do exercise well and became more anxious. He went home and lay on the sofa for two hours playing with Lego, but he slowly recovered.

To put it bluntly, this is the same as cooling down your phone when it is hot. Some people are suitable to turn off all background programs and leave it for two minutes. Some people are suitable to disassemble the case and put it in the vent for a while. If you insist on stuffing it in an ice pack no matter what the situation, it may cause malfunctions. When I'm usually so stressed that my mind is in chaos and I can't sleep, I find a piece of useless paper and write whatever comes to my mind. I write down everything I've said about my boss, unfinished things, and inexplicable random thoughts. After writing, I just crumple it into a ball and throw it in the trash can. This is equivalent to clearing out the garbage piled up in my mind. It's much more effective than lying down and thinking over and over, "Why am I still awake and have to go to work tomorrow?"

In fact, the "emotional acceptance" often mentioned in psychology is really not a concept floating in the air. To put it bluntly, you should not regard negative emotions as enemies to be defeated. They are just knocking on the door to tell you that you are overloaded and it is time to stop and take a rest. If you insist on driving the messenger away, it will only bang the door louder next time. As long as you find a way that suits you, even if you just sit in front of an empty room for half an hour or eat a hot pot with excessive calories, it is the most effective way to adjust.