Why is Emotional Self-Control Important?

Sometimes when you want to collect your thoughts after a chaotic day at work, or recover after feeling worn out, releasing anger and frustration could be very beneficial. However, it should be a controlled process.

If we briefly compare these people we could conclude that they have nothing in common:

• Stefan works as a professional nurse in a crowded clinic in a town in the America’s Heartland.
• Angelique is a successful designer who developed her own business by creating clothing from recycled textiles intended for the Southeast Asian market.
• Avery manages a non-profit organization with the aim to make the food more accessible to the people from poor northern English communities.

However, if we deeply analyze their lives we will actually realize that they have much more in common than we assume:

• Stefan is experiencing grief because of the recent divorce making him unfocused so that he is unable to fully dedicate his attention to the patients and colleagues.
• Angelique cannot hide her feeling of rage every time she receives an e-mail from a former supplier letting her know that he is going to sue her.
• Avery is anxious because of the many unpleasant communication experiences with staff members because of the upcoming pay cuts in the company.

Although these three individuals live in different countries and work on leading positions in different industries, they all face the same problem of being unable to prevent the upsetting emotions they experience from affecting significantly their effectiveness at work. These individuals actually lack emotional self-control which is one of the most important components of people’s emotional and social intelligence.

What Emotional Self-Control Represents?

Being able to control unpleasant emotions and stay effective even in tough situations is known as self-control. However, this does not mean that you are supposed to suppress these emotions, you only have to learn how to handle them. If we can choose we will certainly choose only the positive feelings, but the difficult emotions are an integral part of life. And while we sometimes need to share our feelings of grief and anger with a friend, we cannot allow ourselves to manifest anger or frustration in the working environment. But, in order to stay calm and sensible in every situation we have to build our self-control.

Why Is Emotional Self-Control Important?

If we want to define why emotional self-control matters, it is very important to understand what happens in our brain when we are out of control. Daniel Goleman gives insight into this in his book The Brain and Emotional Intelligence. He explains in the book that the amygdala as a brain structure is essential for decoding emotions, especially fear. And that is why when we are threatened with something the amygdala alerts us and takes over the rest of the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex, causing an emotional response defined as amygdala hijack by Daniel Goleman.

During a hijack, we are not able to think clearly or be adaptable, and the only thing we can rely on, are the over-learned habits.

The hijack causes our brain to stay focused on fear and things we are afraid of. So, when having an amygdala hijack, we cannot concentrate on anything else but on the things that we are struggling with. If we are at work we cannot concentrate on the job tasks because we are experiencing a mind blockade. During a hijack, we are not able to think clearly or be adaptable, and the only thing we can rely on, are the over-learned habits.

According to Daniel Goleman ”the amygdala often makes mistakes”. From everything we see and hear, the amygdala receives only a small fraction of signals and not the information as a whole, because this happens incredibly fast in a single neuron in the amygdala. The other signals go to many other different parts of the brain that need more time to analyze the information and to provide more accurate reading. This is not the case with the amygdala, because it gets only a blurry image of everything and needs to immediately react. That is why mistakes happen and in some cases we overreact driven by the feeling that we are threatened by something.

The Impact of Distressed Leaders

Many studies have shown that it is necessary for people on leading positions to have well developed emotional self-control. Some Australian researches point out that such leaders are more effective and show better results during their professional career. According to other research, the employees who have had a negative experience with their boss have lost confidence in him.

How to Develop Emotional Self-Control?

Is there a way to reduce emotional hijacks? One possible way is to take advantage of the emotional self-awareness as another segment of humans’ emotional intelligence. It means that we should pay closer attention to the signals that our brain sends to alert us about the negative emotions as they start to appear.

If you notice some changes into your emotions, like starting to get upset and nervous you could prevent the hijack before it even happens.

As the rational and the emotional part of the brain work together, if you are not able to recognize whether the amygdala has hijacked the rational part of your brain, you will also not be able to balance your emotions up to the time the hijack passes. However, if you notice some changes into your emotions, like starting to get upset and nervous, you could prevent the hijack before it even happens. This means that you become aware of your emotions, and this is a step forward towards developing self-control.

You can also try to think about the things logically, or simply use some techniques like deep belly breathing that are extremely helpful for mind and body relaxation. To learn some of these techniques you might consider practicing yoga or meditation because you could invoke them during a hijack only if you have practiced them regularly and they have become a well learned habit.