Learn to cope with negative emotions

The moment you feel the urge to procrastinate, take a moment to reflect on the emotion you’re experiencing. Identify the specific emotion and put it into words for yourself.

- Learn to recognise different emotions (website)
- Identify your emotion using the feelings wheel (website)

Listen to what your emotions are telling you. Emotions are signals. They show you what’s going on inside you and what you need.

Don’t suppress them, but ask yourself: ‘What is this feeling trying to tell me?’

• fear or tension
  → You really care about this. Your brain wants to protect you from failure and is saying: ‘Be careful, this matters to us!’
• Boredom or resistance
  → The task feels too abstract, or you’ve lost touch with your own values or goals. Your brain is asking for more meaning or a more concrete first step.
• Restlessness
  → You’re running on low energy, or there are too many ‘open tabs’ in your head demanding attention.

Would you like to learn more about what your emotions are telling you?

- Get to know your emotions (and why they’re useful) (video, 7’)
- Discover what your emotions are telling you (infographic)

If you push an unpleasant feeling aside and start doing something else, you’re signalling that the feeling is dangerous because you’re running away from it. As a result, your brain actually makes the feeling even stronger to warn you. Fighting your feelings takes a lot of energy, causing you to freeze up and procrastinate.

Learn to accept your emotions. Acceptance doesn’t mean you have to like the feeling. It means you stop running away from it. If you sit quietly with the feeling, your brain realises that there’s actually nothing to worry about. Only then will you have the mental space to get on with your task.

• Step 1: Label and acknowledge your emotions without judgment

Instead of getting upset about feeling negative emotions, name the feeling (e.g. “Ah, there’s that ‘I-can’t-be-bothered’ wave again.”). By naming it, you acknowledge the emotion and create a little distance. That distance reduces the intensity of the emotion and calms the stress response in your brain.

• Step 2: Accept the emotion

Stop the internal struggle. Don’t try to push negative emotions away; instead, accept them. Say, for example: “OK, I can feel a knot in my stomach right now and a strong urge to do something else. That’s OK.”

By accepting your emotions without judgment, you won’t waste energy feeling bad about your own reluctance.

• Step 3: Get started anyway

Don’t wait until you feel motivated to start; just get started despite the negative emotions.

Bear in mind: the first 10 minutes are the hardest. This is because your brain registers the mental effort of getting started as something uncomfortable, causing it to protest. If you simply sit through those first 10 minutes and keep working, your brain will get used to the effort and the feeling will subside of its own accord.

- Train yourself to allow your emotions (document)
- Learn to accept your emotions with this exercise (audio exercise on website)
- 6 steps to deal with difficult emotions (infographic)
- Find out how to let go of your emotions in three stages (video, 5’)
- Acknowledge your emotions without letting them overwhelm you (website)

Looking for practical tools and techniques to help you cope with negative emotions?

Try these emotion-regulating exercises:

• try a breathing exercise

Can you feel the tension building or your heart rate racing? If so, try a breathing exercise. By consciously breathing more slowly, you can calm your nervous system. This reduces the intensity of the negative emotion you’re experiencing at that moment.

box breathing (video, 3’)
Physiological sigh (website with infographic)
2-to-1 breathing (video, 10’)
Wayne Cook posture (infographic)

Tip
Practise these breathing exercises at times when you aren’t yet experiencing any uncomfortable feelings. That way, you’ll get the hang of them and find them more effective when negative emotions start to surface.

• Try a relaxation or mindfulness exercise

Do you feel overwhelmed, or do you distract yourself to avoid feelings of unease? If so, try a relaxation or mindfulness exercise.
This sort of exercise brings your focus to the here and now.

Because the brain can only think about one thing at a time, your thoughts become calmer and your body relaxes. As soon as your brain realises that your body is calm, the emotion no longer feels like a major threat.

In this way, you train yourself to observe uncomfortable feelings rather than immediately running away from them.

- Discover what mindfulness is (infographic)
- Read more about mindfulness (website)
- Try this short mindfulness exercise (video, 4’)
- Try this three minute breathing space (website with video, 3’)
- Relax your body with this progressive relaxation exercise (website with audio, 11’) 

Tip
You don’t have to wait until you get stuck or start to feel restless. For example, make it a regular habit to do a short exercise just before you start studying.

• Engage in sports or exercise

Exercise helps to relieve the tension caused by negative emotions and reduces your stress levels. Whilst exercising, your body breaks down the stress hormone cortisol and produces ‘happy hormones’ (endorphins).

Take a look at the ‘Physical Health’ e-module and discover the power of sport and exercise (website)

• Get enough sleep

Sleep is the foundation of good mental and physical health. On average, 18- to 25-year-olds need 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night.

Make sure you get enough sleep every night, so that your brain can function at its best during the day and you can better regulate your (negative) emotions.

You can find tips on getting a good night’s sleep in our ‘Physical Health’ e-module (website)

• Talk about it

Tell friends, fellow students or family members what you’re struggling with. Talking about your feelings forces you to acknowledge (vague) emotions and thoughts and put them into words. You may also discover that you’re not the only one who puts things off from time to time.

Don’t keep it to yourself and make an appointment with a student psychologist. 

-Summary: here’s how you can deal with (negative) emotions (infographic)
- In this e-book, you’ll learn how procrastination acts as an ‘emotional escape route’ and what you can do about it (document)
- How to break the habit of procrastinating (video, 3’)
- 5 ways to overcome procrastination by managing your emotions (website)
- 5 ways to improve your emotion regulation (video, 1’)