Name it to tame it

When a strong emotion hits, the instinct is to push it away or act on it immediately. There is a quieter third option that sounds almost too simple: name it.

What happens when you label a feeling

Brain imaging studies by researchers at UCLA found that when people put words to an emotion they were feeling, activity in the amygdala, a region involved in alarm responses, tended to drop. Psychologists call this affect labelling. You don't fix the feeling. You give it a name, and it loosens its grip a little.

Be specific

"Bad" is a weak label. "Anxious" is better. "Anxious that I'll be judged in tomorrow's meeting" is better still. The more precisely you can name what you feel, the more room you create between yourself and it.

Try saying it in a slightly distant way: "I notice I'm feeling anxious" rather than "I am anxious." The feeling is something passing through you, not the whole of you.

Feelings are information

Anger often points at a boundary that has been crossed. Grief is love with nowhere to go. Fear is trying to protect something. None of them are the enemy. They become a problem mainly when they act without being seen.

Next time a wave hits, pause for one breath and find the most precise word you can. That is all. It is a small act, but it is the beginning of sitting with a feeling instead of being swept away by it.

What emotion is hardest for you to name? You don't have to explain why. Just naming it here counts.