Naming What’s Up

Another brain-scanner-tested regulation tool is naming what’s up. In the tests, a person in a brainscanner is shown a picture that triggers a feeling in them, often a high-charge feeling, like fear, anger or sadness. If their system responds with stress, when they name their feeling, their system down regulates. 

To do this, at the very first feeling of stress/anxiety, take a moment and tune into yourself.  “What’s going on with me right now? What exactly am I feeling?” When you find the feeling, say it outloud. 

This can also be helpful for helping regulate another person who is distressed. It’s usually best offered as a question. For example: 
“Are you feeling hungry….  ?”
“No, I’m frustrated that my computer is going so slow.”
Great, the person has named their own feeling and regulated down a bit. 

An additional step, if you’d like one, is not only to name the feeling, but also notice the why behind the feeling. For example, “I’m feeling uncomfortable because I need to go and pick up the kids soon and this meeting is going on longer than scheduled.”   

This extra step can be regulating too—mystery solved, that’s what’s going on with me. Personally, I wonder if this is because it’s regulating to make sense of something, to transform an amorphous cloud of stress down to its actual, specific size, dimensions and reasons.