On Our Self-Control

Self-Regulation: A Simple Essay

In our normal life, we may encounter moments of joy, happiness, fun, and many others. Most of these moments are often enjoyable, but in our life, we may encounter moments of sadness, anger, disappointment, and others that usually make you feel emotionally bad. Everyone can be sad or angry, it’s a normal thing… But when this sadness and anger takes full control of yourself, it is practically impossible to regain your usual emotions for a period of time, leading to you feeling bad, worried, low in yourself, and others and you want to do something to stop these intense moments quickly but, how do you do it?

In this essay, I will explain in a simple way what self-regulation is, how it works, why is it important, and how to use it properly.

Self-regulation can be described in many ways such as

taking control of your behavior and emotions during any situation, or for emotional self-regulation, to manage any disrupting impulses, thoughts, or behavior. It can also reflect the ability to cheer yourself up after going through sad moments, angry moments, disappointing moments, or quite possibly, your lowest ebb in your life. Basically, self-regulation means to think before acting.

Self-regulation is important because it involves taking a pause between a feeling and an action as well as taking the time to think things through, make a plan, wait patiently. Children often struggle with these behaviors, and adults may as well. Lack of self-regulation can also affect children in a way where they may face reprimands at school. In the case of adults, it can cause lack of self-confidence, self-esteem, as well as getting stressed and frustrated more frequently. Self-regulation can also help during social situations, meaning that it can help to express yourself properly and, in group projects, to be a better coworker and care for others. In other words, it can help you to stay calm under pressure and/or to bounce back from failure.

So, how to use it properly? There are two effective methods of self-regulating which are the following:

Mindfulness: This method involves the cultivation of moment-to-moment awareness usually through deep breathing. It allows you to delay gratification and manage emotions.

Cognitive Reappraisal: This method involves to change and modify your thought panels. Cognitive reappraisal means to think about a situation in an adaptive way, rather than one that is likely to increase negative emotions. This method can help you to handle stress during work.

There are other very useful methods such as acceptance which is basically accepting your failure or anything else and move on, and problem-solving which is using your mind to think about the cause of your current status, the possible consequences, and to finally plan a solution to your recent problems using cognition and logic.

In conclusion, self-regulation is the action of think before

acting during any emotionally bad situation and to manage your emotions. It is important because it can help you to manage stress and frustration and to express yourself properly during social situations, enforcing your self-esteem and self-confidence.

By Angelo Martínez, Step 9.