Our life is full of stress and there is nothing you can do about it. Stress is everything that is new to our psyche. Any new situation, positive or negative, is a stress for our body, as we need to adapt to this situation.
Let's give examples of stress: moving, new rules at school, a new employee at work, a gloomy mood of a husband, illnesses: one's own, children, husband, pets, animals; meeting new people, raising prices, finally, changing the behavior and character of a child who is growing all the time - you just got used to the crisis of three years, as it passed and what worked at 3 years old has now stopped working.
It happens that there is a lot of stress in life, and very few resources. And then the body can not cope. At such moments, we tend to: get sick, lash out at the child and loved ones, scream, over-react emotionally, cry a lot. Or vice versa, do not react, fall into apathy and avoidance. These are a kind of “stop signals” of our psyche.
But with each outburst to your child, your relationship with him is destroyed, and as a result, his self-esteem suffers, and behavior may worsen. Scars from screaming remain with the child for life.
▪️7 Ways to Deal with Strong Emotions
1. Exercise "5 fingers"
This exercise helps if you feel that you are overwhelmed by emotion and you are losing control of yourself.
📍We start with the little finger. We hug him and say: “I have such emotions, and I know it.”
📍Ring finger. Try to identify what emotion you are experiencing right now and name it. For example: "This is anger (fear, resentment), and I know it."
📍Middle finger: "This feeling always goes away, and I know it." Here I would like to clarify: any, even the strongest emotion at the peak lasts no more than 5-7 seconds. Ask yourself, "Can I handle 5 seconds of emotion"?
📍Index finger: "I know how to help myself." Here you need to come up with 2-3 options in advance, what you can do when you are overwhelmed by feelings: go outside, drink water, breathe "square", call a friend, go for a walk.
📍Thumb: "I'm coming to my senses. I calm down."
Give each statement 10-20 seconds. If necessary, repeat several times. Try to breathe evenly. With each affirmation, your breathing calms down, returns to normal.
2. Breathing exercise to reduce anxiety
This exercise helps to quickly reduce anxiety. We sit down steadily in order to feel the ground with our feet and the back of a chair or armchair with our backs, relax. Inhale for 3 counts, exhale for 3 counts. On the next breath cycle, lengthen the exhalation by 1 - it turns out exhalation by 4. The next cycle, lengthen the exhalation to 5. Thus, we reach the following count: for 3 breaths, for 8 exhalations.
3. "Breathing in a square"
This is another NLP breathing practice that allows you to calm down, relieve anxiety, and gather strength.
Take a comfortable position standing or sitting. You can close your eyes. Breathe in while simultaneously counting to yourself: “one, two, three, four” or “one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three” - as you feel more comfortable counting.
Hold the air in yourself while simultaneously counting to yourself: "one, two, three, four" or "one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three." Exhale while simultaneously counting to yourself: “one, two, three, four” or “one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three.” Hold your breath while simultaneously counting to yourself: "one, two, three, four" or "one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three."
Inhalation, exhalation and pause are approximately equal to each other in duration, a normal rhythm that is comfortable for most is about 4-6 seconds.
4. Neuromuscular relaxation according to Jacobson
This is an exercise that helps relieve severe stress, relax, fall asleep, cope with aggression and anxiety. Exercises are performed lying or sitting, with eyes closed. Start with short-term (5-7 seconds) tension in one muscle group, such as the legs or back, which then relax. As you achieve complete relaxation of one muscle group, move on to the next, and so on. So gradually and slowly go over the whole body.
5. Exercise "If I start now ... sing"
The desire to scream is the desire to throw out tension from the body, to express strong feelings inside. Restraining such a strong tension is harmful for you, and splashing it out on a child is very harmful for his psyche. So the moment you want to scream, start... singing and dancing.
Try it! Remember how you do it when you sing your favorite song? Perhaps you jump, shout your favorite lines - this is an expression of the same emotionally charged emotion, aggression, only much safer. Believe me, those mothers who have tried this method have never regretted it.
6. Exercise "Shake off"
This technique is for relieving tension, activating forces and energy. The name speaks for itself - we need a good shake. What exactly needs to be done? At first, you start shaking only with the brushes, as if shaking off something. Then hands, then the whole upper body, head and whole body.
To better visualize the movement, look at how dogs do it after leaving the water. This is approximately the movement we need to get in the final
7. Exercise "5 senses"
This is an exercise to work with any strong emotion:
📍List 5 things you see.
📍List 5 sounds you hear.
📍List 5 things you can touch. What are their feelings? What texture do they have?
📍List 5 things you can smell with your sense of smell.
📍Take a deep breath in and out for 5 counts. Say, "I can feel the breath in my body."
▫️Homework for parents
It is important for us, parents, to convey information to children so that they do not experience stress, do not give out emotional reactions in response, so that their cerebral cortex works and they can hear and comprehend everything.
Please write in the comments what helps you stop in time if you start to “wind up” or scream at a child?
P.S. Remember - screams and breakdowns cripple the child, spoil your relationship with him, undermine your authority and nervous system. When you scream, the child does NOT stop loving you - he stops loving himself.
Yours, Maria Altuhova,
Psychologist, Pedagogical University, Ukraine.
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