How You Can ‘Shift’ Emotions So They Don’t Control You

There are the good manageable emotions like the love you feel when you see your significant other or a piece of avocado toast. Then there are the really difficult to manage emotions such as the rage you feel when someone takes your piece of avocado toast. A prevailing belief is that you only have two options in dealing with such baddy emotions: either confront them head on immediately or avoid them so that they come out later in some unexpected Anakin Skywalker-Hulk-Carrie type of way. But Ethan Kross, PhD, a professor of psychology and management/organizations at the University of Michigan, suggests shifting away from this all-or-none thinking in his new book Shift: Managing Your Emotions — So They Don’t Manage You.

The book covers different ways you can shift the impact of your emotions and what you end up feeling, hence the title. This lays out a more flexible middle ground between the avoidance versus fully process as soon as possible extremes. Kross knows a thing or two about emotions and self-control as he is the director of the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan and has been studying such things over the past two decades.

“You hear that you immediately have to face your fears and that avoidance is toxic,” Kross explained to me. “While chronically avoiding something is not good, being flexible with your attention, for example, can be useful.”

Attention Shifters

This brings up one type of shifting: attention shifting. As Kross indicated, this is about “the spotlight in your mind and where do you point it towards.” So rather than immediately and constantly dealing with an emotion, not resting until it is fully processed, it may be better at times to shift attention away from such a problem, “to give time for things to calm down while strategically deploying our attention,” in the words of Kross.

Kross mentioned how diverting or distracting yourself here and there from dealing with the emotion can be a useful strategy as long as we eventually get back to dealing with it. “Where we point our attention can powerfully drive or diminish our emotions,” he said. “Sometimes we need to go back and forth before the problem is gone.”

This does make sense. Imagine yourself playing professional football. Going all out and constantly playing at a full sprint would probably not be a wise strategy. Instead, varying your effort and taking periodic breaks can offer adequate rest and allow you to gain new perspective and tackle opponents in different ways.

Perspective Shifters

Speaking of perspective, Kross then moved to another set of shifters, perspective shifters. In this case, perspective is how you view the problem and situation. “A key to helping people reframe a situation is to shift perspective, give them distance,” Kross emphasized. “People can focus narrowly on the aversiveness of what’s happening.”

Now, Kross admitted, “This is “easier f—ing said than done.” He mentioned Solomon’s paradox, named after the fact that King Solomon could deliver great wisdom to others while failing to get his own personal life in order. But Kross did offer some specific ways to change perspective, such as “mental time travel. How am I going to feel about that next week?” Another possibility, “When in the midst of an emotional experience, turn the volume down. Things could be worse.” Then there’s the shifting language possibility. “When in another language, it doesn’t have the same effect as when in the native language,” said Kross. “It’s the foreign language effect.” This may be yet another reason to take those Silbo Gomero language classes that you’ve always been wanting to take.

Sensory Shifters

It also helps to get a better sense of what your senses are taking in as “senses are powerful emotion regulation shifters,” according to Kross. “Scientists asked several hundred individuals, why you listen to music,” Kross related. “And many responded, ‘I like the way it makes me feel,’ as the links between sensation and emotion are strong.”

Therefore, you can change how you are feeling by changing the types of sensory inputs you are receiving. Say, for example, the Hanson song “MMMBop” really speaks to who you are. Then playing that song can help you feel more whole. Kross cautioned that the effects “tend to be fleeting,” though. There are only so many times you can keep playing MMMBop on loop. Plus, “sensory shifters can be potent, so potent that people can use this tool to detriment,” Kross warned. “Risky sexual behaviors and emotional eating are two such examples.”

Space Shifters

Your physical environment certainly can provide many different sensory inputs. But there’s more to physical space than just that. “Physical spaces can play a powerful role in impacting how we feel,” Kross explained. “Going somewhere new can literally give us distance from our problems.” Therefore, one way of space shifting is to take a trip.

It may not be the most practical thing to go on vacation whenever you encounter a negative emotion. Fortunately, space shifting doesn’t necessarily mean having to completely get away from your present locations. “There are ways of interacting with local environment differently,” Kross emphasized.