Category: POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Any married person can tell you the importance of controlling your emotions and research backs up this notion. According to a study published in 2013, emotion regulation predicts marital satisfaction. Using data from a 13-year study of middle-aged couples, researchers found that the downregulation of negative emotions led to greater satisfaction.

The researchers defined emotion regulation as increasing, maintaining, or decreasing the components of a person’s emotional response. The study focused on downregulating negative emotions. The couples were instructed to discuss areas of conflict within their relationships. The regulation was measured during the interactions. The couples then assessed their own behaviour and physiology afterwards.

The results of the study help to confirm that downregulating negativity helps people communicate more effectively. This allows couples to work through their conflicts instead of exhibiting negative behaviour. Researchers believe that marital satisfaction directly impacts physical and mental health. With decreased satisfaction, couples are less likely to communicate their problems and resolve issues.

The same is true in a work setting. Colleagues who cannot control their emotions and communicate effectively are more likely to experience dissatisfaction, low morale, lower creative output and limited productivity. The prevailing model of emotion regulation involves a four-step sequence:

• Situation
• Attention
• Appraisal
• Response

People can regulate emotions during any of the four steps in the sequence. For example, you can choose to avoid negative situations. If you cannot avoid the situation, you may find that you can focus your attention on something else. You can also find ways to change the way that you appraise or respond to the situation. This may involve avoiding jumping to conclusions or taking a moment to collect your thoughts before responding.

If you want to learn how to apply these practices in a work environment, work with the positive psychology trainers at Think Learn Succeed.

About the author of this article:

Eleanor Shakiba is a positive psychology trainer. Her passion is working with positive deviants – the people in communities and organisations who break paradigms and build new solutions to entrenched problems. Eleanor is the author of the Positive Psychology Toolkit for HR and L&D practitioners. She also runs a range of specialist retreats and workshops for trainers and facilitators.

As an HR leader, you might find that you are putting a lot of emotional labour into your job. This means that you invest your mental energy and emotions into helping others, regulating wellness and positivity in the workplace. One of the most important things you can do to promote this kind of wellness for yourself is to tune into how much emotional labour you are giving.

HR representatives are expected to keep the organisation and its employees safe. They are also expected to help regulate the feelings of others. There is a way that you can use emotional labour positively to help yourself and the employees under your care.

A study by Matthieu Wargnier shows how emotional regulation can directly improve psychological well-being. Results of Wargnier’s study revealed that HR agents who receive the right support and training, while maintaining authenticity to themselves, are great leaders for employees of an organisation. There are unique challenges that HR personnel face and they can manage people effectively by learning how to manage themselves the right way.

Making positive changes to your work environment can help you avoid any negative impacts of emotional labour. Encourage an environment of speaking and listening, giving equal weight and exchange between every individual. It is critical to understand that actions and reactions play a role in emotional management. The more positive the actions, the better the reactions will be. This doesn’t just remove emotional tension. It also removes the emotional distance between the HR manager and the personnel under their care.

Your emotional regulation skills can improve resilience and give you a more positive outlook when dealing with employees. Overall, this makes for a better work experience for everyone.

Stay in touch with more positive psychology examples with Eleanor Shakiba. Follow her on Facebook or LinkedIn today.

About the author of this article:

Eleanor Shakiba is a master trainer. She specialises in positive psychology techniques such as positive deviance, learned optimism and positive leadership. Eleanor can help you and your people build a thriving business, using evidence-based tools. Eleanor is the author of the Positive Psychology Toolkit for HR and L&D practitioners. She also runs a range of retreats and workshops for trainers and facilitators.

Consciously or not, leaders influence the emotions of their direct reports. And exceptional leaders, it seems, do this in rather predictable ways. They heighten their direct reports’ positive emotions. They also act to reduce team members’ negative feelings. How do they do this? By paying attention to upbeat states and coaching their employees beyond negativity. Both actions are examples of emotion regulation in action.

Great leaders also manage their own emotions. A fascinating research study by Cote, Van Kleef and Sy showed that leaders who make an effort to ‘upregulate’ their enthusiasm about organisational change are perceived as more effective in leading that change. Likewise, perceptions of leaders are improved when they ‘downregulate’ displays of anxiety.

The same study showed that “followers may quickly catch the emotions of their leaders, and caught emotions, in turn, may affect how followers work.” In other words, the leader’s emotions are contagious. It might sound like common sense, but many leaders fail to take this into account when emotions are running high.

When people see positive emotions being shown, they want to reciprocate these feelings. If leaders express happiness and pay attention to team members’ positive emotions, team members work better.  Consider this when you’re reacting to daily events in your workplace!

About the author of this fun fact:

Eleanor Shakiba is a positive psychology trainer. She has been training and coaching ‘positive deviants’ since 1994. She delivers customised workshops for corporate teams, as well as practitioner level programs for HR and L&D specialists. Eleanor is the author of the Positive Psychology Toolkit for HR and L&D practitioners. She also runs a range of retreats and workshops for trainers and facilitators.

When you cannot control your emotions, you are likely to say or do things that you regret. Before you prematurely fire someone or turn in your resignation letter, gain control of your emotions through emotion regulation. Positive psychology trainers and experts in emotional intelligence have a range of tools you can use to do this.  

So what is emotion regulation? Put simply, it involves managing both your emotional state and your expression of emotion. It is mostly automated and unconscious, but it can also be consciously controlled to build emotional intelligence. In positive psychology, emotion regulation is the ability to actively upregulate or downregulate your thoughts and feelings. Upregulation means enhancing an emotional state. Downregulation means reducing it.  

Emotion regulation includes three primary components: initiating actions, inhibiting actions and modulating responses to your emotions. Using the upregulation and downregulation model, you can filter your responses to information in a positive way. Positive psychology trainers suggest that it is most useful to upregulate positive emotions and downregulate distressing emotions.  

How do you gain more conscious control of your emotions? The top five emotion regulation techniques taught by positive psychology trainers and coaches are: 

• Situation selection 
• Situation modification 
• Attentional deployment 
• Cognitive change 
• Response modulation 

With situation selection, you choose to avoid or accept a situation. For example, you may choose to avoid a situation that you know will bring negative emotions.  

With situation modification, you modify the situation to create a different emotional impact. This includes changes to your environment, such as standing further from someone if you dislike close interactions. 

Attentional deployment requires you to direct your attention away from or towards an emotional situation. Thought suppression and distractions are great examples. If you direct your attention elsewhere instead of dwelling on the situation. The opposite of this approach is rumination and worry. 

Cognitive change is the process of changing how you appraise a situation to alter its emotional impact. This includes reappraisal, distancing and humour. People frequently inject humour to upregulate positive emotions and downregulate negative ones.  

Distancing provides a method for self-reflection. You appraise the situation from a third-person perspective instead of a first-person perspective, distancing yourself from the issue.  

Reappraisal is widely regarded as one of the most successful emotion regulation techniques. With reappraisal, you reinterpret the meaning of the event. This may allow you to see new solutions or focus more on the big picture.  

To apply some of these emotion regulation strategies at work, try using the following tips from positive psychology trainers. 

• Compartmentalise your work and personal matters to prevent negative issues at home from affecting your work 
• Use deep breathing and relaxation techniques to give your mind more time to analyse negative situations 
• When feeling angry or frustrated, count to 10 before responding to the situation 
• Clarify your response before acting on it to avoid misunderstandings 
• Remain mindful of your surroundings and the perspectives of others  

According to a study published in Cerebral Cortex, reappraisal provides an effective emotion regulation strategy. Based on the study, reappraising a situation by upregulating positive outcomes and downregulating negative outcomes directly impacts people’s decision-making processes. Leaders may use this strategy to influence the way a team analyses and reaches solutions. 

Emotion regulation is a widely studied process that will give you the tools needed to control anger, worry and other negative emotions. Instead of allowing these emotions to get in the way of effective decision making, find ways to reappraise difficult situations. If necessary, call on the expertise of positive psychology trainers and coaches. Or contact your human resources department for advice on building your emotional intelligence skills.   

About the author of this article: 

Eleanor Shakiba is a trusted coach and trainer to thousands of professionals in high intellect fields. Her expertise is in using positive psychology to build high performing leaders and teams. Eleanor works with trainers and HR specialists to build exceptional organisations and teams. She is the author of the Positive Psychology Toolkit for HR and L&D practitioners. She also runs a range of retreats and workshops for trainers and facilitators. 

Emotion regulation involves noticing and shifting your emotional state. It’s a skill which involves noticing and managing your feelings as they occur. The benefits of regulating your emotions are numerous. They include improved mental health, better relationships, greater levels of personal wellbeing and higher levels of career success. So how can you tap into the power of emotion regulation?

Here are 5 simple ways to regulate your emotions.

1. Slow your breathing. This works by regulating your automatic nervous system, essentially fooling your body into becoming relaxed.
2. Ask yourself what you’re feeling. Awareness is the first step towards shifting your emotions.
3. Change your self-talk. This involves challenging your own thoughts and finding new ways to interpret your situation.
4. Focus on the here and now. Mindful attention exercises can help you do this.
5. Generate some positive emotions. Watch a funny video or gaze at an inspiring photo. This helps you shift states and begin to feel more resilient.

By using these tips daily, you can master the art of emotion regulation. Which means you’ll be much better equipped to handle challenging situations at work.

About the author of this tip:

Eleanor Shakiba is a positive psychology trainer. She has helped over 50,000 people to build confidence, presence and impact at work. Her passion is working with the ‘positive deviants’ in organisations – equipping them to think creatively and produce exceptional results. Eleanor is the author of the Positive Psychology Toolkit for HR and L&D practitioners. She also runs a range of retreats and workshops for trainers and facilitators.

Want to train your people in emotion regulation skills? Call Eleanor Shakiba. 0433 126 841

Mindfulness is the process of paying attention to the here and now. Doing this can help you reduce stress, improve your focus and even reduce the age of your brain. So, would YOU like to experience the benefits of mindfulness? Here are four simple techniques to get you started.

First, quit multitasking. It overloads your brain and slows you down. Focus on one thing at time and your brain will work better. Second, let your mind rest. Stop worrying about the future or ruminating about the past. This lets your brain relax and rest. Third, focus on sensory details. Focus on observing all the small details you can gather through each sense. Fourth, join a mindfulness group or try self-hypnosis. Both activities will help you relax and enter a state of focused attention.

Remember, you don’t have to work hard to become mindful. You just need to make space for slowing down.

About the author of this tip:

Eleanor Shakiba is trainer for professionals in high intellect fields. Her expertise is in using positive psychology to build high performing leaders and teams. Eleanor works with trainers and HR specialists to build exceptional organisations and people. She is the author of the Positive Psychology Toolkit for HR and L&D practitioners. She also runs a range of retreats and workshops for trainers and facilitators.

Want to run a mindfulness training session for your people? Call Eleanor Shakiba. 0433 126 841

Meditation involves focusing inward and honing your concentration skills. Practitioners have been touting the benefits of meditation for thousands of years. Now there is compelling scientific evidence that their claims are true. Indeed, it seems that regular meditation practice can change your brain for the better.

In 2008, some Buddhist monks agreed to have their brains scanned. The purpose of doing this was to determine whether meditation alters brain function. The results?  Increased meditation leads to “an ability of the brain to change and optimise in a way we didn’t know previously was possible” (Josipovic, 2011). For example, regular meditation shrinks the amygdala (the brain’s fight-or-flight control centre). It also thickens your pre-frontal cortex (the part of your brain that’s responsible for concentration and decision-making).

About the author of this fast fact:

Eleanor Shakiba is a specialist in positive psychology training. She has helped over 50,000 professionals to build confidence, presence and influence at work. Her passion is working with the ‘positive deviants’ in organisations – equipping them to think creatively and build a better world. Eleanor is the author of the Positive Psychology Toolkit for HR and L&D practitioners.  She also runs a range of retreats and workshops for trainers and facilitators.

What happens when you put a Buddhist monk into an MRI machine and study the impact of meditation on the brain? You get the makings of a best-selling book. The Science of Meditation is a layperson’s guide to the benefits of meditation. Based on solid research, it is a compelling read. 

Written by two experts in neuroscience, The Science of Meditation introduces you to a whole new side of meditation. It focuses on how meditation can impact both the mind and the brain. The authors provide fascinating evidence that after as little as two weeks of meditation, you can reap positive benefits. These include lowered stress levels, improved memory and enhanced focus. If you’re interested in the background on meditation research, this book is definitely for you. 

Why is this one of my favourite books? Because it is crammed with anecdotes about scientists exploring the wonderful landscape of the human mind.  

About the author of this review

Eleanor Shakiba is passionate about helping talented people flourish professionally. She coaches and trains high performers who want to excel in business. Her core expertise is in positive psychology. Eleanor is qualified in Social Anthropology, Positive Psychology, Counselling, Coaching, Adult Education and Neuro Linguistic Programming. Eleanor’s passion is working with positive deviants – the people in communities and organisations who break paradigms and build new solutions to entrenched problems.  

The mind can physically turn back time, according to a mindfulness study completed by Dr. Ellen Langer. Langer and her team wanted to find out how many negative effects related to aging could be manipulated through psychological intervention. To conduct the 1979 study, Langer needed to place a group of senior citizens in a controlled environment that closely resembled an environment from 1959. She converted a monastery using furnishings and décor from two decades earlier.

The monastery featured a vintage radio playing Perry Como. An old black-and-white TV played episodes of the Ed Sullivan Show. Eight men in their 70s were used for the study. After passing through the doors of the monastery, they were taken back to 1959. The group was told to reminisce about the past and behave as if it were 1959. A control group in a comparable environment was told to reminisce but not act as if it were two decades earlier.

A week later, both groups experienced improvements in their physical and mental health. The groups experienced better posture, memory, cognition, hearing, dexterity and vision. However, the group that lived as if it were 1959 experienced much more dramatic changes. 63% of the group had improved intelligence test scores compared to tests taken before the experiment. Only 44% of the control group improved their scores.

Langer attributes the success of the experiment to mindfulness. She describes mindfulness as actively noticing new things. When you open your mind to possibilities, you tend to thrive.

Uncovering new possibilities could have a profound impact on the success of a team or an entire organisation. It may lead to greater problem-solving skills and motivation.

To explore these concepts further, consider booking a session with Think Learn Succeed.

About the author of this article:

Eleanor Shakiba is passionate about helping talented people flourish professionally. She coaches and trains high performers who want to excel in business. Her core expertise is in positive psychology. Eleanor is the author of the Positive Psychology Toolkit for HR and L&D practitioners. She also runs master practitioner level retreats and workshops for trainers and facilitators.

The most effective kind of leadership is authentic leadership. This means that leading with your best self can strengthen teams and drive better results. Mindfulness is a powerful mental exercise that you can apply to your team whether you are a director, HR manager, team leader, or representative.

Take action as a leader and develop mindfulness with your employees and peers. Plenty of research shows that working together to solve problems, learning more about each other and being supportive of each other can drastically improve positive operations in the workplace. The more positive you are, the more lasting the effects of good teamwork will be.

Here is a good example. Emerald Insight implemented a 3-year training program on leaders to see how effective action learning principles were in the workplace. The results of the study showed that mindfulness increased significantly among participants and it changed not only the mindset but the entire structure of some organisations.

If you are looking to bring real (and positive) changes to your workplace, try working on mindfulness. This means that you should encourage peers to be supportive of each other. It also helps to increase awareness about what’s going on and what’s being done right. Mindfulness = awareness and that is the best way to help everyone be on the same page. And rather than focusing on the negative aspects of the organisations, working together to identify positive solutions is key for transforming the organisation moving forward.

Interested in following more positive psychology tips? Follow Eleanor Shakiba on LinkedIn and Facebook now!

About the author of this article:

Eleanor Shakiba is positive psychology trainer. She teaches highly skilled professionals to think creatively, communicate constructively and become positive leaders. Eleanor’s clients work in academia, education, IT, engineering, finance and health. She is the author of the Positive Psychology Toolkit for HR and L&D practitioners. She also runs a range of retreats and workshops for trainers and facilitators.