Most of us are navigating our emotional lives with roughly the same skill set we had at age five. The good news, say Ethan Kross and Emma Seppälä, is that emotion regulation is a learnable skill with a real, research-backed playbook. Together they walk Dan Harris through ten strategies for actually getting your emotional life under control.
Key takeaways include:
- The Inner Drill Sergeant Is Not Helping: The science of self-compassion reveals that harsh self-criticism worsens emotional regulation, while treating yourself with kindness produces far better outcomes for mood, resilience, and performance.
- Mental Time Travel Works: A simple perspective shift, imagining how you will feel about this situation in a week, a month, or a year, can create just enough distance to sit with difficult emotions without being overwhelmed by them.
- Your Senses Are Emotional Levers: Music, scent, and other sensory inputs are powerful, underused tools for shifting emotional states quickly and intentionally, giving us more agency over how we feel than we typically realize.
Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris offers practical tools and expert conversations for a calmer, more mindful life. New Episodes air every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
