Kelly’s weekdays are filled with pain. She’s a caring friend; one who takes on the pain of the people in her life. Her college student niece whose heart is broken, the young wife next door who feels empty and hollow despite having the life she once dreamed of and the middle-aged friend whose life hasn’t met his expectations.

All their emotions, and those of others, stay with her in one way or another until she replenishes herself and lets them go. Being an emotionally sensitive person and an introvert, time to recoup through solitary activities like reading is crucial for her to live a contented life.

It’s the first chapter in her owner’s manual for herself.

Many of us might wish there weren’t so many problems in life. “If only”  keeps us stuck, just like, “Why me?”  We’d rather have a life that flows effortlessly. Given that life is full of problems, maybe the best option is to get really good at solving them.

Sometimes problems come because we make bad decisions. Some come because of our relationships with others and some come through the thoughtlessness of others. Some of our problems come from our own feelings and ways of looking at life.

Effective problem-solving improve your sense of well-being, your mood, your hope and self-confidence.  Learning how to solve problems can improve your overall health. Moreover, problem-solving skills can be taught. People aren’t born knowing how to solve problems.

“He’s a stupid idiot,” “I’m a total loser,” or “I’ve just had a horrible day”  are common statements we make when we are frustrated, tired,  overwhelmed or embarrassed. Such statements often serve to express intense feelings after difficult events. So what’s the harm?

In general, the main issue is that judgmental statements tend to increase our emotional upset. But there are other concerns as well.

Judgements Hide Consequences

We label events and actions as good or bad as a shorthand way of talking. We say getting a traffic ticket is bad or not paying the rent is bad. We say getting a raise is good. But we forget that we’re using shorthand. What we’re really saying is that events and actions have consequences that are desirable or not desirable.

One of the reasons that emotionally sensitive people use food as comfort is likely due to cortisol. Cortisol’s job is to get you all prepared to fight that tiger lurking outside your cave. It gets your energy up by increasing your heart rate and the blood pumping to your muscles. Cortisol tells the body to release sugar to bloodstream, which is why when you’re upset about your boss criticizing you at work, your body is all on alert to fight, as if there were a tiger about to attack.

You just want to calm down and get rid of this tension and agitation, so you stop at the grocery for cookies, potato chips and dark chocolate ice cream. One of the reasons for this is that high levels of cortisol can create cravings for high fat and sweet foods. High cortisol reactors have been shown to eat more food.

Recently the leader of a girls’ school in England planned a “failure week.” The idea was to  teach students to be willing to take risks and build their resilience, their ability to bounce back when they didn’t succeed or do well at something they tried. What a great idea.

How many of us know how to fail? Failure is a part of succeeding, especially when your goal is a difficult one to achieve. Persistence is said to be the key to success. Persistence means to keep going even when a door closes.

So what’s the difference between people who keep going and crave a challenge and those who give up?

Understanding how to maximize self-control of your emotions and behavior can decrease some of the emotional pain that emotionally sensitive people experience.

Not acting on impulse and thinking through how your actions in the short-term will affect your long term goals will decreae the suffering that you experience.

The good news is that some of the most effective strategies are everyday actions that are only surprising in terms of their effectivenss.

Ways to Strengthen Self-Control

Slowing Your Breath: Slowing your breathing to four to six breaths per minute will activate the prefrontal cortex and increase heart rate variability which helps shift the brain and body from a state of stress to self-control. When you are in stress mode, you are not able to think as clearly.

Sometimes people who care and want to help the Emotionally Sensitive tell them to  ”Just get over it,” or “there’s no reason to be that upset,” or  ”think before you act.”  Though they don’t intend to invalidate the emotionally sensitive person, they are.

They probably don’t realize how many skills are necessary to not act on intense emotions. To manage emotional responses and use effective problem-solving strategies takes a lot of energy.

Most everyone has a natural tendency to prefer short-term gratification over long-term goals. Yet we often delude ourselves and believe that in the future we will be able to put our long-term goals first. Somehow we are sure we will have more self-control tomorrow, next week, or next month.

Given a future choice of two cookies on Tuesday versus six cookies four days later, most everyone would choose the six cookies four days later. But if we have to choose right now? Research shows we’ll take the two cookies rather than wait for six.

Emotionally sensitive people are often advised to exercise to calm their anxiety or to help overcome depression. Grandmothers, psychiatrists, friends and even strangers often suggest, “Exercise. You’ll feel better.”

In our recent survey, 71.4% of the emotionally sensitive have found exercise helpful in managing their mood. Turns out the research, as reported by John Ratey, MD in his book Spark, shows exercise has a strong effect on mood as well as other important functions of the brain.

Exercise is effective in treating anxiety and panic.  Getting active provides a distraction, reduces muscle tension, builds brain resources (increases and balances serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, all important neurotransmitters involved in mood), improves resilience by showing you that you can be effective in controlling anxiety, and breaks the feeling of being trapped and immobilized.

The effects can be equal or even better than medication. The problem is that when people are upset or depressed, they don’t want to exercise.

Establishing a regular exercise program, one that you could maintain when your mood was unpleasant, may be part of the answer. Continuing a routine when you are emotionally dysregulated is easier than starting a new activity.  Regular exercise would also help prevent relapse.

Emotionally sensitive people often have a difficult time with saying no. Some have difficulty saying it at all and others say it too often. Some say it timidly and others say it too harshly. Sometimes out of fear or discomfort people give lots of reasons for refusing a request or invitation or apologize for not being able to say yes though they really may not want to agree.

Often the difficulty about saying no isn’t about knowing when to say it but about the interpretations that are put on the word or that they fear will be made. Sometimes people are afraid of the result of a refusal, even when their fears are not likely to occur.

For those who don’t say no often enough, the reason may be about the meaning that they associate with the word.  Saying no can be interpreted as a rejection or a lack of caring and emotionally sensitive people don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.  Sometimes ‘no’ may be interpreted as abandonment of someone you care about, though that does not need to be the case.

The word could also lead to someone abandoning you and the loss of a relationship that is important.  When saying that two-letter word to someone you care about, you are likely to feel vulnerable and that can be uncomfortable.  Sometimes it’s just too scary to do.

Generally, our brains will tend toward avoiding loss, lessening risk and averting harm. For the most part, that’s good for survival and helps keep us safe. But sometimes these choices aren’t the best ones for us. That’s when we have to go against what our brain wants us to do.

Knowing what those situations are can help you not say “Why on earth did I agree to do that?”

The Brain’s Rulebook

David DiSalvo says it’s like our brain has a rule book. There are rules that have always been in the book and there are rules that are being added to the book. You always have the book with you and use it often. But there are a couple of problems. Many of the rules in the book are written as if they are absolute and as if they apply to all situations, but in truth the rules aren’t black and white and they don’t fit every situation.