There are many approaches to emotional regulation and coping, but two main categories you’ll hear often are cognitive vs. somatic. First, what do cognitive and somatic mean? Cognitive refers to thought-based processes or your mind’s response to emotion. Cognitive emotional symptoms include things like racing, repetitive and escalating thinking as well as impulsive decision-making, overidentifying with the emotion and making quick judgments about the situation. When you get jealous and your mind starts saying, “That isn’t fair! She isn’t even good at her job. I’m the one ALWAYS doing the work. I’m the only reason she hasn’t gotten fired yet.” and maybe even, “I never get anything I deserve. What’s the point of even trying?! I’m quitting right now!” – you are experiencing a cognitive component of the emotion.
Somatic refers to body-based processes like the activation of your nervous system aka your “fight or flight” responses. When you get angry and your heart starts racing, your palms are sweating, your face gets red and hot, and you feel jittery and ready to attack – that’s a somatic response.
Which is better?
I find that it is not an either/or, but a BOTH, that best supports your ability to regulate and cope when a big emotion hits. The truth is, the body influences the mind, and the mind influences the body. The increasingly dramatic story your brain is repeating to you is likely triggering the emotion in your body all over again, and when your brain feels how out of control the body is, it is going to assign a story about why – no matter how truthful it is.
Intervening in both areas helps you more fully regulate and move forward from an emotion. Scientifically, we know that a wave of emotion can cause the frontal lobe of your brain to go offline – especially with the more activating emotions like anger and stress. What this means is: logic and reasoning may not be playing a big part in your thought processes when you are mid-emotion. That’s why I like to focus on somatic coping skills initially as a default response to emotion, followed by cognitive coping skills after.
Somatic coping might look like moving the emotion through you by engaging in something physical like running, shaking, jumping, or dancing. It also might look like physiological “resets” to your bring your body back from the emotion and into the present moment like splashing cold water on your face or running it over your hands, blowing a fan on your face, taking big deep breaths or controlled breathing exercises, engaging your senses with scents, tastes and sounds. These strategies take you out of your head and into your body, essentially, putting your brain on mute while you focus on calming your body down.
Once your body feels calm, it’s time to unmute the brain! Here is where cognitive coping skills come into play like practicing self-compassion, thought challenging and restructuring, deciding and providing what you need, interrupting thought loops, defusion exercises, problem solving, and, sometimes using those interpersonal skills when the emotion is part of a conflict with someone else.
Try a combination of somatic and cognitive coping strategies next time an emotion comes around. It takes time and practice to be able to access these strategies in the moment, but with practice comes patterns. Soon, you will be a pro at managing all the emotions that pop up day-to day.
Kelsey Terrell is a Graduate Student Intern with the Mindly Group studying Mental Health Counseling.
