Controlling Your Reactions
Identify your triggers and avoid them. One way to keep your reactions under control is to steer clear of situations and people who provoke strong reactions from you. You may not be able to avoid certain people and situations, but you can find ways to limit your exposure or make these experiences more pleasant. For example, if you tend to react in an overdramatic way if you are running late for work, then try to leave 10 minutes earlier than you usually do. Or, if you have a friend who makes you crazy, then try to limit your contact with him or her. If you bump into the friend, then you can just say something like, “Hi! I wish I could stay and chat, but I am in a hurry. Have a good day!”
Take a moment to yourself. Before you do or say anything, you might find it helpful to take a moment to yourself and process your emotions a bit. For example, you could go into another room and do some deep breathing to calm yourself down, listen to a soothing song, or just examine how you are feeling. To excuse yourself, try saying something like, “I have to run to the bathroom. Just give me a few minutes and we can keep talking.”
Tune in to your emotions. If you receive some disappointing news, you may have some strong negative emotions coming up. If you want to make sure that you do not overreact to the situation, then you may need to allow yourself to feel these feelings and think about what they mean. For example, if you have just learned that you are failing a class, then you might notice a knot in your stomach or trembling hands. Take a moment to consider why you are feeling this way. For example, you might be fearful about what your parents might say or disappointed in yourself. Try to focus specifically on where your emotions are guiding you. A lot of times, you may find that there's another emotion layered beneath what you were originally feeling. For instance, if you were feeling angry, you might trace that feeling back a need for justice. As you think about and logically process your feelings, you might find that anxiety, sorrow, or some other emotion is actually fueling your experience.
Challenge negative thoughts that arise. One reason that some people overreact to certain situations is because they have negative thoughts that go unchallenged. For example, if you learned that you are failing a class, then you might think to yourself, “I am a failure!” However, this thought is not an accurate reflection of the situation. It is a dramatic reaction. When you notice yourself overdramatizing a situation like this, take a moment to identify and challenge the thought. For example, you might reframe the thought “I am a failure!” to something like, “I thought I was passing the class, but I am not. However, I am still doing well in my other classes, so this is just a temporary setback.”
Take a more reasonable action. After you have challenged any negative thoughts, you can begin to look for solutions to your problem. For example, instead of punching a locker or sobbing openly in the hallway, you might decide to schedule an appointment with your teacher to ask if there is anything you can do to bring up your grade. Even if the action you take does not lead to a positive outcome, keep looking for solutions! For example, if your teacher says that there is nothing you can do, then start making plans to improve your grades for the following semester or school year.
Reflect on how you handled the situation. To ensure that your reactions are appropriate, it is also important to reflect on how you handled the situation. You can ask yourself some questions to determine whether you handled the situation well. If you answer yes to any of these questions, then you may still need to work on some things: Is there anything that you regret about your response or that you wish you could change? Did you lash out at anyone who was trying to comfort you or help you? Do you feel the need to apologize for anything you said or did? Did you feel like you were out of control at any point? Did you make any unfair assumptions about anyone? Did you feel the need to withdraw from others to deal with the situation?
Improving Yourself
See a counselor or therapist. Talk through your problems and situations. With professional help and advice, the focus of the problems and drama may be clarified. There are many supplementary benefits to seeing a therapist. The results of therapy are long-lasting. Positive therapy could save you from being overly dramatic in future situations. It may bring out undiscovered, repressed emotions. Not only is this good for you psychologically, but it could prevent future drama based on issues of which you weren’t even aware. Passive-aggressive responses will be minimized. Working out past issues with a therapist will help you avoid the snarky comments that often cause drama.
Be positive to avoid the drama. Choosing between optimism and pessimism is difficult, but it is a choice. Consider the following changes of perspective to improve your attitude. When your legs are tired after a long day, be happy you can walk. If you are upset about family drama, be happy that you have living family. Being tired in the morning can be easily turned around by realizing everyone doesn’t have a bed.
Work on your body language. Having inappropriate or confusing body language can lead to serious misinterpretations and drama. There is no need to cause a scene or challenge someone through a simple misunderstanding. Try to convey non-confrontational body language. Uncross your arms. It looks defensive and closed off. Find even ground with others. If they are sitting, sit beside them. Stand evenly with them.
Calming Yourself
Take a step back. Reflect on the situation for what it is. Think about whether or not you should be upset. If you’re removed from the situation or the person with whom you’re aggravated, there is a good chance you can’t create drama. Take a walk around the block. Make your walk just long enough to ignore what caused you drama. Go have a coffee break. Sit back and relax. Be in the moment and enjoy the situation instead of dwelling on a dramatic situation. Practice thinking about the situation logically instead of viewing it from an emotional standpoint. Read something. Change your focus by immersing yourself in another story or another world. You’ll forget about the drama while imagining characters and scenarios in the book.
Practice deep breathing on a daily basis. Breathing deeply will calm you down and allow you to speak calmly and clearly. Inhale deeply for a few seconds, then hold the breath for a beat, and exhale for longer than you breathed in. This process will lower your stress, anxiety, and blood pressure, as well as potentially improve brain health, all of which should help you calm down.
Calm yourself with yoga. The benefits of yoga are plentiful. Not only will you reach a calmer state with the meditative actions, but performing yoga can help you stop being dramatic in various other ways. Yoga helps you manage stress. The less stressed you are, the less likely you will be to overdramatize a situation. Your coping skills will improve. One of the benefits of yoga is that you’ll be better able to handle difficult situations, and you’ll be less likely to get bent out of shape over something minimal or trivial. Sharpen your concentration with yoga. By sharpening your concentration, it will be easier to identify the issues and situations that can be ignored, and those that warrant an escalated response.
Performing a Self-Assessment
Consider your role in the drama. An easy way to solve a dramatic situation is to stop it. Be introspective about the situation and determine if you’re the one causing the drama. Do people tend to drift away from you? You may be the drama-filled person that causes stress in every situation, and they don’t want to deal with it. If people cut conversations short with you, and constantly reply with brief answers like “Sure” or “Whatever” they may just not want to talk with you because of the impending drama. When you always seem to be in an argument with people around you, and they don’t have the same issues otherwise, you are probably a source of drama.
Empower yourself. Feeling like you do not have control of your life can cause you to react in overdramatic ways. If you are in a situation that makes you unhappy or that arouses other negative emotional responses in you, then remind yourself that you can do something about it. You do not have to stay in a situation that is bad for you. For example, if you are in a relationship with someone who pushes your buttons or who does not listen to you, then you have the option to say something or to end the relationship.
Downplay the situation. Know which battles to choose and people will learn to listen when you do speak up. The more fires you light over little issues, the more likely it is that others will begin to stop listening. Try to ignore little things that people say and do that get on your nerves. For example, it is not worth getting upset with a friend if she borrows your pencil without asking. However, it would be important to address your friend’s behavior if she has a habit of frequently using your clothes and other personal items without asking you first. Logical thinking can really help you calm down and be less dramatic. While you're mulling things over, follow a more meta train of thought by thinking about thinking, feelings, and behavior.
Focus on the positive. Negative thinking can cause you to feel unhappy and you may act out some of those emotions, but you can reframe negative thoughts to make them into positive ones. Whenever you have a negative thought, take a moment to reframe it so that it is positive instead. You can also practice positivity by keeping a gratitude journal where you list everything that you are grateful for. Practicing gratitude can improve your self-esteem and help you to feel happier. For example, if you find out that a friend said something behind your back, then you might catch yourself thinking, “Everyone hates me!” To reframe this thought you could change it to something like, “Even though this friend said something mean about me, I have other friends who accept me and care about me.” To keep a gratitude journal, start listing the things that you are grateful for starting with the most basic. Do you have a bed to sleep in? Food to eat? Clothes on your back? Then, as your list gets longer, start paying attention to little things to be grateful for, such as a beautiful sunset or having a fun time with your friends.
Avoid other people's business. Not knowing what others are talking about, or missing some of the details, and then interjecting yourself into the situation, is likely to cause confusion. Just stay out of it and don't worry yourself unnecessarily. If it doesn't involve you and it's not really a huge deal then there is no need for you to panic about it or be involved.
Comments
0 comment