EMOTION REGULATION CHECK

Emotion regulation refers to our ability to manage strong or intense emotions, especially in tough or triggering situations.

For example, with good emotion regulation, you can recognize when you’re getting upset and take a step back, rather than feeling overwhelmed and lashing out.

If you sometimes feel like your emotions are all over the place, you might be struggling with regulating your emotions. Differences in emotion regulation skills explain why some people’s moods crash after bad news, while others can pause, stay grounded, and calmly decide their next steps.

WHY EMOTION REGULATION MATTERS

Feeling out of control emotionally can affect your work, relationships, and mental health. Guys often feel a social pressure to hide or mask their emotions, but may end up wondering:

• “Why am I so moody?”
• “Why are my emotions so intense and unstable?”
• “Why do I overreact so much?”

Emotion regulation is the skill that helps you manage strong feelings and react in ways you feel good about later. Adaptive emotion regulation helps you:

• Recognize the emotion(s) you are currently experiencing
• Understand what is causing your emotions
• Control how you react to emotional experiences

Learning how to regulate emotions can make a huge difference in daily life, decreasing the  likelihood of developing mood disorders like depression and anxiety, improving recovery from these disorders, and reducing their symptoms.^[1] It also helps to improve your emotional intelligence, a broader set of skills that will help you relate to others, improve your relationships, and handle disagreements more constructively.

EMOTION REGULATION QUIZ

Take the free, anonymous test below to get a better sense of how you regulate emotions. This self-check is based on the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, a research-backed tool that measures two common ways people handle emotional intensity:

• Suppression, which refers to how you push feelings down or hide them
• Cognitive reappraisal, which means reframing how you see a situation to change how you feel about it

Your results will show whether you have healthy strategies in place, or if you could be building new ways to manage emotions more effectively. If you want to know how to improve emotional intelligence, this is a good first step. It doesn’t provide a formal diagnosis, but tailored feedback will be provided based on your responses. You can also print your results to use as a conversation starter with a therapist or healthcare professional.

Come back and track your progress

This test can be used to help you track how well you are able to manage your emotions over time.

Disclaimer

This assessment is based on the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, a psychometrically-validated tool that is used in clinical and research settings to assess a person’s ability to regulate their emotions.

This assessment tool should not be used on its own for self-diagnosis. You may wish to save or print your results to share with your primary healthcare provider as a way of starting a conversation.

Privacy

This survey is anonymous and does not collect directly identifying information. However, under UBC policies and BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), some demographic data may still be considered personal information.

Responses are securely stored on Canadian servers and used only for research and content development. For questions, contact [email protected].

Contact information for our email newsletter (if you choose to opt-in) and your responses are stored separately.

See our terms, privacy, and conditions for more information.

References

1. Mennin, D. S., Holaway, R. M., Fresco, D. M., Moore, M. T., & Heimberg, R. G. (2007). Delineating components of emotion and its dysregulation in anxiety and mood psychopathology. Behavior Therapy, 38(3), 284-302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beth.2006.09.001