How to Stop Strong Emotions Making You Stupid

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Patricia_A_McBride]Patricia A McBride
Impulses make us stupid!
Recently I read a Harvard Business Review article discussing compulsive behaviour. Compulsive behaviour is a term that covers a multitude of activities such as needing to check you've closed the front door many times; hoarding; hand washing. What all these behaviours have in common that they momentarily relieve the person doing them of their anxiety.
Although relatively few people have full blown Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, we do all act compulsively sometimes. After all compulsiveness is about responding to impulses. Who hasn't been impulsive at some time? 'Normal' impulses can include actions such as buying something you really didn't need when you can't afford it; having one drink too many; dating someone unwise and taking risks when driving.
Tony Schwartz, the author of the Harvard Business Review article has a golden rule to deal with triggers which may make us act impulsively
'Whatever you feel compelled to do, don't'.
Instead, he recommends taking a deep breath and 'feel your feet' - a lovely way to ground yourself again.
In fact, many of the techniques to help people to find their feet are pattern interrupts. By pattern interrupt I mean interrupting a pattern of behaviour we repeatedly do as if on automatic pilot. Another way of saying it would be that we aim to break the trance someone is in without them realising it.
There are a wide range of pattern interrupts to snap out of a trance. I sometimes recommend that people recognise their impulsive driver, and instead of doing what they feel compelled to do, drop their shoulders and breath from low in their chest, breathing in for the count of seven and out for the count of eleven. I also recommend to people who want to change ingrained habits that they wear an elastic band on their wrist and ping it each time they are tempted to eat that piece of chocolate, drink that wine, or whatever. These are just two of the pattern interrupts that can take us out of that trance-like impulsive state and back to reality.
The trick, of course, is catching yourself in that split second between impulsive feeling and action. A way to do this is to mentally rehearse, imagining an upcoming situation and seeing yourself behaving in exactly the way you'd like to behave. Doing this several times lays different pathways in the brain and greatly increases your chance of behaving in your chosen way.
Schwartz has another rule we all know is true, but often want to ignore. This is his anti-procrastination Rule of Resistance which says that probably what we should do instead of that impulsive action, is whatever it is we've been putting off. Pity. Does that mean I've got to buckle down to doing my accounts then?
Patricia McBride
Product Director
Cerentas Ltd
Specialists in Employee Wellbeing http://www.cerentas.co.uk/
 [mailto:info@cerentas.co.uk]info@cerentas.co.uk
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Stop-Strong-Emotions-Making-You-Stupid&id=6594312] How to Stop Strong Emotions Making You Stupid