The Power of Naming your Emotions

What emotions are you experiencing right now? Are you feeling content, excited, tired, bored, worried, happy? 

Being able to identify what you’re feeling and thinking is an important, and often under-rated skill, that can play a big part in reducing negative thoughts and emotions.

Here’s an interesting example of an experiment run by Professor Michele Craske at UCLA, that proved people who experienced fear could reduce these emotions, simply by naming them:

A group of psychologists split 88 participants into 4 groups, and asked them to get as close as they could to a tarantula in an open container, and even touch it if they felt able to. 

The first group was asked to notice the emotions they were experiencing and name them, for example:

“I’m anxious and frightened by the terrifying spider”. 

The second group were told not to convey their emotions, and instead to try and change the way they viewed the tarantula, for example saying things like ‘that little spider isn’t scary at all’. Craske pointed out that this is the usual approach for helping individuals to confront the things they fear. 

The third group were asked to say something irrelevant to the experience.

The fourth group didn’t say anything and were just exposed to the tarantula.

So what happened? 

One week later, all the participants were asked to get closer and closer to the same tarantula and if they could, touch it with a finger. The researchers measured how close they could get to the spider and how scared they were.

They found that the first group - who named their emotions - did far better than the other three, and demonstrated significantly less fear about the experience.

So the next time you feel an unhelpful emotion at work, maybe a sense of anxiety during a challenging meeting, anger at the actions of a colleague, or frustration at the stakeholder that won’t support your work - become aware of it and name it.

It could be as simple as saying “I’m feeling angry”, or “ I’m anxious that I’m not going to be able to get this done in time”. You can say it in your head or out loud, but just make sure you notice the emotion and name what type of emotion is.

Studies show that once you’ve done this, you’ll be activating your prefrontal cortex, and reduce activity in the amygdala, which can help you detach from distracting negative thoughts, and the challenges that they bring.

Noticing and naming emotions may not feel very different at first, but it’s a useful step towards experiencing more stresslessness. Try to notice your thoughts and emotions today, and start naming them - over time you’ll find things start to shift.