Alexis Fernandez-Preiksa

And by regulate your emotions, it's when we speak about emotional regulation, or at least when I speak about it, people are like, well, what do you exactly mean by emotional regulation?

What I mean is your ability to have conscious interception when you are having an emotional interception.

like or an unconscious or a subconscious thing so it's a subconscious like act of doing the bad habit consciously you're like yep I'm able to regulate that if you're about to blow up consciously you're like I can talk myself down and just breathe into this and feel a little bit better you're feeling really really anxious you can consciously step in being like why am I anxious let's take some deep breaths let's kind of like and talk myself down off the ledge that's what I mean about regulation it's where you have more of an interaction between your

prefrontal cortex and your reasoning and your executive function and the more emotional habitual centers in the brain that either are emotional like fear-based or anxiety-based or impulsive and also with slipping into old routines and patterns because they're ingrained in you subconsciously.

That is what I talk about when we talk about emotional regulation to be specific from like a neuro like wiring point of view and also from a neurochemical point of view.

Now, again, with the breaking of the bad habits, you've also got to understand that dopamine is going to be involved.

So if you can be like, when I engage in this bad habit, I'm getting that spike of dopamine.

And then because I get that spike of dopamine, especially if I haven't earned it, like, you know, we're going the cigarette, we're going the fucking scrolling on the phone and all these things.

Then I'm going to like get that dip below the baseline.

So again, engaging in things that are going to help regulate, also help regulate these neurochemicals.

You get that nice, you feel better, you feel more relaxed and you feel like you've got nice levels of dopamine throughout the day, regardless.

Okay.

So you're less likely to kind of be seeking, seeking, seeking these hits, hits, hits, hits, hits.

When we feel depleted, we'll look at anything that's going to give me a quick fix to make us feel better.

Okay.

So if you can be filling up your cup from the inside by, you know, whether it be yoga, exercising, meditating, hanging out with people.

Socializing is a great one.

That's a really good one to help with emotional regulation.

Hang out with people that are good for your soul.

that make you laugh, that keep you in the moment, where the last thing you're thinking about is checking your phone because you're so present.