Are You Experiencing Emotional Breakdown? How to Deal With Your Chaotic Emotional Breakdown?

If you haven’t ever experienced emotional breakdown, you have absolutely zero idea, how this emotional dilemma can infect you. This mental condition can have a massive impact on one’s mind including their thoughts and actions; and the one who hasn’t ever endured it can never measure the depth and intensity of this dilemma. This sort of breakdown from within, slowly feeds on your energy, your thoughts, beliefs, your decision-making abilities, your mental peace, your actions and before your realization, you would have become a puppet to your emotions. To be honest, emotional breakdown can take you to a black hole where you would find yourself in utter solitude, loneliness, hopelessness, and helpless feeling, and dealing with emotional breakdown feels like an impossible task.

Few months back, when I dealt with such emotional dilemma there were all kinds of super deep emotions inside me that created a massive chaos inside my mind and soul. When those emotions remained unattended, untreated and non-commuted for a longer period, one strange thing that I endured most of the days was an emptiness inside me, that came along with confusing thoughts, clueless mind, loads of guilt and regrets, difficulty in breathing, urge to scream and sob, thoughts of ending my life and the most painful “the helpless feeling”.

Emotional breakdown is a term that describes someone suffering from depression, acute stress disorder, and anxiety. An individual experiencing emotional breakdown can manifest signs such as insomnia, daydreaming, hallucinations, emotional outbursts along with anger and frustration. A person who is dealing with such chaotic emotions may have some obvious reasons to feel that way and sometimes with no obvious cause. 

Signs of Emotional Breakdown

The feelings that are associated with emotional breakdown are quite mentally disturbing. One may feel a huge amalgamation of emotions within oneself that includes anger, frustration, exhaustion, resentment, guilt, regrets, disappointment, nervousness, anxiety, shame, disgust feeling, and so on. All the negative emotions can build up inside one’s mind and conscience who is suffering from emotional dilemma to make that person weak enough to break and feel unworthy and useless. However, some serious signs of emotional breakdown that needs immediate or fast attention are:

a) Breathlessness

b) Hallucinations

c) Insomnia

d) Anxiety attack

e) Panic attacks

f) Paranoia

g) Emotional outbursts

h) Depression

i) Detachment from reality

j) Feeling isolated

k) Heart palpitations

i) Trembling or shaking

m) High blood pressure

n) Dizziness

o) Chest tightness

Effective Ways to Deal with Emotional Breakdown

Dealing with emotional breakdown is not an easy task, I would never say that you can master your emotions like a pro when you instantly get up and decide to deal with your chaotic emotions. Nope, it doesn’t work like that. Emotional breakdown is a very intense condition for any person. It can feed on your positive energy to leave you with negative ones. Dealing with emotional breakdown needs proper assessment, patience, courage, and effort. One has to understand the situation that is creating the whole scenario of emotional breakdown and for that, recognizing the emotions becomes way too important.

Let’s have a brief look on the ways to deal with emotional breakdown:

1. Understand your emotions

Your emotions may feel overwhelming when you’re actually going through an emotional dilemma. There would be number of emotions and feelings that would overcast your mind and confuse you to make you feel empty, helpless, and most importantly clueless. The truth is, it is hard, absolutely. But you have to understand your emotions. Talk to yourself, or find someone trustworthy to talk how you feel. Why and from where those emotions are originating? What can be done about it and what can’t be? What is the ultimate outcome and how it would impact you in the long run? Honestly, this first and foremost process of dealing with chaotic emotions is the hardest one but the effective one. You need ample courage and patience for this.

2. Regulate them, not suppress or repress

Talking about dealing with your chaotic emotions, they are a part of you, your conscience, your mind, your thoughts, and your life. Thus, supressing or repressing would make it worse. For that moment, it may vanish, but when it reoccurs, it takes a huge toll on your mental health. Thus, regulating your emotions is important. Don’t avoid your overwhelming wave of emotions, let them come out. You feel like crying or screaming, do it but in an efficient way. Jot down, whatever you feel, those crude feelings, emotions, that vibration that shakes you from your core. Write it on a paper, don’t edit, just write the way it is. Crying is absolutely fine. It will make you feel relaxed. While regulating your emotions, don’t go overboard, know where to throw the anchor. Drink some water, eat healthy food that you’re fond of.

3. Identify how you feel

Whenever you feel like emotions are clouding over you, get yourself a comfortable place to sit, free of noise and any disturbance. Don’t be afraid of your feelings. Face it. Feel it. Know that it is fine and you going to overcome it anyhow. That emotional breakdown is a temporary condition that would pass and you’re strong enough to defeat it. Take deep breaths, focus on your breath, close your eyes, and identify your feelings, whether you’re feeling dejected, regretful, disgusted, hopeless, helpless, angry, furious, sad or broken, whatever it is. Once you identify you will be clear about your dilemma and can think straight. There would be no confusion.

4. Accept them

Identifying your emotions and feelings help you to think straight and deal with your emotional breakdown more efficiently. You will finally be able to accept it and would feel the relaxing effect of releasing the tension that was built up inside you. You would notice that the heaviness inside your mind and core is gradually lowering and you can breathe easily by then.

5. Confront the reason behind emotional breakdown

The most important step after identification of your feelings and emotions would be confronting the reason, the cause or the trigger behind your emotional breakdown. It’s the real game. The more you confront it the more you become vulnerable to your chaotic emotions. But moving forward to look for the reason and accepting it somewhere with strong mind would lead you to let your chaotic and negative emotions go. You would be free of the pressure and the pain compounding inside your core and conscious.

6. Keep a mood journal

There would be some practical things that are also needed to be done to deal with emotional breakdown. One of them is keeping a mood journal. Getting the huge overwhelming wave of emotions, and you’re scared of getting lost in it or losing your control over it, get your journal, write down every single feeling that you experience at the moment. Whatever comes to you, whatever your mood is, whatever is running on your mind, just express them using crude words.

Recommended Read: 9 Mindfulness Habits to Practice Everyday for Improved Mental Wellbeing

7. Practice meditation

Now, this works! Truly. It may seem usual to some people, and some may think it’s just a theoretical way of dealing with stress, depression or even emotional crisis. But the fact is meditation helps to calm down your mind and to focus on your thoughts. Your blood pressure starts regulating and your heart palpitations can also get better.

8. Increase physical activity or try exercising

Sweat it out! The reason is physical activity or indulging in exercising releases body tension and mental pressure as well. Your body gets boost of good hormones and your mood becomes better or uplifted. Your stress level thus drops and you become able to focus on things that interest you most or the things that you love to do.

9. Engage in mood boosting activities

The whole reason behind engaging in mood boosting activities is increasing dopamine and serotonin in your body. These two hormones are the good hormones that are significantly known for reducing stress, anxiety, depression that are strongly associated with emotional breakdown. Mood boosting activities can be different for different person, such as plantations, gardening, painting, origami, pottery, wood work, creative art, cooking and many more, which is one of the efficient ways to deal with emotional breakdown.

10. Avoid tuning to slow music

Very less people have the idea about this fact that music has some disadvantage too. Undoubtedly, music is known for boosting mood, and reducing stress and anxiety levels. But have you ever noticed, when you’re sad, slow or sad music worsens your condition? Well, the reason is sad or slow music relax your mind and body so much that you ultimately become clearly vulnerable to negative emotions and you lose the control over it. Thus, if you’re stressed or emotionally unstable and experiencing emotional crisis, prefer more happy and exciting songs with more beats and music, rather than soothing, sad, and calming ones.

Recommended Read: Here’s How Staying Happy & Motivated Can Make Your Life Great

11. Increase nature exposure

The most common behaviour that people dealing with emotional breakdown manifest is shutting themselves in a room and avoiding any social contact with the outside world. They keep themselves lost in the darkness to live with their dark emotions. Well, that wouldn’t help. You need to get out of your room, your situation, to spend time in the outside world, in the sunlight with the nature. Researches have proved that 30 minutes of sunlight exposure can reduce depression levels up to 20%. And nature exposure is popularly known for reducing stress levels and boosting mood.

12. Avoid social media

The best thing you can do to deal with emotional breakdown is avoiding social media completely. Simply uninstall all social media apps from all your devices. Social media are full of unnecessary confusing contents that may trigger your emotions, you may feel vulnerable anytime. You may find any content that could lead you to more dark emotional condition, or you may feel overwhelming as in real life things are not same as the social media life.

13. Shut down your phone while sleeping

Another effective way to deal with your emotional breakdown would be keeping your phone far away from you while you go to bed. Because usually, people tend to use their phones before going to sleep and that not only worsens their emotional crisis but also hampers their sleep quality and pattern. Thus, your sleeping time should be purely dedicated to your mental and physical rest.

Bottomline

While dealing with emotional breakdown along with acute depression, anxiety, stress or emotional dilemma, you need to go along with and implement certain positive and healthy habits. The primary cause to implement and work with positive habits is a strong goal. Working towards a strong goal can help you distract yourself from unnecessary chaotic emotions. Again, to reach that strong goal and achieve it one needs strong self-motivation and for that clear mind and with a straight thinking process is essential. Thus, the above ways to deal with emotional breakdown comes first in the process to set a definite goal and work efficiently towards it.

Recommended Read: How to Stop Your Brain From Overthinking?