Although the stress that produces anxiety won't go away, we may "optimise" how we react to it. It has been demonstrated by researchers, notably Stanford psychology professor Alia Crum, that stress can be viewed as a challenge and a chance for improvement.

What Crum and others propose at the neurobiological level is a component of a larger body of research and conceptualization of the brain known as emotion regulation—processes that assist us in controlling all emotional reactions, including fear.

What does "regulating emotions" mean?

James J. Gross, a psychology professor at Stanford University and a leading authority on emotion regulation, describes emotion regulation as "the processes by which individuals determine which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they perceive and express them." Additionally, he makes note of the fact that regulation is a collection of actions that "exists on a continuum from conscious, effortful, and controlled regulation to unconscious, effortless, and automatic regulation."

What does this actually mean? The basic line is this: Anxiety doesn't have to make us feel uncomfortable, distract us, or otherwise stand in the way of our natural desire for balance and well-being, even though it could start off as some kind of attention-getting signal to avoid danger. We can learn to use awareness to reframe a situation, eliminate the threat, and reappreciate it as a chance to solve a problem and come up with fresh solutions. We have a variety of alternatives for controlling the response itself, as well as the attention to the signal and the worry (the sensations). The human brain is an amazing organ!

How to control your emotions

Anxiety is a collection of feelings that interfere with our capacity to control our emotions. They are intended to do this because they are meant to highlight a situation where things are not as they should be. Our capacity to control our emotions is not always predictable, though. In truth, the extent of one's ability to control their emotions varies depending on a variety of things, including how they were reared, their lifestyle, and even their genetic makeup. The good news is that we can improve how well we control our emotions. We have five different sorts of anxiety-management strategies that can be used to control anxiety and other unfavourable feelings, according to Gross's model of emotion regulation. These include choosing the appropriate circumstance, changing the situation, paying attention, changing one's thinking, and modulating one's behaviour.

Choosing a situation

Avoiding a scenario that you anticipate will irritate you or increase your anxiety is one alternative. Avoiding the scenario (skipping the job interview) may reduce the anxiety and worry in the short-term, but it is obvious that this won't benefit you if you ultimately need or desire the job in question. According to Gross, this tactic is circumstance selection.

Altering the situation

Altering the current circumstance to make the dread or anxiety more palatable or manageable is another possibility. For instance, you may alter the environment if you're feeling anxious about the next interview by asking to conduct it over the phone or by video conference. As a result, you are better able to manage your anxiety and the sense that it has more power than you. The term used by Gross is scenario modification. I refer to it as a change from bad to good anxiety. Your anxiety hasn't gone away; it's just being managed and controlled by you.

Attentional focus

Attention deployment is a third alternative that entails a number of methods for diverting your focus away from the anxious scenario and toward something else that captivates it. With their young children, parents regularly employ this method. A parent could distract a little child who is terrified of dogs by making a humorous face as the frightful dog moves away. This is a type of deliberate diversion.

Cognitive change

The fourth, and arguably most advanced, technique for controlling emotions is known as cognitive transformation. In this situation, you actively and consciously reevaluate or reframe your mindset or attitude: rather than viewing the job interview as a terrible way to spend your Friday morning, you reframe it as a chance to demonstrate to yourself and your potential employer just how much you know about the role and the company or organisation. This also helps you gain confidence. The reframe functions as a mental cue that transforms the anxious feeling from one of dread and feeling overpowered to one of challenge and exhilaration.

One can learn to control their anxiety.

Recent investigations on the relationship between anxiety and emotion regulation provide compelling evidence that interventions like reappraisal can improve one's ability to regulate emotions and reduce anxiety. These studies have been conducted in the setting of anxiety disorders. Neuroimaging studies have specifically demonstrated that negative emotions such as worry or terror diminish in response to emotion management techniques. The negative emotions of fear or anxiety also occur in different neural regions of the brain from those where emotion regulation takes place, according to neuroimaging research. The good news is that even though this field of study is still young, we can update our emotional reactions. Emotional control is something we can learn.We can improve at controlling and then redirecting our anxiety.

I prefer to think of this method for dealing with anxiety as a means to increase our capacity to handle stress. Think about it: We need to feel the emotions and revise how we react to them. Awareness is where it all starts. When you become aware that you feel uneasy at the first sign of anxiety, you must pause and consider how to handle the feelings. Each of us needs to constantly practise just being with our emotions without trying to immediately conceal, deny, run away from, or otherwise divert ourselves.

By allowing yourself to experience the discomfort, you accomplish two goals: you become acclimated to the sensation and come to the realisation that you can "survive" it, and you give your mind the necessary time and space to allow you to act or react more consciously. This is the exact process via which a fresh, more advantageous neuronal route is created.