How to Better Regulate Your Emotions | Dr. Marc Brackett

Emotion regulation isn’t deleting a feeling; it’s changing how we relate to it. Most of the time emotions hum in the background, and the pivot is what we choose to do when something activates us.

Welcome to the Huberman Lab, where we translate science into practical tools. Today, Yale’s Mark Brackett joins me to share real, usable skills for understanding feelings, communicating them, and listening better—in school, work, and life.

Let’s set our terms. How do you define emotion regulation?

It’s using feelings wisely to meet goals. My shorthand is goals and strategies shaped by emotion, person, and context; sometimes you prevent, reduce, initiate, maintain, savor, or enhance—context decides which move fits.

There’s a tension between self-awareness and being fully present, especially in public settings. How do we regulate without getting stuck in our heads?

Start with mindset. What’s your relationship to anxiety?

I hate it, though I acclimate socially like easing into cold water—uncomfortable at first, then fine.

There are no bad emotions; anxiety often means something matters and feels uncertain. Labeling it “bad” puts you on a path to dysregulation.

So all feelings are valid, but expression must fit the context. If I don’t express it, what do I do with it?

Sometimes you let it be. You don’t need to monitor feelings all day; act when a shift in situation makes them relevant.

I grew up around the idea that being happy meant you weren’t discerning, especially in academic culture. We often deny ourselves permission to feel good.

Our histories wire quirky links to emotions; mine made happiness feel unsafe after bullying. Regulation is learned, and many of us were modeled suppression or “toughen up,” not skills.

In my home, women could emote freely; men weren’t supposed to explode. I internalized suppression from my dad and mixed norms from both sides of my family.

Suppression is regulation, but usually not the adaptive kind.

Chasing nonstop happiness backfires; contentment is steadier. Belief in our capacity to manage feelings matters more than clinging to a fixed style like “that’s just how I am.”

Let’s talk boys and men. What’s going wrong and what’s working?

Vulnerability is still stigmatized as weak or “too emotional.” Boys often find anger easier than sadness, shame, or disappointment because of those norms.

For me, tears are context‑dependent; I’ve cried on air and I’m fine with that, but not in every room.

Women tend to ruminate; men tend to suppress. The deeper issue is fear of being seen as incapable; status can “license” public emotion for some, which skews our judgments.

Adolescence complicates this. A kid crying in seventh grade can carry that label for years, unlike in adult contexts where it lands differently.

Culture is teachable. In schools that take emotions seriously, boys say crying is normal, and they can discuss conflict without ridicule; kids are eager to share when given safe structure.

I’m relieved that acceptance is growing, and I see my own biases more clearly.

We build skills through rigorous practice—naming problems, perspective‑taking, roleplay, and planning what to do when things go sideways—not campfire sing‑alongs.

Rough‑and‑tumble bonding can be healthy, but it turns toxic when it becomes power‑over. Hierarchies formed naturally in my friend group without intent to harm.

Exactly—rough play is fine until there’s no regard for the other person’s inner world.

Developmentally, kids start suppressing early, then touch and openness often drop off by high school under toxic masculinity pressures. In workplaces, leaders who self‑regulate and co‑regulate cut frustration by roughly forty percent.

I call it calibration. People accept sadness, but if it shows up too often for small things, confidence in you drops. Can we measure and teach this?

Pair vulnerability with a plan: “Here’s how I feel, and here’s what I’m doing.” Model it for teams and kids; take a brief meta‑moment before entering a new context so you can arrive as your best self.

That’s like shifting time perspective on demand—feeling the moment while stepping to the side to plan.

We’re moving from automatic reactions to deliberate responses; sometimes you need a mega‑moment, not just a breath, to downshift.

Richie Davidson reframed meditation as stress tolerance; do you recommend it to build regulation?

Yes, but it’s not sufficient; you also need precise labeling because anxiety, stress, pressure, and fear are distinct and each points to different strategies.

Think appraisals: anxiety is uncertainty about the future, stress is too many demands for your resources, pressure is stakes tied to your behavior, fear is immediate threat; those nuances guide what you do.

People process internally or externally, and our culture lacks shared rules for reading anger or passion; our pasts color those readings.

We construct emotions from experience; you can relearn what anger means and how to respond, rather than staying locked to early models.

We should each surface our assumptions without slipping into rumination; that mapping work pays off.

Check in when feelings will help or hinder performance; otherwise, let them run in the background.

A recent moment with a trapped bird exposed my own gendered bias in how I frame struggle; that awareness changed me.

Co‑regulation means steadying others while building their confidence to self‑regulate; don’t project your fear, scaffold their resilience.

Are there formal tools to surface mindsets and biases?

Yes—surveys can reveal patterns; awareness let me practice receiving applause without shrinking, and it worked.

We also need vocabulary and cognitive tools; skip quick‑fix gimmicks, use honest reframing without gaslighting, and keep asking, “Is this helping my life and relationships?”

Psychology craves universal language like physiology has. Systems matter; what happens when people demand the one tactic that always works?

There isn’t one; whole communities need shared language and practice, and each of us must test whether our strategies actually improve life rather than become escapes.

Expression online and at work has widened, but without skills people can lose effectiveness. How do we balance growth with getting things done?

Don’t excuse opting out of life because you feel overwhelmed; teach people to sit with discomfort, regulate, and move forward—this isn’t fragility training.

You’ve been hit from both sides—accused of softness and of suppression.

Our work is clarity and skill: brief check‑ins, labeling, choosing the next best move, seeking support when needed, and remembering sleep and body state shape what’s possible.

Positive states can be risky too; over‑comfort leads to careless jokes or disclosures that derail careers.

High arousal is high arousal—excitement needs regulation like anxiety; give an outlet, then return to task, as with a child giddy to see a grandparent.

In the 90s, we briefly processed big events and then returned to work; what’s different now?

Kids face climate, polarization, and AI anxieties; we must teach coping and resist outsourcing connection to chatbots, because chronic disconnection fuels distress.

When someone says, “we’re underreacting” and vents in outrage, where do you start?

Ask if it’s effective; yelling shuts people down. I hold a both‑and stance—work on big problems while teaching daily skills, as we do across Harlem, because kids deserve tools to thrive now.

There’s always backlash to structure, but the point isn’t to do everything—it’s to use what you need; can you share the core ideas and a few simple tools people can start using now?

I use a Dealing with Feeling Wheel so you pick the right tool for the right state, not a frantic grab-bag; think sleep and biology, breath and mind, relationships, and self-awareness working together.

I rebuilt my sleep and made fitness my anchor, and over time it became identity; my vision is that people see themselves as well-regulated the way many see themselves as exercisers.

A practical tool is the metamoment: notice the trigger, create space with a breath, call up your best self for the role you’re in, and respond from values instead of reflex; kids use it too, which is the magic.

I’m going to help spread the term metamoment because names matter; I even renamed Yoga Nidra to non-sleep deep rest so more people would try it.

Identity is powerful—I chose years ago not to miss workouts, then learned to rest smart; can we give people a single label to aim for emotionally, like being “in shape” for the mind?

Call it emotional intelligence, because it’s clear, measurable, and predictive; you recognize, understand, label, express, and regulate emotions in context, with courage and curiosity for others’ stories.

Different lives shape different reactions—anger may signal injustice, but our histories color it—so we check assumptions, express skillfully, and ask if a feeling helps or blocks our goals.

Culture is stuck in name-calling; I hope young people who adopt these skills get rewarded so it becomes the norm, because finger-pointing wastes the energy we need to move forward.

You don’t know someone until you know their story; in a film project we saw judgments soften after people listened, which is why curiosity and civility beat quick labels.

We need standards for striving—every kid does physical education, so every kid should learn emotional skills too, and we should reward healthier behavior in schools and workplaces.

Be a scientist of yourself: ask if you need rest or you’re making excuses, take small steps, expect some self-sabotage, and keep going until the habit becomes identity.

I love the fitness–emotion parallel, and how concrete you’ve made the steps.

Let’s play Point of Connection, a card game we made to build real conversation without screens; here’s your first card.

Best mentor advice: train with low volume and high intensity so I look forward to hard sessions, and set a weekly reset that isn’t destructive—hiking is mine—so consistency sticks.

Next card: what’s one emotion you’d like to feel less, and what could soften it?

I sometimes feel love open up and then I shut it down fast; it’s easier with a dog, but with people I clamp it—what is that, and how do I ease it?

Love is there, and fear of vulnerability is closing it; let yourself sit with it and give it time.

Thank you—that helped—and your hero?

My uncle Marvin, who was unshakably present and nonjudgmental, and made it safe to share anything.

Thank you for the work you’re doing; links to your books are in the show notes, and if you’re learning from this, please subscribe, follow on your podcast app, leave a review, and join the newsletter at hubermanlab.com for free protocols and summaries.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for your interest in science.