June 20th, 2010
There is an increasing about of research interest in emotional intelligence (EQ), emotional resilience / regulation at the moment and I would just like to follow on from the last post about emotional resilience and emotional intelligence with a little snippet from some research on the the factors that are considered as elements of emotional intelligence. Mayer et al* suggested in their research that (EQ) for research purposes was largely made up 4 main factors:
- Emotion Perception
- Emotion Facilitation
- Emotion Understanding
- Emotion Regulation
I will unpack each of these a little in the next four blog posts and how they relate to overcoming fear and anxiety, whether it be job interview nerves, driving test nerves or a phobia.
*Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. (2000). Models of emotional intelligence. In R.J. Sternberg (Ed.), The handbook of intelligence (pp. 396-420). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tags: emotion facilitation, emotion perception, emotion understanding, emotional intelligence, emotional regulation, emotional resilience
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June 20th, 2010
Some colleagues at UCL are starting a fMRi study into emotional resilience in 10 - 14 year olds and have put a call out for participants:
WHO WE ARE: We are a group of researchers in the Department of Psychology at University College London (UCL) recruiting 10-14 year olds to participate in a study investigating emotional resilience in children. Our research aims to better understand how those children who have experienced early adversity develop emotional resilience, particularly in terms of brain mechanisms that underpin emotional regulation.
We are recruiting children from schools and youth clubs across London. The study has full ethical approval and all researchers have current CRB checks.
WHAT IT INVOLVES FOR THE CHILD: If a child and their parents are interested in taking part, we will provide them with information sheets and consent forms that will give them full details about the study. If they volunteer we would invite them to our scanner facility in central London (travel expenses reimbursed). Testing usually takes place on Saturdays or during the school summer holidays. The child will complete some questionnaires, play some computer games and have a 35minute fMRI brain scan, during which they will complete 3 simple computer games (e.g. pressing the left or right response key depending on whether they see a male or female face on the screen). While the child is in the scanner, their parent will be asked to complete a few brief questionnaires about their child and the family.
As a thank you, the child will receive a CD with pictures of their brain on it, a t-shirt with a picture of a brain on it, a book about the brain and a generous lunch allowance for themselves and a parent.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: If you are a teacher based in London and think this is something your pupils might want to participate in, or if you have any questions then please contact me, Helen Maris, by phone on 02076 791051 or by e-mail at h.maris@ucl.ac.uk.
Tags: emotional resilience, Research
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June 19th, 2010
One of the points I often have to make when I am doing talks / consultancy about emotional resilience / emotional regulation is that it is not about cutting off from your emotions. People who cut off are usually damaged people and not just emotionally but also neurophysiologically. Emotional resilience requires that our empathy remains intact. I have seen the results of disaster managers and emergency service workers who have been so traumatised by their experiences that they have reacted by essentially cutting off emotionally. They make very poor managers, unable to see the situation from others points of view, they frequently don’t notice things (particularly identifying the reactions of others) in the situation they are dealing with and normally alienate people around them.
Jean Decety and his team at the University of Chicago have been conducting a series of fMRI studies looking at empathy and emotional self-regulation. In the studies they have been showing subjects (adolescent boys between 16 to 18) a series of videos depicting either accidental pain, such as someone stubbing their toe and or pain induced on purpose, for example someone being punched. The findings are fascinating. They have discovered that in boys that have been diagnosed with aggressive disorders (aggression indicates levels of a lack of empathy by definition) that the reward areas of the brain are stimulated when they see others in pain. Even more interesting is, when compared with the control group of ‘normal’ boys, those with aggressive disorders lack any activity in the areas of the brain connected to self-regulation and and moral reasoning. These together appear to inhibit the empathetic neural regions of the brain. (Decety, J., & Michalska, K.J. (2010). Neurodevelopmental changes in the circuits underlying empathy and sympathy from childhood to adulthood. Developmental Science, )
Emotional resilience does not mean cutting off from ones emotions, empathy is a core human attribute and this is no-less so for managers!
Tags: emotional, emotional regulation, empathy, Research
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June 18th, 2010
I am just in the process of analysing some research I have been conducting on websites offering help with anxiety related issues. The results are a bit of a shocker. Here is one of the preliminary results:
Of the 84 sites I examined, (the top 84 Google hits for the search term “anxiety help”) that are offering (paid) help with anxiety and fear related issues 47 of the sites had no contact details what-so-ever so I couldn’t even determine even who the author was or what qualifications they had. I tried to contact the site owners via their whois information and only one replied saying the site was run by someone else.
Of the remaining 37 sites with contact details posted, 12 owners didn’t reply to the repeated requests for information about their qualifications and experience.
The remaining people who did reply eight had no further qualifications or experience beyond having attended a course, often in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) or Hypnosis but hadn’t actually practiced face-to-face with clients.
Only 17 sites of the 84 examined (20.24%) were actually run and designed by experienced and qualified practitioners in the field who had face-to-face clients. That’s 1 in 5 sites.
Basically you have an 80% chance of picking an online therapeutic intervention for your nerves and anxieties designed by heaven knows who.
More results soon…
Tags: anxiety help websites, Research
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June 17th, 2010
I am often asked about emotional resilience (ER) and what it is. My quick explanation is that emotional resilience is the ability to be able to bounce back quickly when we take an emotional ‘knock’. I am then asked if this is the same as emotional intelligence (EQ). My personal view is yes and no. The father of EQ, Daniel Goldman would say ER is part of EQ. I would agree and disagree!
The reason I say this is that quite a few very resilient people who are not very emotionally intelligent. There is a Scottish saying, “where there’s no sense there’s no feeling!” But is this really resilience or just plain stupidity? If you don’t feel anything thing are you being resilient? It’s a bit like the notion of bravery. If you are not scared the action taken can’t be considered to be brave even if other people would have be scared in that situation. So resilience would normally require the intelligence. However it appears to me that resilience goes beyond intelligence in that it is very possible to have someone who is considered to be emotionally intelligent, (understands their own and others emotions, are empathetic, etc.) and yet struggles with controlling their own heightened difficult emotions.
I suppose the question is; would you normally consider a person to be emotionally intelligent who:
- understood and was in touch with their own emotions,
- could read other people’s emotional state and
- could respond accordingly with empathy to others, and
- were normally in control of their emotions
BUT when an unusual event occurred got frightened for example or suffered from nerves before a job interview?
Tags: emotional intelligence, emotional regulation, emotional resilience
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June 17th, 2010
I have just been doing a trawl of the internet looking at the things people claim can calm wedding nerves. Here is a quick list of the more unlikely / interesting. As the saying goes do not try some of these at home, you have been warned:
- A bouquet of flowers (from a florist)
- New shoes (from a shoe shop)
- Walking backwards (from a strange person with a blog who claimed this worked for her)
- Walking forwards (from a walker - actually there is something in this if the walk is in the country)
- Licking a stone (Odd cult as far as I could make out)
- Waggling your tongue (no other instructions I am afraid)
- Sex (Good distraction but I doubt you could keep it going through the ceremony even if you could keep it going for the 18 months before - good way to lose weight though)
- Perfume (from a perfume shop)
- Not thinking (I assume they meant not thinking about the wedding but the advice was to calm wedding nerves stop thinking.)
- Solving equations (A mathematician)
- Sky diving (Would certainly put the wedding nerves into perspective)
- Shooting deer (American hunter - might cause problems at the ceremony)
- Listening to your hair grow (er…)
- Concentrating on getting divorced (I assume to the previous person)
- Powdered dogs claws (I’m not too sure of the chemical composition of dogs claws …)
- Shopping (Replace the wedding nerves with poverty anxiety)
- Clenching a pen between your buttocks (An remedy from a Ugandan blog)
- Stabbing yourself with pins / knifes / forks (Not acupuncture this was to do with concentrating on the pain rather than the wedding nerves)
- Getting a secret lover (not sure this is in the spirit of getting married I have to say)
- Planning an attack on the Taliban (US soldier, not something everyone can join in with I feel)
- Fighting the Taliban (ditto)
- Getting in trouble with the law (might miss the wedding with that one)
- Drugs of several types, both legal and illegal (Don’t do it)
- Drink (Ditto)
- Hiding
- Picking fights with your sister
- Shoplifting (Eh?)
- Chocolate (Nice but fattening and unlikely to work)
- Staying away from the aliens (must the nerve ray guns that are doing it)
- Putting string in your shoes
- Garlic (I thought that was for vampires)
- Carrots (Eating them I assume)
- Wiping a slice of potato over your forehead
Internet land is a wonderful and diverse place…
Tags: wedding nerves
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May 16th, 2010
 Wedding nerves and weight - the link I have just been listening to a bride-to-be talking about her struggle, both with wedding nerves and weight gain. She was saying that she has been suffering quite badly from pre-wedding nerves and fears. When I asked her what her symptoms were she said that was having panic attacks, feelings of nervousness which include jumbly feelings in her stomach, increased heart rate, an increase in blushing, feeling unwell and sleeplessness.
Whilst we were talking she also said that she was also battling to loose weight but was finding she was gaining weight, not losing it.
People suffering from wedding nerves often find either that they lose a lot of weight quite easily or like this bride-to-be, gain weight or at least struggle to lose weight. So why do some people lose weight with wedding nerves and others gain weight?
Fear is usually an appetite suppressant. What this means is that when we get scared the body loses interest in eating so we tend not to eat as much. Additionally the bodies reaction to fear is to ready the body for action as part of the flight or fight response, this normally increases the metabolic rate, or the rate at which the body burns off our food. Both of these things usually results in weight loss.
So why do some people gain weight or at least find it extremely difficult to lose weight when suffering from wedding nerves? For two main reasons. The first is because of a habit they developed to deal with fear; comfort eating. Many people have developed comfort eating as a habit during times of stress, particularly a habit of eating things with high number of calories and processed sugars in them like chocolate, cakes, breads etc. The second main reason is the sleeplessness brought on by the wedding nerves. This tends to slow down our metabolic rate, which means that we do not burn off the food we consume as fast as we normally would.
Getting your wedding nerves under control is a really important factor in stabilising and controlling your weight as is breaking the habit or association between fear and comfort eating. Our wedding guides show you how to deal with your wedding nerves, start sleeping and stop comfort eating.
Tags: Fear, wedding nerves, weight gain, weight loss
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March 24th, 2010
In this, the second in the series of 8 articles aimed at helping you to choose a safe service to help you deal with your fears, nerves, anxiety and even panic attacks, I will be looking at probably one of the most telling signs as to whether you can trust a service or not. In this day and age it is very easy to produce a website that looks professional, glossy and convincing. However when you analyse the content of the website you quite often find that behind the clever marketing and glossy graphics there is nothing else but clever tactics to get people to buy their product.
Probably the biggest clue that the individual or individuals responsible for the site are not suitably qualified, experienced or doing anything more than just selling a product is the fact that the website concerned only contains sales messages. If you feel across a site that is only geared towards selling a product and has no useful content, articles, blogs or preferably research then it is quite likely that at best the product is based on one solution, or at worst is a scam.
If the service being offered was produced by a professional and an expert you would expect to find considerable evidence of professional activity, and sharing that expertise freely with the community. Rather than simply showing their expertise in selling and marketing.
So if the site concerned is just about sell and there is no evidence of professional and expert activity I would suggest you look elsewhere.
Tags: Fear, safe service
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March 23rd, 2010
If you suffer from nerves, fears, anxieties and/or panic attacks getting help is not easy. Often the medical profession will either turn to pharmacological medication usually in the form of either tranquillisers or antidepressants, or refer the individual a lengthy process of counseling.
Sufferers who turned to the Internet for help are faced with an avalanche of options. It is not easy to decide from a series of websites which service is a professionally qualified and safe option. Just because a site offering help looks professional does not mean that the service is professional, qualified or most importantly safe. Good web design and lengthy descriptions of the service do not insure that you are buying a safe product.
Over the next series of blogs I will show you 8 ways you can tell a professional and safe service from one that has just been written on a kitchen table by someone with no qualifications, who are probably just turning out e-book’s, and materials without any qualifications or experience in helping people deal with their issues.
The first thing you can look for on a website or from any service is whether they offer a money back guarantee. Any genuine and professional service will offer such a guarantee without question. A money back guarantee shows that the individual or organisation concerned has confidence in their product and are willing to back their claims with an immediate refund if you’re not happy with their service. Do not consider a service that does not have an explicit and open promise to refund your money if you are not completely satisfied with the service provided.
In the next blog I will look at probably one of the biggest tell tale signs that a site might not be offering a safe and qualified service to help you with your nerves, fears and anxieties.
Tags: how to get help with fear
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March 4th, 2010
I was asked yesterday what emotional resilience has got to do with honesty. Try this…
You know when you have said something in the privacy of your own home about someone and the kids have overheard you? For example you say that Mrs. Goggins from No 43 is a mean old git or something similar.
Then when you are with your young child in the street and you meet Mrs. Goggins, What is the one thing you pray your child doesn’t do right now?
Yeah that’s right be honest! You may recognise the feeling of the moment your child pipes up “Hi mrs. Goggins my Mum / Dad thinks (as you leap for their mouth) you are a mean old git” and you lie by saying something like, “Oh no I think she/he must have got confused we were talking about another Mrs. Goggins.”
Then in all cringe making innocence daughter or son pipes up “No Mum/Dad you said it was her, you know, this Mrs. Goggins, from number 43, you said mum/dad, you said.” as you start to die inside, “Oh look at the time, must dash, lovely to see you Mrs. Goggins, as always.” and under your breath, just loud enough for you your son/daughter to hear, “Wait till I get you home. you really embarrassed me”.
Now we all have opinions of people that we don’t tell people. We often rationalise it as ‘Not wishing to be hurtful’ or ‘I don’t want to cause trouble’, or ‘better let sleeping dogs lye’. What we actually mean (because we are often not being honest with ourselves) is “I don’t like the feelings and don’t want the consequences of being that honest.”
Fear usually drives our lack of total honesty. It takes courage and emotional resilience to really say what we really think and face up to the fact that it is often our lack of courage (not the other excuses) that prevents us from voicing our opinions.
The other side of this coin is people being totally honest with us; being told something (feedback) about ourselves that we don’t like and we don’t want to hear, no matter how true it might be. Something that ‘hurts us’. Often we rationalise this by deflection by saying something like ‘Oh it’s ok they are just in a mood’ or something like that to shift the blame and the emotional consequences. It takes real emotional resilience to firstly hear what people are saying about us, often with their body language and then face up to it and truly and openly explore the feedback for what we can learn and change about our attitudes and behaviours.
Just a thought.
Dave
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