How to Better Regulate Your Emotions | Dr. Marc Brackett
In a Nutshell
Dr. Marc Brackett redefines emotion regulation as wisely using emotions (ER = (G + S) f(E + P + C)) to achieve life goals via the PRIME framework (Prevent, Reduce, Initiate, Maintain, Enhance), emphasizing context-specific strategies over suppression. Key tools include the meta moment—pausing to label emotions, invoke your best self, and choose responses—plus the RULER framework (Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, Regulating) for self-awareness and co-regulation, especially vital for boys/men facing vulnerability stigma. Cultural mindsets block progress; role-modeling honest emotional processing with strategies builds resilience, predicts success in leadership/relationships, and counters dysregulation in a polarized world.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
A lot of people think emotion regulation is getting rid of a feeling. It's not. It's having another relationship to it. Dr. Marc Brackett has lived with anxiety for much of his life, but sometimes he just says hello to it: "Hey, how you doing today?" And it goes away pretty quickly or it just sits there. People misunderstand that emotion regulation doesn't require checking in with feelings all day long and then regulating. You'd become psychotic if you did that all day long. Most of the time emotions are in the background. If you thought about your feelings all day long, you wouldn't be able to do a podcast. That's unproductive. Emotions matter when there's a shift in the environment or relationships. If someone says something that offends, you're activated, feeling angry or shocked. Then you make a choice in that moment about how to manage it. That's where the magic happens.
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, discussing science and science-based tools for everyday life. Andrew Huberman is a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Guest is Dr. Marc Brackett, professor of psychology at Yale University and director of Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. He is an expert in the science of emotions and applying it to improve communication, relationships, performance in school and work. Discussions of emotions and emotional intelligence are often vague, soft, and cliche, but Dr. Brackett explains practical tools from the science. His research focuses on small things to do in moments of emotion or alone to increase ability to understand feelings, communicate effectively, and listen better, especially in tense moments. These are life skills that improve school, friendships, romantic relationships, professional life, and family life.
Emotion regulation is using your emotions wisely to achieve your goals in life. Dr. Brackett's formula: ER (emotion regulation) = (G + S) as a function of (E + P + C), where G is goals, S is strategies, E is emotion, P is person, C is context. It made him feel smart. It's a goal-oriented process. You have to want to regulate. You can prevent unwanted emotions using PRIME:
- P: Prevent unwanted emotions
- R: Reduce difficult ones
- I: Initiate emotions (e.g., when teaching or leading, create an emotion in the room—upregulating)
- M: Maintain an emotion (e.g., having a good day, avoid things to keep it going, savor the moment)
- E: Enhance/boost an emotion
Strategies can be discussed for hours. What people misunderstand is that regulating emotions depends on the specific emotion (e.g., strategies for anxiety differ from anger or worry), the individual (Dr. Brackett is neurotic and introverted, influencing strategy selection), and context (e.g., if anxious on a podcast, can't go for a run; must use cognitive strategies or breathing since stuck in place).
There's a close tie between emotion regulation and self-awareness, but tension with experiencing and enjoying life. Constant self-monitoring (e.g., anxiety about appearing or sounding) is uncomfortable and pulls one out of the experience, risking saying the wrong thing. When alone, easier to use tools like breathing, ruminating, writing, texting, or calling a friend. In social settings like work, school, or podcast, self-regulating subtext is effortful and uncomfortable. First step is mindset about feelings. Andrew Huberman's mindset on anxiety: hates it; feels overwhelmed in crowds initially but acclimates after 20-30 minutes, like wading into cold water. Dr. Brackett reframes: What's your relationship to anxiety? A neuroscientist friend asked what makes him anxious (fundraising, quality of work)—all important things. Anxiety signals perceived uncertainty around valued things; not bad. No bad emotions; it's what we do with them that makes them harmful. Adopting mindset that all emotions are okay provides freedom, but expression must be context-specific.
Emotions don't have to go anywhere sometimes; they can just be. Emotion regulation is having another relationship to the feeling, not getting rid of it. Dr. Brackett (age 56) sometimes greets his lifelong anxiety. Don't check in and regulate all day; emotions are background most times. Activate on shifts (e.g., offense triggers anger/shock; choose how to manage—that's magic). Daily constant checking is unproductive.
Andrew Huberman's dad from South America was taught in British school system that smiling a lot meant stupid—skeptical people aren't happy-go-lucky, or they'd be idiots not bothered by world problems. He broke that mold; it's okay to be happy. Huberman internalized that happiness means not discerning, especially in academia. Modern idea: happy people ignore terrible world events or suffering. Dr. Brackett: All learned, sometimes from outside influence. His tough childhood with bullying made him uncomfortable with happiness—bullies mocked "What are you so happy about today, Brackett?" On stage, after applause, he'd look down, waiting for something to go wrong. Developmental connections to emotions. No good/bad emotions. Proclivity to experience emotions partly genetic/biological; regulation all learned—no one born with evidence-based strategies. Huberman's home had gender split: women expressive, men not supposed to lose temper or be angry (dad suppressed via blinking, no outbursts). Extended family from New Jersey used words as weapons; South American side formal and boxed. Averaged suppression and expression. For happiness, time and place matters. Research: Striving to be happy all the time leads to more misery; striving for contentment yields greater well-being. No good/bad emotions. Anger fine if not too intense/lasting. Don't attach to happiness—rainy days exist; be comfortable with them. Mindsets also about capacity to deal with feelings (e.g., belief in managing anger/disappointment). Dr. Brackett's dad had fixed mindset: "This is how I deal with anger; get used to it." Alternatives exist if not working in relationships.
Pain points for boys/young men: vulnerability seen as weak historically (tough, make ends meet, hunter-gatherer). Today, being emotional connotes feminine and out of control. "Don't be so emotional" is negative. Dr. Brackett calls it emotion skills, not emotional skills. Vulnerability key issue. Huberman's relationship to vulnerability: totally context-dependent (cries in front of some, not others; has cried publicly on podcasts like with Martha Beck and Steven Bartlett). Dr. Brackett pushes talking about feelings around emotion. Boys feel more inhibited saying how they feel, especially sad/disappointment.
It's much easier to express anger and outwardly expressive emotions, but deep self-conscious emotions that make you vulnerable are tough. Boys feel they will be perceived as feminine if they express disappointment, sadness, or shame. Hypothesis: linked with incapability.
David Goggins Example: Incredible video of David Goggins breaking down crying on stage; he was celebrated. He had proven capability beforehand—former Navy SEAL, went from 300+ pounds to fit. Crying was seen as another difficult thing he could do. If someone else breaks down, narrative is weakness; people worry if they can make it in life. Goggins has permission because he's a superstar.
James Cameron Example: Famous for difficult achievements, later claimed testosterone poisoned men. Critics noted he built his career on it; not taken seriously. Similar to academics switching journals after success in top ones.
Celebrities disclose depression or anxiety only after fame; earlier, perceived as weak. Boys raised to believe feminine-type emotions (actually human emotions) are weak, leading to perceptions of weakness or homosexuality—stigma leads to suppression, denial, ignorance. Women more likely to ruminate than suppress.
Stereotype of gay men as feminine has fallen away somewhat. Example: Brian Anderson, aggressive skateboarder who came out voluntarily in New York Times. Gym culture has many physically strong gay men. Still, being gay carries stigma; if asked to mimic a gay man, most show feminine stereotype (e.g., Revenge of the Nerds). Personal anecdote: At 18, went to gay bar in New Jersey (homophobic area), saw Wall Street executives, football players—shifted perception.
Stand by Me (Stephen King story, Rob Reiner film) shows transition around puberty (junior high/high school). Kids at different maturation stages mixed; emotional kid crying in front of group gets ridiculed by more mature boys. Sticks for years due to school social dynamics. Differs from adult males in business where maturation equalizes.
Schools doing emotion work change this: Teenage boys say nothing wrong with crying—if you feel it, cry. No ridicule. Would talk feelings after fight, express being left out. Grew up in school taking emotion seriously with skills/resources.
Early career, emotional regulation training in rough London neighborhood. Headmistress feared it would turn boys homosexual. Demonstrated in fishbowl (25 teachers around, 20 kids). Shared story: Bullied/not tough, entered karate, failed yellow belt, felt discouraged/hopeless. Asked who felt that—every kid raised hand. Kids dying to express emotions; we've socialized them out.
Fathers talk differently to boys vs. girls: "Toughen up" vs. more feeling words. Not born that way—socialized, but modifiable with instruction.
Expression of emotions among boys more accepted in generation going through this work. Others grow up stereotypically. Must infuse into life: conversations, situations. Example: Rigorous teaching—not kumbaya. Scenario: Kid excluded from game (gaga pit), feels awful. Groups discuss: A) feelings, B) solutions (for self/other). Roleplay, debrief: What if it goes wrong? They say "go blank yourself"? Builds emotional muscle.
Hardwired bias for rough and tumble play in males across species. Capacity for rough verbal/emotional exchange ok if not damaging. Anecdote: Neuroscientist at first McKnight meeting grabbed shoulder, advised on labs—comfortable due to background. Physical interactions (shoulder grabs) natural among friends, not aversive.
Cultural variations in touch among kids. Rough and tumble fine until power over, ignoring other's emotions = bullying. Hierarchy establishes naturally without intent to harm; formed teams valuing strengths (fast, strong, clever, creative, comedian).
Kindergarten: Not thinking this way yet, but seeping in. Boy in blue quadrant (down/sad) on mood meter: "Don't want to bother you sir." Emotions already a nuisance—even in kindergarten, leads to suppressing. Kids comfortable talking feelings in elementary/middle; high school: less touching/friendship due to homophobia, toxic masculinity, manosphere.
Rethink child development: Reading/writing/arithmetic important, but feelings drive relationships, well-being, handling ups/downs, feedback, dreams. University students: Perfect SATs, GPAs, instruments—yet SATs have no predictive validity (range restriction, like all basketball players tall).
Employers seek: taking feedback, leading teams people want to join. Research: Managers/leaders good at self-regulation and co-regulation predictive. Pandemic longitudinal study: Teachers perceiving leaders as self-regulated/co-regulating had 40% lower frustration, better culture, less burnout, higher satisfaction.
Co-regulation: Am I falling apart? Will you support me in chaos?
Calibration: Friend said man's crying beautiful, but problem if frequent sadness under everyday conditions—doubts holding together for big stuff (e.g., deaths). Underlying: Availability for dependencies (work/relationships). Calibrating to emotional set points.
Example: Lab presented boss statistical bubble map with giant "stress" bubble + HR. Boss thought: "What happened to science?" Different generational calibrations.
Leaders confuse vulnerability/dysregulation with weakness. Pandemic: University shut down, team stressed; as EI lab head, said "Great, everything's fine" internally hating life.
Meanwhile, during tough times like quarantine, feeling "I hate my life and I hate everybody around me," including frustration with mother-in-law stuck together, realized being a terrible role model by not being authentic or demonstrating skills. Decided to be honest: "It's tough right now, but here's what I'm doing. I'm going for that walk every day at 5:00. I can't go to my hot yoga class, but I found new workouts online that I'm doing." Vulnerability—sharing fears—is not helpful without accompanying strategy. Key is: "I'm feeling this way but here's what I'm doing about it." That's role modeling, especially for parents.
Dad comes home after hard day: Child says, "Daddy, let's play." Poor response: "Son, leave me alone." Better: "I just had a really rough day at work. I got into a fight with a colleague. Didn't go well. I said something I feel bad about. Daddy needs time to process, think about what to say tomorrow to help the relationship. I love you and we'll play later, but right now I'm not in the right space." Teaches child: Dad has feelings, makes mistakes, regrets things, reflects, problem-solves, needs time to recoup energy. Takes seconds.
Few people process emotion this way: "I'm in a dark place. Things didn't go well. I made a mistake. I feel bad. I need to strategize, then we'll come back together." Instead, most project anger onto others. Power of emotional self-awareness and emotion regulation: Notice shift in anger/frustration before entering family environment, knowing it won't be pretty without processing.
Take a breath, meta moment: Pause, breathe, think of best version of self (father, husband), then open door through that lens. Human brain excels at being in the moment while projecting ahead healthily—not "future tripping."
More limbic = more in-the-moment; harder to access relaxed perspective for time projection. Healthy emotion recognition/expression involves feeling but splitting off for perspective shift in time domain. Tolerate stress, segment mind/emotions: "That's happening, I'm over here."
Move from automatic habitual unhelpful reactions to deliberate conscious helpful responses. Emotions flood us, relying on bad habits. Build space between stimulus and response (meta moment). Some need "mega moment"—three loops around house to activate parasympathetic system.
Meditation is stress inoculation: Sit, resist urge to move. Recommend 100% for emotion regulation—necessary to be still for good strategies, but insufficient alone. Breathing/mindfulness great but not enough; must regulate during difficult conversations. Breath deactivates but doesn't shift perspective.
Mindset: Recognize need for meta moment to be better self. Then, know what you're feeling—labeling drives strategy. Vocabularies poor: "I'm fine," "okay," "upset."
Distinctions: Anxiety (uncertainty around future, can't predict/control); stress (too many demands, not enough resources); pressure (something at stake dependent on behavior); fear (immediate danger). Different appraisals change strategy choice.
Some external processors (talk out feelings), others internal. Example: Couple where one external, one internal—works it out.
U.S. lacks clear emotional terms/ways of being. Men expressing anger: passionate or scary/dysregulated depending on relationship to anger. Emotions constructed from experiences—e.g., dad with pressed lips, red face, belt threat shapes perception. Learn not all anger aggressive; emotional intelligence journey. People stuck in early learning/trauma, fixated without reframing/compartmentalizing.
Know assumptions/presumptions from upbringing—no one else can do it. Not obsessive checking; check when emotions help/interfere with performance. Formalized via questionnaires helpful.
Visiting friends, bird flying into window. Tried to help, called it "idiot bird," "this [__] is going to kill himself." Friend later disturbed: Talking to bird like idiot. Realized sex/gender bias—if female animal, "poor thing;" male, "you idiot" (from growing up with dudes' affectionate ribbing). Massive assumption; now pays attention. Parents project fears: "Be careful!" erodes kid's confidence vs. "Gosh, that looks hard. I'm confident you'll get there."
Instills resilience via co-regulation: Intentional support for others' emotions, goal is self-regulation—not codependent/coddling, but belief they can do it.
Surveys exist; book lists them to spot mindsets/attitudes/patterns. Discovered own weird happiness relationship: Now accepts applause, breathes, is present.
Anger ≠ disappointment; envy ≠ jealousy; happiness ≠ contentment; anxiety/stress/pressure/fear/overwhelmed all different. App (How We Feel) provides vocabulary—for communication, needs, strategy.
Not enough: Breathe, mindfulness to lower temperature/still mind (attention spans down—trainings now 30 seconds).
Influencer: "Throw away my anxiety" by opening car door—3-25k likes, but impossible.
Rethink feelings: Cognitive reappraisal, reframing, distancing, gratitude over resentment/envy. No one taught reframing; saved life. Check assumptions about others. Caution: In abusive relationships, reframing becomes gaslighting/deception.
Reframing involves telling yourself a new story, but approach it scientifically: ask if it's helping you live the life you want, improve relationships, or manage anxiety better through cognitive or labeling strategies.
Psychology is fascinating but confusing due to contradictions, like healthy emotional expression allowing emotions to move through for better physical and mental health, versus focusing on anger making it grow. Proverbs like "absence makes the heart grow fonder" versus "out of sight, out of mind" highlight this complexity. Both can be true, reflecting the human mind's intricacy. Chose biology to study cells and circuits instead, which served career and life well, while remaining interested in emotional issues, including generational differences.
Workplaces, schools, and organizations are hierarchical with older people holding more seniority and power. There's concern for young people's emotions, but fear among peers that the younger generation is in control. At Stanford, faculty, staff, and postdocs take harassment, workplace safety, and violence trainings; students do not, creating different rule views—not unique to Stanford. Need universal nomenclature for emotions like mitochondria, understanding what emotions are, their physiological and past influences, and how to work with them to avoid misunderstandings (e.g., "that's shit, no that's healthy expression"; "that's anger, no that's passion"; "narcissist, no just not self-reflective").
Dr. Brackett's school work requires systemic approach: leaders, teachers, students, parents use same emotional intelligence language. Superintendent can converse with kindergarteners as emotional scientists.
No correct answer for how to feel or handle feelings; it's messy, a journey, process requiring self-questions: Is my life working for or against my goals? Check with partners, friends, kids, colleagues. No one correct strategy; it's emotion-by-person-by-context.
Anecdote: Speech to 500 police officers (unaware of 3.5-hour emotions talk). Room slouched, guns visible. One stood: "What's the only strategy that works?" Responded: Many strategies, no one-size-fits-all. People desperate for right answer.
Fitness instructor for 10 years teaching martial arts: Saw exercise used to escape reality (e.g., 10-hour treadmill with eating disorder). Same with food. Strategies can trick you; goal is to pause, consider, evaluate life, relationships, work.
Broader contexts allow wider emotion ranges (e.g., online). Judgments like "losing cool" versus context (e.g., someone steps in front of motorcycle). Legal lines exist; "Legal Beef" YouTube channel (lawyer, ex-Hollywood) breaks down cases like filming rights.
People like clear definitions, thick black lines. Growing up, crying okay but context/time-dependent. Now, workplaces, schools, online more accepting or people bring more unprocessed emotions, risking ineffectiveness without strategies.
Friends' kids struggle with depression, anxiety, cannabis use disorder; developmental milestones real. How to evolve emotion skills as process/dance amid life demands?
Post-election, school head allowed day off for overwhelmed feelings—terrible advice. Must learn to live with difficult feelings, process, manage, move forward; otherwise create weak generation. Emotional intelligence/regulation not sitting in feelings, but checking if helping/hurting goals—if hurting, strategize to move forward.
Discomfort okay; career built on it (e.g., criticism: program turns kids homosexual, don't talk feelings). Sit with discomfort, find creative solution—not freeze. Want full emotion range, effective regulation, goal achievement for all, especially kids.
Martial arts training prepared for public-facing work as relationship. Ambassador for healthy emotions, showing up (e.g., family death: take time, but return; don't dissolve into puddle). Old-school advisor: On paper rejection, don't dissolve into puddle of tears—from care, as some grad students suicided over PhD failures.
Takes heat from both sides: "teaching softness" or "pushing feelings away" amid fascism, wars, anger.
Loves challenge. Time op-ed "Overreaction Epidemic" (publisher title) slammed: "not overreacting, world ending." Wars, polarization real, but yelling/screaming unhelpful—think creatively.
Other side: Makes kids fragile, causes mental illness by talking feelings. Misunderstanding; stickler for definitions. Teach emotional self-awareness (agree it matters?), management if disrupting roles (agree?).
Politicized as obsessive checking/prying. Feelings constant (irritable mornings = incidental leakage); unprocessed affects interactions (e.g., bus bullying, home fight impacts school).
Process before studio/school: 20-30 seconds—breathe, check feeling (e.g., pissed from phone call), how want to be seen/experienced (compassionate, creative), what needed? Attributes emotion to cause, prevents displacement/projection.
Useful for kids, couples, leaders—in seconds, not obsession. At home post-work (tired, irritable), switch to best husband self.
Articulate experience: If helpful, nothing to do; if not, strategies (labeling, breath—15 breaths may fail, try friend support, walk, recognize poor sleep limits best self). Social support smart, not weak.
Positive states dangerous: Over-affiliative/comfortable leads to trouble (disclosures, jokes costing careers, e.g., Ivy League psychiatry chair fired for lame tweet amid joking ease). Certain jokes off-limits.
Activation same physiologically (heart rate, chemicals) whether excited or anxious; psychology differs. Emotions drive thinking/decisions; excitement without regulation unhelpful (e.g., youthful mistakes).
Teachers: Excited kid (seeing grandma) disrupts—don't squash, channel: Give 1-minute class share, then back to math/science. Teacher later: "Magician." Actually, outlet + maintained expectations.
"Be a channel, not a dam" (from camp counselor days). Hyper kid (pre-ADHD concepts): Activity outlet then settle. Creative non-physical kid: Share value to find group place amid physical bunkmates.
It was a picture of a classroom sitting around listening to a radio. When the Challenger space shuttle blew up, students listened with their teachers to the launch. Afterward, they went back to the lesson plan without processing it for weeks. At one school, the teacher went around the room the next day asking if students had anything to share. One kid said, "I heard they found a foot," and the teacher told him to settle down. There was an opportunity to discuss, but it was the last time it was mentioned. Students witnessed with their ears people blowing up. It was tragic, they talked briefly, then moved on.
The world kids grow up in now is different. Kids today worry about climate change, politics, who is president, wars, artificial intelligence taking over careers—real concerns causing stress. Solutions are lacking; kids are not taught how to manage it. About 20% of adolescents report using technology AI as a therapist or companion. AI can give advice on stress and help a little, but people should not be in relationships with chatbots. When bullied as a kid—spit on in the bus, head banged in windows—what was needed was a human saying, "I love you," grabbing a hand, saying, "We're going to get through this together." Technology cannot replace that.
Obsession with technology to solve emotional problems is a symptom of fear of intimacy, connection, being present with emotions. Parents fear dealing with kids' emotions because they never learned to deal with their own anxiety. They'd rather not know kids are anxious. Question: Do you want your kid married to a chatbot? Chronic disconnection is increasing: kids prefer texting over talking to friends; research shows anxiety, stress, depression increasing consistently, linked to lack of connection.
A geneticist friend said it takes a very long time to evolve a species but not long to devolve one—you can crash a species quickly.
People feeling overwhelmed by world events is not new. In the 1990s, relatively peaceful despite Gulf War, an undergraduate professor in Santa Barbara recalled Vietnam War protests in late 1960s/early 1970s: students would stand up in physiology class shouting about the war, protesting. Now, people feel overwhelmed, young people full of energy want to express it, but society cannot sit around protesting all day or dissolve into tears. Someone commented, "We're not overreacting, we're underreacting."
To feel heard, people need understanding, but effectiveness matters: Is what you're doing leading to change? When someone yells, others shut down and are no longer present. Communication must allow listening.
Shift from consciousness/mindfulness to long exhale breathing, understanding stress can be adaptive (Ali Crumb's lab), working with physiology to be stronger while acknowledging it: feeling stressed, bring it down; exhausted, work on sleep for energy. Psychology needs organizational principles to navigate narcissism, gaslighting claims, psychological collapse. Work with body via sleep, exercise, sunlight—nudge it, do not conquer or suppress.
If told someone is gaslighting, a narcissist, fascism taking over, expect outrage—"We're not overreacting, we're underreacting"—ask if they are being effective.
RULER program (school-based work) is in all 21 schools in one Harlem, New York district, thousands of kids, teachers, leaders. Deputy superintendent Dawn (former student) oversees. Kids face food scarcity, troubled families, racism, poverty, home insecurity. Solve those problems, but kids must thrive in school 8 hours a day. Moral obligation to teach skills to thrive regardless of background. Focus on big change over which many have little control; instead, help kids daily with strategies, well teachers/leaders.
Well-regulated people better solve larger issues; a dysregulated society won't.
Resistance to structures like morning routines, alcohol being bad. In academia, happy hours were common; not drinking with senior colleagues raised eyebrows. Tide changes when structures backed by science are created (e.g., Matt Walker on sleep), brave individuals adopt, showing effectiveness. Pushback comes: too much structure, need freedom—pick what you need.
Examples propagate adoption: Steve Kerr meditates; Wim Hof breath work normalized as exhale breathing. Emotional regulation central; without it, species at risk. Regulating is not suppressing.
In book, dealing with feeling wheel. When dysregulated (e.g., parent with dysregulated kid), avoid desperate fixes like breathe, walk, cook, play. Match strategy to state.
Examples:
- Months of heavy work, poor sleep; last week prioritized early bed, dark room—woke at 7:30 feeling energized, building new sleep patterns.
- Can't think straight from social media, 85 to-do items—return to mindfulness, breath work, hot yoga.
- Feel lonely—seek connection.
Well-being components for emotion regulation: self-awareness (paying attention to emotions), breath work, cognitive work, relational work, biology (sleep, nutrition, physical activity).
Writing new book, committed to fitness after "professor dumpy syndrome." Martial arts (teaching 10 karate classes/week) kept him fit young; recommitted at 56, 4 workouts/week consistently. Fitness became go-to for book overwhelm/stress. Transformed life via fitness identity linking to emotional intelligence identity. Now identifies as exerciser—cannot skip pre-podcast workout (hour back workout), feels better, more present.
Vision: cultivate people identifying as well-regulated—walk into room thinking, "I got this, nothing triggers me, I manage emotions," life transforms. Book ends with best self related to emotion regulation, research-supported.
Meta moment technique (developed with colleague Robin, therapist):
- Sense trigger, be aware (e.g., "That was not cool").
- Pause between stimulus/response: take breath, build space, step back from habitual response (e.g., yelling).
- Think of best version of self in role (husband, professor, presenter): How want to be seen, talked about, experienced?
- Pulls from trigger to values.
Different roles/selves: e.g., director of Center for Emotional Intelligence vs. bullied kid from New Jersey. Proactive: pause before entering home/work, identify best self.
School story: Teacher calls out kid unkind on playground. Kid says, "Mrs. Johnson, I'm going to tell you what happened, but you need to take a meta moment first"—knowing she'd respond differently via best self.
Meta moment languaging key for broad adoption, like non-sleep deep rest (vs. yoga nidra) or long exhale breathing. Builds curriculum people adopt incrementally. Fitness identity parallels emotional maturity/regulation identity; coach embodies it.
I'd now take weeks off every once in a while. Those are structured around that. It's not push push push to the point of self-destruction. But with having an emotional identity that you see in yourself and can live into, that's a beautiful thing. David Goggins talks about having the old Goggins and the new one in order to be the new one because both live inside his head. He sat in that very chair and explained both of them are in here, but he has to take actions to be one and not the other every single day. As this language around what we're talking about evolves, it's going to go really far and wide.
Theory on Emotional Awareness and Labeling
Many people are very in touch with their extreme emotions of anger, sadness, feeling like they're too woke, they're a fascist. They're in touch with the emotions. We're really good at putting labels on other people's identities: they're a narcissist, they're a fascist, they're extreme woke. But we don't really think about our own identity as much. We're kind of lost in the emotions. Political parties, people usually know where they stand.
Concept for Emotional Fitness
What would this look like? Should we be thinking about emotional maturity, emotional intelligence? Is there a word that we can internalize? Like I'd like to be in shape. I kind of know what that is. I want a certain amount of strength, certain amount of endurance, be able to run for the plane and not cough up a lung. Also want to be able to open the pickle jar, go up the stairs without pain. I know a concept of what that is for me. What is a label that works really well that people can start to fill in the bins of what it is to be an emotionally intelligent person?
Emotional intelligence because we need concepts that are clear that can be defined that can be measured and that demonstrate predictive validity.
Every one of the skills—I wrote a book on emotion regulation because that was the area I wanted to focus on right now because that is at the top of the hierarchy at the end. It's what you do with the feelings. That's the regulation piece. But to do that you need to recognize your feelings, understand them, label them, decide whether you want to express them or regulate.
It's the RULER framework:
- Recognizing emotions
- Understanding emotions
- Labeling emotions
- Expressing emotions
- Regulating emotions
Emotion perception. It's complicated but at the end it's about building relationships. I can't know how you're feeling by your facial expression—you know that from Lisa Feldman Barrett's work. But I can make a hypothesis and check in: "Hey, did what I say land on you well or not so well? Let's talk about it." The intelligence is the courage to engage.
Personal Differences in Emotional Responses
The understanding is, because of my childhood, I have a different relationship to anger than you do. We learned that today together. I see anger and fear comes in my blood because I knew I was going to get hit or yelled at or screamed or punished. You have a different relationship with anger. Anger is about perceived injustice. However, my relationship to that and yours is different. Just like whether you're gay or straight or bi or trans. Homophobia to someone who is LGBTQIA is different than to someone who's not. I can't relate if I'm not you, but I can have the courage to have empathy for your experience. That's the understanding piece. I'm not going to ever be fully empathic to your life because I didn't live your life. You can't understand my life. You can relate to pieces of it, but I can be curious about it and not judge it.
Expression and Regulation Details
The labeling piece is having that language. What is really happening here? What is the experience? The expression piece is knowing how and when to express with different people across context. Is how I'm communicating landing well? Is my intended outcome a possibility here or is the person going to just run away? The last piece is regulation: is this emotion helping or hurting me achieve my goals in life? If it's going to hurt your goals, you need strategies to deal with it.
Life is difficult. This journey in becoming an emotion revolutionary ain't easy. Now it's politicized. What happened? Who was your mother? Tell me about the relationship you had with your mother. Maybe your father. The point is what I teach is easily defined. It's measurable. I can show you my own and thousands of other studies where these skills predict well-being, leadership, decision-making, mental health outcomes. I have incontrovertible evidence for the effectiveness of it. You can still say I'm not into it, but you have to be educated first. Once you understand the value proposition, the why behind learning the skills, every parent in the world would want their kid to develop these skills, especially if these skills are going to be the defining skills of who succeeds and who doesn't. That's when a culture evolves.
Imagining a future not too long from now where the debate around one group is saying they're all fascists with no empathy and the other side is saying they're so caught up in inclusivity that nothing's getting done and people are being treated unfairly. That's the dialogue. At some point we got to go okay everyone, we understand your positions but what are we going to do? We got to move forward. I don't know that there's going to be a meeting in the middle for a while. What is going to happen is that young people will strive hopefully or they'll give up. If the people who strive incorporate these tools and are rewarded for them then that will become the standard.
The obesity crisis was real. There was also a discussion around inclusivity and that has now shifted in part because of the GLP-1s but there's now this idea that being obese is unhealthy. You couldn't say that five six years ago. During the pandemic a very senior colleague said we're seeing people dying of COVID and it's people who are obese and he said but you can't say that publicly. Now there's this acknowledgement that physical health is important and people are striving for that more. That's generally a positive shift. It can be taken too far. But there's this weird moment that we're in where the name calling and the labeling of others, it's not getting us anywhere. The opportunity cost is that we're not figuring out what we're responsible for. We all have this work to do.
You don't know someone until you know their story. Once you know someone's story, you start having more interest in them, more compassion for them. My partner made a movie during the pandemic called America Unfiltered, which was him and his friend—a gay Panamanian running around with a straight Russian around America for a year, interviewing people about what it means to live in America today. They went to Trump rallies and Biden rallies, into poverty, gun shop owners, black moms whose kids had been murdered by the police, people who wanted to become American citizens. It was a listening journey.
I did a study on this. I showed people expressions of people and had them judge: would you want to get to know this person, how warm is this person, etc., before they watched the movie. People were very judgmental based on race, based on if they were holding a gun or not. Then you watch the movie and see the gun shop owner cry when he's talking about his relationship with his father and that the only way he and his father could bond was over guns and you start hearing his story and think this guy's a really nice guy actually. We tested people afterwards and found people had completely different judgments after hearing them and listening to their stories. That's what we need in our society: more curiosity and less judgment. That goes to ourselves. We'll be much more regulated. We'll have better relationships. We don't have to agree. There's no need to agree. But there is a need to be civil.
Standards for Emotional Intelligence
What you're talking about are standards. Standards of emotional intelligence or at least standards for striving. If we say there's standards of physical presence, does that mean everyone has to have eight-pack abs and be perfectly and then older people trying to reverse their age and ending up looking totally artificial? It can go too far. But having standards of striving like every kid does physical education because even if you're not going to be a great athlete, it's good to develop a relationship to your body and take care of it. Every kid should do emotional intelligence training. Even if you're not going to become Mark Brackett, you can learn to regulate better than your parents. If you're rewarded—we love rewards—if the promotions and the money and the status comes from being healthier physically and emotionally, who wouldn't want that?
Being a scientist about yourself. Working out is your big thing, but then you realize you need a little break. You can take a break. It's okay to take a day off. You can go walking on the beach or whatever. That's the reflection process. That's you having that metacognitive ability to say, let me evaluate my life right now. I could have a day without the gym. It's going to be good. I can go have some fun with some friends. I'm the same way. All of this work is about that level of reflection. When I don't do my workout, is this an excuse? What's really under it—am I really tired or am I just lazy right now? That's the work.
Phases of Personal Transformation
It's a process. I came up with this process for myself as I was writing which with the workouts. In the beginning you look in the mirror and I took photos of myself every month religiously and the proof is in the photos. Sometimes I look at wow Mark you really did a good job because I really got out of shape and I was not happy with myself. I was used to being an athlete as a martial artist and now I have four years of photos, front, side, back every month and you look at day one and today and it's a completely different human being. I have to look at that once in a while because I still have weird issues and I look in the mirror and I'm like wait the picture tells the truth.
The phases are important. The first phase is can I get through this? I can't do four workouts, go from 3,500 calories a day down to 1,800 calories a day. There's no way. Just like you can't take every strategy in my book and be obsessive about it: I'm going to breathe, I'm going to walk, I'm going to sleep, I'm going to talk positively, I'm going to reach out. You go nuts. It's a process. This is life's work. You've got your whole life to work on it because you're going to need it forever.
The second phase is you start seeing a little bit of changes. My life's a little bit better, feel a little better. I'm sleeping better. My relationships are better. I'm more positive. Even during that phase of my workouts, I went through this whole phase of negativity because I'm married for 30 years. You're 56 years old. Who gives a fuck about your body? I would do deadlifts. This is ridiculous. Deadlifts at 55 years old. I would catch myself every time: Mark, this is what you do. You are a self-saboteur right now. You got to pause and where is this coming from and how are you going to get that self-saboteur self out of here? The best version of you is not someone who does just two sets of those deadlifts. You do all four. But it was so much work.
The beauty of working through the discomfort is that identity phase because now it's not an option. If you just do it and it becomes part of your identity, you don't have those struggles anymore.
The parallel between physical fitness and emotional intelligence is tangible, concrete.
I want to play a game. One of my former colleagues and I got together a couple weeks ago about a month ago and we decided people are so disconnected so we took all the contents of my books and we made a game called Point of Connection. These are random cards and it doesn't involve an app or a Wi-Fi connection. You got to be with people.
First card: What's the best advice a mentor ever gave you and how has it shaped the way you live or work? Two pieces briefly.
Mike Mentzer, one of the great trainers, gave me the advice to do low volume, high-intensity resistance training, each body part once a week and train only three times per week, maybe four, never more than 75 minutes, but to really learn to enjoy training extremely hard. I followed that advice for 30 plus years. I look forward to workouts, so I don't work out every day.
The other advice from Bob Knight, a neurologist at UC Berkeley: figure out how much work you can do each week consistently and then find some way to reset yourself each week that is not destructive. He said fishing. I've done a lot of fishing because my mom's side, all the men went fishing. Decent fisherman, but I thought what is that for me? For me, it's hiking. For someone else, it could be something else. I taught my lab that in a career development course at Cold Spring Harbor during the summer, geek summer camp. That doesn't mean drinking, but maybe one or two drinks. As long as it's non-destructive, find a way to reset every week and just keep coming back. Both of those things were about consistency and intensity.
Last one: What's one emotion you've been carrying a lot lately that you'd like to experience less often? What might help soften it?
Lately, I've been having these moments of feeling so much love and affection for someone and it opens and then it shuts. But it's not opening and shutting because of them. I know this feeling because in a different version of it, I'm about to get a new puppy. He's already picked out. I know the difference between what I just described and with the dog—I let it rip with the dog. Person dog, I acknowledge there's a fundamental difference, but I feel this sort of shutting off to love. Is that an emotion?
Love is a feeling obviously but we're going to go back to that opening a little bit about that fear and vulnerability like just allowing yourself to be with—there's something that's getting in the way there. What might help soften it? Time. Just be with it. Let it ride.
Final Game Card
Who is one of your heroes and what does that reveal about what you value? My hero in my life was my uncle Marvin because he helped me get through my very traumatic experiences as a kid. What I value about him now that I think about it more was that nothing I could say could startle him. Nothing I could say would make him run away. He was just fully present and a listener and a learner and provided steady support.
Mark, thank you so much for coming back. Your work is evolving so fast and you're doing such good in the world and do come back again. You're clearly on the move and doing amazing things. Links to your books and other work.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Mark Brackett. To learn more about his work and to find links to his books, please see the links in the show notes captions. If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a zero-cost way to support us. Please follow the podcast by clicking the follow button on both Spotify and Apple. On both you can leave up to a five-star review and leave comments. Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode. That's the best way to support this podcast.
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I have a new book coming out. It's my very first book. It's entitled Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body. This is a book that I've been working on for more than 5 years, based on more than 30 years of research and experience. It covers protocols for everything from sleep to exercise to stress control protocols related to focus and motivation. I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols that are included. The book is now available by pre-sale at protocolsbook.com. There you can find links to various vendors.
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Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Mark Brackett. Thank you for your interest in science.
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