The Asymmetry of Emotion Regulation: Why You Can't Get Out of Your Own Way

The Trap of Trying Harder

You've done the work. Read the books, practiced the skills, probably spent real time in therapy. You know about reframing, mindfulness, self-compassion. You're not phoning this in.

But you keep ending up in the same place.

You learn something new, try to use it, then find yourself back in familiar territory. And each time that happens, it's tempting to assume you're the problem—that other people can make this stuff work, but for you, something's not clicking. What’s wrong with me?

Here’s something I see in my practice: Sometimes, people aren't failing at the new skills. They're succeeding at old patterns they don't realize are still running. And those patterns can undermine everything else they're trying to build.

What We're Actually Talking About When We Talk About Emotion Regulation

Let’s get clear on terms. Emotion regulation is anything you do—or don't do—to change the way you feel. Voluntary or involuntary. It's happening all the time, whether you're aware of it or not. As one emotion regulation researcher put it: "It's not, 'What is emotion regulation?' It's 'What isn’t?'" 

Some of it is adaptive. That means it helps you feel better in the short run and doesn't create more problems down the line. Calling a friend when you're stressed. Going for a walk. Reframing a painful thought (Gross, 1998). These things work, and they don't cost you anything later.

Some of it is maladaptive. It regulates your emotion in the moment, sure. But it also digs the hole deeper. Ruminating about something that's bothering you (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). Drinking to take the edge off. Avoiding a difficult conversation. Checking your phone for reassurance. You feel better right now, but you've made the problem worse for future you.

Most people don't think of these things as "emotion regulation strategies." They just feel like what you do. How you cope. Who you are.

But they're choices. Often automatic ones. And some of them are quietly undoing all of your progress.

The Research That Changes Everything

I spent years as a research assistant in an emotion regulation lab. One day, the principal investigator was walking us through years of studies on emotion regulation and mental health. He was explaining a pattern that shows up again and again over decades of research.

Maladaptive emotion regulation—things like rumination, avoidance, suppression—correlates with mental illness positively at about .8 to .9 (Aldao et al., 2010). In psychology, that's about as close to "always" as you get. If you're doing these things consistently, you're basically guaranteed to struggle.

But here's the kicker: adaptive emotion regulation strategies do correlate negatively with poor mental health, but at only about -.2 to -.3.

In English: The good stuff helps, but not nearly as much as you'd think. The correlation goes in the direction you’d expect, but it's weak.

So what does this mean in actual human terms? Doing the destructive stuff almost guarantees you'll be miserable. Doing the helpful stuff... helps. But only a little. Ask anyone in early recovery, who just knows the only thing that's going to obliterate that feeling is the next drink or drug. "How about you just take a walk?" Uh, sure…

The harm is real and powerful. The help is real but modest.

Going over some excruciating concepts in a supplemental statistics group and discussing what decades of research show, my PI said something that’s stuck with me: "You know, when you look at the data, people get better when they just stop doing stupid stuff."

I sensed he wanted to use a different word than "stuff."

After the group I said, "So when I'm a therapist, I'll just charge people my fee and tell them to stop doing the stupid stuff we talked about during the session? See you next week?"

We both laughed. But also, kind of... yeah.

It sounds reductive. Oversimplified. Completely dismissive when taken out of context. But it's not wrong.

You probably know a lot of this already, have had a sense that what I'm saying is true. You've just never had it laid out with such scientific clarity and precision. That's what learning this has been like for me.

The Asymmetry: Not All Actions Are Created Equal

So here's what those numbers are actually telling us: the playing field isn't level. The destructive stuff you do to yourself has way more power than the helpful stuff. It's not a 1:1 trade. It's not even close.

Think of your mental health like a skyscraper. Building and maintaining it—developing and practicing adaptive strategies—takes time, repetition, effort. You're placing steel beams carefully, one at a time. It's slow work.

Demolition is faster. A few destructive patterns, repeated over time, can undermine what you've built. Your maladaptive patterns are the demolition crew.

And here's the thing that’s difficult to accept: it feels unfair because it is unfair. We want to believe that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are equally weighted. We're told to "focus on the positive" and "build new habits" and "practice gratitude." All of that helps. I'm not saying it doesn’t—do those things. 

But the math doesn't work the way we want it to.

One night of rumination can undo a week of progress. One avoidance spiral can reinforce a fear you've been working to face. One reassurance-seeking loop can reset the anxiety you've been sitting with. One snarky comment to your partner can poison the mood for days. Listening to one more podcast about coping with anxiety isn’t utilizing the tools you’ve already learned to cope with anxiety. 

The harm compounds faster than the help.

But here's what's important: you're not going to collapse the whole structure with one bad night.

One rumination spiral doesn't bring the building all of the way down. What weakens it is the repeated reliance on the things that damage the structure. We do have a capacity for resilience, if we don’t undermine it.  

The 5:1 Ratio

This asymmetry isn't unique to individual emotion regulation. It shows up in other research too. John Gottman, the relationship researcher, found that in healthy marriages it takes about five positive interactions to counterbalance one negative interaction. Not one-to-one. Not even two-to-one. Five to one.

One criticism, one dismissive comment, one moment of contempt—each a maladaptive interpersonal emotion regulation attempt—carries five times the weight of a compliment or a kind gesture.

A similar imbalance shows up in emotion regulation research (Gross & Barrett, 2011). One maladaptive episode can overshadow multiple adaptive efforts. It's not that the good stuff doesn't matter. It does. But we’re Sisyphus here, rolling the rock uphill.

And this is why "trying harder" at the positive strategies often doesn't feel like enough. Because it isn't. Not when you're still doing the things that tear you down. You're not weak. You're not irreparably broken. You're just up against an uneven playing field.

Old-Timer Wisdom: Sometimes Doing Nothing IS Doing Something

Early in recovery, I was going to a lot of AA meetings, unknowingly trying to figure out how to actually regulate. One night, an old-timer—decades sober—was talking about the early days, and he had some unsolicited advice for the newcomers.

He said, "Even if you think your ass is gonna fall off, don't drink."

Your guess is as good as mine for what the ass falling off part meant. But the message landed.

Don't do the thing. That's the whole strategy.

And this feels impossible, right? We're wired to problem-solve, to take action. Doing nothing feels passive. Irresponsible. Like giving up.

Your brain screams at you: "But what am I supposed to DO?!"

The answer: Nothing. Don't do the destructive thing. Wait it out.

This is the entire premise of Exposure and Response Prevention therapy for OCD. You feel the anxiety—the contamination fear, the intrusive thought, the doubt about your relationship—and you don't do the compulsion. You don't wash your hands again. You don't check. You don't seek reassurance.

Not: feel the anxiety and find the perfect coping skill.

Just: feel the anxiety and don't do the compulsion.

The restraint IS the intervention. Doing nothing—not checking, not washing, not analyzing, not seeking reassurance—is doing something.

It's doing the hardest thing. You’re not depriving yourself by not doing it, you’re building something for yourself: capacity for discomfort. 

What This Looks Like in Real Life

Rumination:

You're lying in bed replaying a conversation from earlier. Did you say the wrong thing? Did they take it the wrong way? What if they're mad at you? Why do I feel this way about it? You start analyzing it from every angle, trying to figure out what actually happened, what it means, what you should do about it.

This feels productive. It feels like problem-solving. Like if you just think about it enough, you'll figure it out and feel better.

But you won't. You're just feeding the loop.

Sure, you could do a thought record. You could try to change your thoughts. You could call a friend and talk it through. Those could help.

Or you could just... stop. Recognize it for what it is. Notice the loop starting and step away. Don’t engage. Don’t beat yourself up for it. Get up and do literally anything else. That's it. That's the whole move.

Relationship OCD:

The doubt creeps in: Do I really love them? How do I know for sure? What if I'm with the wrong person? You start mentally checking—reviewing past relationships, analyzing your feelings, looking for proof that this is real love or proof that it isn't.

Or you ask a friend for reassurance. Again. “You think we’re a good match, right?" Hoping their answer will make the doubt go away. It does, for about twenty minutes.

There are adaptive strategies for this. Self-compassion exercises. Cognitive reframes. And those have their place.

But sometimes the whole intervention is simpler: Don't check. Don't ask. Sit with the uncertainty. Let the doubt be there without doing anything about it. When it’s over, ask yourself: was sitting through that as bad as I expected?

Social anxiety:

You have a work event coming up. You start rehearsing what you'll say, planning how to avoid awkward silences, imagining all the ways it could go wrong. After the event, you replay every interaction. Did that joke land weird? Did you talk too much? Not enough? Why did she make that face at me? 

The mental rehearsal feels like preparation. The post-mortem feels like learning from experience.

But it's not. It's reinforcing the fear.

You don't need the perfect grounding technique or the ideal opening line. Sometimes you just need to go to the thing, have the conversations, and then... not review it afterward. Move on. Feel the residual discomfort when you stop analyzing and let it pass. 

But Also: It's Not That Simple

If it were as easy as "just stop," you would have already stopped. You wouldn't be reading this and I'd be in a different line of work. Humans are complicated. Our patterns run deep. The things we're caught in often aren't obvious to us—they're woven into how we see ourselves, how we understand the world, how we've learned to survive.

This is why therapy isn't actually just paying someone a fee to tell you to stop doing stupid stuff.

A good therapist helps you see the patterns you can't see on your own. They pull out the threads of your internal narrative. They show you where you're caught in loops that feel like truth but are actually traps.

The things we need to stop doing are often invisible to us. They feel like "just who I am" or "how things are.” And they have a way of cannibalizing our positive qualities. 

"I'm just analytical." (Becomes: rumination.)

"I just care about getting things right." (Becomes: perfectionism as avoidance.)

"I'm just being responsible." (Becomes: control as anxiety management.)

"I need to understand why I feel this way." (Becomes: intellectualizing to avoid feeling.)

You can't stop doing something you don't realize you're doing. Or something you think is helping when it's actually hurting.

The therapist's job isn't to lecture you about what to stop. It's to help you develop awareness of what you're doing in the first place. To reflect back the patterns you're too close to see. To help you recognize when you're reaching for the demolition switch.

And then, yeah... to help you not flip it.

The Harm Reduction Framework

Let's reframe the goal here.

Instead of asking yourself, "How do I add more positive strategies to my life?" try asking, "What's the one thing I keep doing that's making everything worse?"

Not optimization for maximum wellness. Just: minimum harm.

This is a more realistic place to start, especially when you're overwhelmed. It's a lower barrier to entry. And it aligns with how emotion regulation actually works—remember, the asymmetry principle. The destructive stuff packs more punch than the helpful stuff.

So focus your energy where it matters most.

Mindfulness fits into this framework perfectly (Jha et al., 2010). It's not about adding another thing to your to-do list or maxing for self-actualization. It's about catching the destructive pattern before you're fully in it. Noticing the urge to ruminate and not following it. Seeing the impulse to check for reassurance and letting it pass.

Mindfulness as harm reduction (Bonanno & Burton, 2013; Garland et al., 2010). Not doing the thing that makes it worse.

The Courage of Restraint

There's something deeply counterintuitive about "doing nothing" as the intervention. It feels passive. Like you're not trying. Like you're just... sitting there with the discomfort, hoping it goes away.

And honestly? It takes a kind of courage that doesn't get talked about enough.

Not doing the thing your brain is screaming at you to do? That's active as hell.

But there's something else underneath that resistance: doubt.

Will I actually get better if I just... don't do anything? What if the anxiety doesn't go away? What if sitting with the uncertainty just makes it worse? What if I spiral? What if I need to figure this out and I'm just letting myself suffer for no reason?

These are reasonable questions. And they're exactly why restraint is hard.

You're being asked to trust a process that doesn't give you immediate relief. To believe that not making it worse is actually making it better, even when it doesn't feel like it.

That's the bet. And it's a hard one to make when you're in pain.

But here's what the research shows, and what decades of clinical work confirms: the urge passes. The anxiety peaks and then it comes down. The doubt doesn't actually require an answer. The discomfort is temporary.

Your brain is lying to you when it says you have to do something right now.

If you're reading this, you've already survived difficult things. You've made it through moments that felt unbearable. You're here. That counts for something.

Showing up to understand your patterns, to see where you're caught—that's not passive. That's you honoring yourself enough to pay attention.

Practical Takeaway: The One Thing

You don't need to overhaul your entire emotional life today. You don't need to master five new coping skills or build some perfect self-care routine.

Just ask yourself: What's the one thing I keep doing that keeps making this worse?

The rumination loop? The reassurance text? The third drink? The mental replay of the conversation? The checking? The avoiding?

Can you just... not do it? Even once?

Not forever. Not perfectly. Just once. Today. Right now.

See what happens when you let the urge rise and pass without acting on it.

That's it. That's the whole thing.

The Space Between

Viktor Frankl said, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” 

Mindfulness people call it "the space between trigger and response."

And the truth: You can't always control what you feel. You can't always execute the perfect adaptive strategy. Sometimes you're tired. Sometimes you don't have it in you. Sometimes life is just hard and you're doing your best to get through the day.

But you can catch yourself before you flip the switch. You can notice the moment when your hand is reaching for it.

And most of the time, just catching yourself—just pausing—is enough. 

That moment of restraint, that not doing? That's where change lives.

The research is clear: stopping the harm matters more than optimizing the good. Your job isn't perfection. It's paying attention.

A Note on Getting Support

This article is meant to inform and offer perspective, but it's not a substitute for working with someone who can help you see your specific patterns.

If you're struggling with emotion regulation strategies that feel overwhelming or deeply ingrained, a good therapist can help you understand what these patterns mean for you, where they came from, and how early adaptive strategies may have become maladaptive over time.

Therapy provides space to explore the internal narratives you're too close to see on your own—and to develop the awareness needed to actually change them.

References & Further Reading

Aldao, A., Nolen-Hoeksema, S., & Schweizer, S. (2010). Emotion-regulation strategies across psychopathology: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(2), 217-237.

Ayduk, Ö., & Kross, E. (2010). From a distance: Implications of spontaneous self-distancing for adaptive self-reflection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(5), 809-829.

Bonanno, G. A., & Burton, C. L. (2013). Regulatory flexibility: An individual differences perspective on coping and emotion regulation. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(6), 591-612.

Garland, E. L., Gaylord, S. A., Boettiger, C. A., & Howard, M. O. (2010). Mindfulness training modifies cognitive, affective, and physiological mechanisms implicated in alcohol dependence: Results of a randomized controlled pilot trial. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 42(2), 177-192.

Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271-299.

Gross, J. J., & Barrett, L. F. (2011). Emotion generation and emotion regulation: One or two depends on your point of view. Emotion Review, 3(1), 8-16.

Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348-362.

Jha, A. P., Stanley, E. A., Kiyonaga, A., Wong, L., & Gelfand, L. (2010). Examining the protective effects of mindfulness training on working memory capacity and affective experience. Emotion, 10(1), 54-64.

Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2000). The role of rumination in depressive disorders and mixed anxiety/depressive symptoms. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109(3), 504-511.