Regret is a very real reaction to a disappointing event in your life, a choice you made that can’t be changed, something you said that you can’t take back. It’s one of those feelings you can’t seem to shake, a heavy and intrusive negative emotion that can last for minutes, days, years <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-mindful-self-express/201205/the-psychology-regret">or even a lifetime </a>. Imaging studies reveal that feelings of regret show <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1514">increased activity </a> in an area of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex.

Regret Is Very Real

Dealing with regret is even more difficult because of the other negative emotions connected to it: remorse, sorrow and helplessness. Regret can increase our stress, <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110301111503.htm">negatively affect physical health </a> and throw off the balance of hormone and immune systems. Regret is not only unpleasant. It is unhealthy.

Dealing With Regret 

As with other negative emotions, it doesn’t work to avoid, deny or try to squash regret. In the long run, these tactics only increase negative feelings and prolong the time you suffer with them. Rather than stay stuck, people can manage these emotions in four steps: First, accept the fact that you are feeling them; determine why you are feeling them; allow yourself to learn from them; and finally, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1078292">release them and move forward </a>.

First Acce

This method of noticing and then restructuring your thoughts is sometimes called <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Living-Mindfully-Across-the-Lifespan-An-Intergenerational-Guide/Penberthy-Penberthy/p/book/9780367370152">cognitive reappraisal </a>. Seeing the situation in a different way may help reduce regret and help you <a href="https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/how-handle-regret">make future decisions </a>.

Cognitive Reappraisa

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1078292">Forgiving yourself </a> for actions taken or not taken is a powerful step toward overcoming regret. This has been formalized into a commonly used cognitive psychological model called <a href="https://www.evworthington-forgiveness.com/reach-forgiveness">REACH </a>, which asks people to recall the hurt (face it), empathize (be kind and compassionate), altruistically offer forgiveness (to oneself), commit publicly (share it) and then hold on to that forgiveness and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00671">stay true to the decision </a>. Research shows that six hours of work with a trained professional using this model <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22073">can have a positive impact </a>.

REACH

This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com/">The Conversation </a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/regret-can-be-all-consuming-a-neurobehavioral-scientist-explains-how-people-can-overcome-it-172466">original article </a>.

Regret isn't just unpleasant, it's unhealthy

#personaldevelopment #regret #forgiveness #self

Dealing with regret is even more difficult because of the other negative emotions connected to it: remorse, sorrow, and helplessness.

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Regret can be all-consuming – a neurobehavioral scientist explains how people can overcome it

"Grief is the price for Love"is erroneously attributed to Queen Elizabeth; but the quote comes from a longer passage by Dr Colin Murray Parkes, a British psychiatrist and a pioneer.

"The pain of grief is just as much part of life as the joy of love:it is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment. To ignore this fact, or to pretend that it is not so, is to put on emotional blinkers which leave us unprepared for the losses that will inevitably occur in our own lives and unprepared to help others cope with losses in theirs.”

Regret can be all-consuming – a neurobehavioral scientist explains how people can overcome it

Inspirational Quote 9.24.15 Grief is the price...

Tanya L. Mattson on Oct 05

Tanya L. Mattson