How to Better Regulate Your Emotions | Dr. Marc Brackett
Dr. Marc Brackett, director of Yale's Center for Emotional Intelligence, discusses the science and practice of emotion regulation, clarifying that it is not about eliminating feelings but developing a healthier relationship with them. He covers topics ranging from emotional vocabulary and mindsets around emotions to gender socialization, co-regulation, and the RULER framework. The conversation also explores how emotional intelligence parallels physical fitness as an identity-based practice that can be developed systematically.
Summary
The episode opens with Dr. Brackett redefining emotion regulation not as the elimination of feelings, but as developing a different relationship with them. He presents a formula: emotion regulation equals a set of goals and strategies, which is a function of the emotion, the person, and the context. He introduces the acronym PRIME to describe the goals of emotion regulation: Prevent unwanted emotions, Reduce difficult ones, Initiate the creation of desired emotions, Maintain positive emotional states, and Enhance emotions when needed.
Brackett and Huberman explore the tension between self-awareness and being fully present in social situations. Brackett argues that emotions need not be consciously monitored all day — they operate in the background and only demand attention when there is a meaningful shift in one's environment or relationships. He emphasizes that the key moment for regulation is when one is 'activated' and must make a conscious choice about how to respond.
A significant portion of the discussion focuses on mindsets around emotions. Brackett argues there are no inherently bad emotions — only unhelpful expressions of them. He uses anxiety as an example, noting that a neuroscientist friend helped him reframe anxiety as a signal pointing toward things that matter. He also addresses happiness, warning that striving to be happy all the time is associated with greater misery, while contentment tends to correlate with higher well-being.
The conversation turns to gender socialization and emotional expression. Brackett argues that boys are socialized to suppress vulnerable emotions like sadness and shame, while girls are more likely to ruminate. He connects this to the stigma that emotional expression in males is associated with femininity or weakness. He shares an anecdote from London where a school headmistress feared his program would 'turn boys into homosexuals,' but when he told a personal story of discouragement, every child in the room raised their hand to say they had felt the same way.
Brackett introduces the concept of the 'meta moment' — a pause between stimulus and response in which a person envisions their best self and asks how that version of themselves would respond. This tool is described as central to emotion regulation in real-time situations. He also discusses co-regulation, or the ability to help others manage their emotions, finding in longitudinal research that leaders who are both self-regulated and effective co-regulators produce significantly better outcomes, including 40% lower frustration levels in schools.
The episode addresses the growing use of AI as an emotional companion among adolescents, with Brackett expressing deep concern that technology cannot replace human presence and connection. He links this trend to a broader societal pattern of increasing emotional disconnection, from early video games to social media to AI, which he sees as an accelerating trajectory away from meaningful human relationship.
Brackett discusses the RULER framework — Recognize, Understand, Label, Express, Regulate — as the organizing structure of his school-based curriculum. He stresses that this work must be systemic, involving leaders, teachers, students, and parents using the same language and framework. He shares data from a program in 21 Harlem schools showing that even children facing poverty, racism, and food insecurity benefit enormously from emotional intelligence training.
The episode closes with Brackett emphasizing the parallel between developing emotional intelligence and developing physical fitness. He describes his own four-year fitness journey and how adopting a fitness identity transformed his life, arguing that similarly, people should cultivate an identity as 'well-regulated.' He argues that the skills of emotional intelligence — self-awareness, labeling, expression, and regulation — are the defining skills of future success, and that evidence consistently shows they predict well-being, leadership effectiveness, decision-making quality, and mental health outcomes.
About this episode
Dr. Marc Brackett, PhD, is a professor of psychology at Yale University and director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. We discuss the science of emotion regulation and practical tools to increase your emotional intelligence. Dr. Brackett clarifies exactly how to do that both in the context of relationships, but also things that you can do on your own to become more emotionally intelligent to later serve you in the context of relationships, work, school, etc. We also discuss how your childhood experiences influence your relationship with emotions, with particular emphasis on how boys and men are socialized around emotional processing and expression. Read the show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Joovv: https://joovv.com/huberman Lingo: https://hellolingo.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman Rorra: https://rorra.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Marc Brackett (00:02:55) Emotion Regulation (00:05:53) Emotion Mindset, Anxiety; Good or Bad Emotions? (00:11:25) Sponsors: Joovv & Lingo (00:13:54) Permission for Happiness; Gender, Emotion Suppression (00:22:13) Young Men, Vulnerability, Incapable; Gay Men (00:31:00) Boys & Men, Crying; Emotion Socialization (00:37:34) Sponsor: AG1 (00:38:58) Physical Interaction; Rough/Tumble Play, Teaching Emotion Regulation (00:46:47) Emotion Calibration, Tools: Leaders & Being a Role Model; Meta-Moment (00:56:15) Meditation & Stress Tolerance, Tool: Label Emotions; Childhood (01:03:12) Sponsor: LMNT (01:04:32) Understand Your Assumptions, Tool: Intentional Co-Regulation (01:12:09) Vocabulary & Rethinking Emotion, Tool: Reframing (01:15:49) Emotional Intelligence Training, Self-Evaluation (01:22:15) Living with Discomfort & Emotional Intelligence (01:27:01) Marc's Work & Criticism; Emotion "Leakage" & Switching Mindset (01:34:19) Sponsor: Rorra (01:35:32) Excitement, Positive Emotion; Modern Concerns, AI & Disconnection (01:45:11) Major Societal Challenges & Everyday Progress (01:54:38) Physical/Emotional Identity & Envision Best Self, Tool: Meta-Moment (02:05:33) Emotional Intelligence (02:12:46) Curiosity & Compassion; Reflection, Identity (02:19:32) Point of Connection Game (02:25:02) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow, Reviews & Feedback, Sponsors, Protocols Book, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Key Insights
- Brackett argues that emotion regulation is not about eliminating a feeling but about developing a different relationship with it — including simply acknowledging its presence without trying to fix it.
- Brackett claims that anxiety is not inherently bad; a neuroscientist colleague helped him see that the things causing his anxiety were all things that mattered to him, reframing anxiety as a meaningful signal rather than a problem.
- Brackett asserts that people who strive to be happy all the time actually tend to be more miserable, while those who strive for contentment show greater overall well-being.
- Brackett contends that constantly monitoring one's emotions throughout the day is counterproductive — emotions are mostly in the background and only require active management when a significant environmental or relational shift occurs.
- Brackett argues that boys are socialized — not born — to suppress vulnerable emotions like sadness and shame, because these are culturally coded as feminine and therefore associated with weakness.
- Brackett's longitudinal research during the pandemic found that schools with leaders who were both self-regulated and good co-regulators showed frustration levels 40% lower than schools without such leaders.
- Brackett introduces the 'meta moment' as a practical regulation tool: pausing between stimulus and automatic response, envisioning one's best self in the relevant role, and choosing to respond through that lens rather than from a triggered state.
- Brackett claims that vulnerability shared by leaders is only effective when it is accompanied by a stated strategy — sharing fears without showing what you are doing about them undermines rather than models emotional intelligence.
- Brackett argues that reframing and cognitive reappraisal strategies must always be evaluated scientifically — one should continually ask whether the strategy is actually improving relationships and well-being, to avoid self-deception or rationalization.
- Brackett expresses serious concern about the trend of adolescents using AI as a therapist or companion, arguing that no technology can replace the human presence, touch, and connection that are essential to emotional development and healing.
- Brackett argues that emotional intelligence training must be systemic — implemented across leaders, teachers, students, and parents with shared language — because isolated classroom instruction without whole-school buy-in does not produce lasting change.
- Brackett claims that SAT scores have no predictive validity in highly selective academic environments due to range restriction, and that what predicts success in those contexts is the ability to take feedback, manage relationships, and lead effectively.
- Brackett draws a direct parallel between developing a fitness identity and developing an emotional intelligence identity, arguing that once a person genuinely identifies as 'well-regulated,' regulation becomes automatic rather than effortful.
- Brackett argues that schools giving students permission to skip class due to emotional overwhelm — as happened post-election at some institutions — is actively harmful because it deprives young people of the opportunity to develop tolerance for difficult emotions.
- Brackett found through a film study that people's judgments of others based on race or visible cues like gun ownership changed significantly after hearing those individuals' personal stories, concluding that curiosity and story-sharing are essential tools for building societal empathy and reducing polarization.
Topics
Transcript
A lot of people think emotion regulation is getting rid of a feeling. It's not what it is. It's just having another relationship to it. I've had anxiety or lived with it for a lot of my life, but sometimes I just say hello to it. It's like, hey, how are you doing today? And it goes away pretty quickly, or it just sits there. I think that's the other thing about emotion regulation that people kind of misunderstand. They think it's like, I've got to check in with how I'm feeling all day long and then check and regulate. Like, you become psychotic if you did that all day long. But most of the time, our emotions are in…
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