Calm-Down Skills: A Few Things to Try

The picture shows four numbered steps in a row. One: pause. Two: name the feeling with a word or two. Three: slow your breathing, with an easy long out-breath. Four: choose a small next step. A dashed box below the row stands for a note that these are ideas to try and not a treatment, and that what works varies from person to person.

• Four skills many people use: pausing to name a feeling, slowing your breathing, talking to yourself kindly from a little distance, and doing something else for a little while.
• What researchers have found about each one, in plain words.
• A section for adults who help children.
• What the research does not show, and when to ask for more support.

Finding a word or two for what you feel, such as “worried” or “tired,” is called affect labeling. In experiments, putting feelings into words has eased emotional reactions for many people, in a pattern that resembles other ways of managing feelings (Torre & Lieberman, 2018). Most of this research is done in labs with healthy adults. It is a small step, not a treatment.

You can try it in Exercise 8: Pause and name the feeling.

In trials with adults, breathing exercises were linked with lower self-reported stress than comparison groups, with a small to medium average effect (Fincham et al., 2023). A review of slow-paced breathing in people without a clinical condition found short-term changes in heart rate variability and blood pressure, and only a marginal effect on perceived stress (Shao et al., 2024). Many of the studies are small. Slow breathing is not right for everyone: if it makes you dizzy or anxious, breathe the way you usually do and stop.

The Breathing pacer paces slow breaths with no holding, and A four-minute pause walks through a few slow breaths at your own pace. Exercise 9: One slow minute of breathing is a shorter version.

In two lab experiments, adults who talked to themselves using their own name showed lower brain-activity markers of emotional reactivity than those who used “I” (Moser et al., 2017). It is a small, early finding from a lab.

Pushing a feeling away is different from this. In many studies of children and teenagers, avoiding or suppressing feelings goes along with more symptoms (Compas et al., 2017). That is an association, not proof of cause.

Some people find that a short, absorbing break, such as a walk, some music or a small chore, helps them come back to a problem later. That is personal experience, not a research finding. The research on this is limited: the reviews we read do not test whether distraction helps in the moment (Naragon-Gainey et al., 2017), and McRae and Gross (2020) stress that what works depends on the person and the situation. Think of it as a break, not as a way to avoid the feeling for good.

Some people use a short phrase or a gesture, such as a hand on the chest, to start a pause. We found no good research on a “calm-down signal” as a method, so treat it as a personal habit that may or may not help you. What would you like your own cue to be, if you want one? There is no right answer.

This section is for parents, carers, teachers and other adults. Children and teenagers learn to manage feelings slowly, over many years, and caregiving experiences are linked with how this grows (Silvers, 2022). Psychological programs that aim to improve emotion regulation in young people have helped on average, with small to moderate effects and large differences between studies (Moltrecht et al., 2021).

Calming practices taught in schools show mixed results. One large trial in 85 schools found no evidence that a mindfulness program was better than usual teaching after one year (Kuyken et al., 2022), and a review found small, uncertain benefits and no clear effects at follow-up (Dunning et al., 2022).

Researchers have also proposed a model in which people steady one another's feelings in both directions (Reeck et al., 2016). So a practical way to use all this is to treat calm-down skills as one tool among many: notice the child's feeling together with them, stay as calm as you can yourself, and go at their pace.

These studies measure groups, not any one child. If a child is struggling every day, speak with their doctor or school counselor.

• Most findings come from short studies, often with students or healthy volunteers.
• We found no strong research testing “counting to ten,” a “calm-down signal” or “thinking happy thoughts” as methods, so we do not say they work.
• Results for breathing are small to medium on average (Fincham et al., 2023). For brief mindfulness training the average effect was small, and close to zero once publication bias was corrected (Schumer et al., 2018). Some people have unpleasant experiences with meditation-style practices (Farias et al., 2020).
• The hand model of the brain, which some teachers use to show how strong feelings make thinking harder, is a memory aid, and it can be a helpful one. As a picture of the brain it is simplified: the brain does not have a lid. Emotion involves large-scale networks across the whole brain (Pessoa, 2017).
• This page is education, not treatment or medical advice.

If you use these skills and still feel overwhelmed most days, or if strong feelings get in the way of sleep, work, school or relationships, a doctor or a licensed mental health professional can help. See how to choose a therapist, therapy types, anxiety and depression.

• Breathing pacer: a gentle circle that paces slow breathing.
• Grounding timer: a guided practice for coming back to the present.
• A four-minute pause: a short guided practice with quiet time between steps.
• Exercises: reflective practices, including pausing to name a feeling.
• Understanding Your Emotions: how the body and emotions may relate.

Which of these feels easiest to try? Which would you skip? There are no right answers.

• Compas, B. E., Jaser, S. S., Bettis, A. H., Watson, K. H., Gruhn, M. A., Dunbar, J. P., Williams, E., & Thigpen, J. C. (2017). Coping, emotion regulation, and psychopathology in childhood and adolescence: A meta-analysis and narrative review. Psychological Bulletin, 143(9), 939-991. Source Avoidance and suppression were associated with more symptoms in children and teenagers (association only).
• Dunning, D., Tudor, K., Radley, L., Dalrymple, N., Funk, J., Vainre, M., Ford, T., Montero-Marin, J., Kuyken, W., & Dalgleish, T. (2022). Do mindfulness-based programmes improve the cognitive skills, behaviour and mental health of children and adolescents? An updated meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Evidence Based Mental Health, 25(3), 135-142. Source Mindfulness programs in schools had small, uncertain benefits and no clear effects at follow-up.
• Farias, M., Maraldi, E., Wallenkampf, K. C., & Lucchetti, G. (2020). Adverse events in meditation practices and meditation-based therapies: a systematic review. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 142(5), 374-393. Source Some people have unpleasant experiences with meditation-style practices.
• Fincham, G. W., Strauss, C., Montero-Marin, J., & Cavanagh, K. (2023). Effect of breathwork on stress and mental health: A meta-analysis of randomised-controlled trials. Scientific Reports, 13, 432. Source In adults, breathing exercises were linked with lower stress than comparison groups, with a small to medium average effect.
• Kuyken, W., Ball, S., Crane, C., Ganguli, P., Jones, B., Montero-Marin, J., Nuthall, E., Raja, A., Taylor, L., Tudor, K., Viner, R. M., Allwood, M., Aukland, L., Dunning, D., Casey, T., Dalrymple, N., De Wilde, K., Farley, E.-R., Harper, J., . . . Williams, J. M. G. (2022). Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of universal school-based mindfulness training compared with normal school provision in reducing risk of mental health problems and promoting well-being in adolescence: The MYRIAD cluster randomised controlled trial. Evidence Based Mental Health, 25(3), 99–109. Source A large school trial found no advantage for a mindfulness program over usual teaching after one year.
• McRae, K., & Gross, J. J. (2020). Emotion regulation. Emotion, 20(1), 1–9. Source What works for managing emotions depends on the person and the situation.
• Moltrecht, B., Deighton, J., Patalay, P., & Edbrooke-Childs, J. (2021). Effectiveness of current psychological interventions to improve emotion regulation in youth: a meta-analysis. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 30(6), 829-848. Source Psychological programs to improve emotion regulation in young people had small to moderate effects, with large differences between studies.
• Moser, J. S., Dougherty, A., Mattson, W. I., Katz, B., Moran, T. P., Guevarra, D., Shablack, H., Ayduk, O., Jonides, J., Berman, M. G., & Kross, E. (2017). Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control: Converging evidence from ERP and fMRI. Scientific Reports, 7(1), 4519. Source Self-talk using one's own name was linked with lower brain-activity markers of emotional reactivity in two experiments.
• Naragon-Gainey, K., McMahon, T. P., & Chacko, T. P. (2017). The structure of common emotion regulation strategies: A meta-analytic examination. Psychological Bulletin, 143(4), 384-427. Source A meta-analysis of how common emotion regulation strategies relate to each other and to symptoms.
• Pessoa, L. (2017). A network model of the emotional brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(5), 357–371. Source Emotion is better understood as networks across the whole brain than as a few separate regions.
• Reeck, C., Ames, D. R., & Ochsner, K. N. (2016). The social regulation of emotion: An integrative, cross-disciplinary model. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(1), 47–63. Source A proposed model of how people regulate one another's emotions.
• Schumer, M. C., Lindsay, E. K., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Brief mindfulness training for negative affectivity: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 86(7), 569-583. Source Brief mindfulness training had a small average effect on negative feelings, close to zero after correcting for publication bias.
• Shao, R., Man, I. S. C., & Lee, T. M. C. (2024). The effect of slow-paced breathing on cardiovascular and emotion functions: A meta-analysis and systematic review. Mindfulness, 15(1), 1–18. Source In people without a clinical condition, slow-paced breathing changed heart rate variability and blood pressure briefly; effect on perceived stress was marginal.
• Silvers, J. A. (2022). Adolescence as a pivotal period for emotion regulation development. Current Opinion in Psychology, 44, 258-263. Source Caregiving experiences are linked with how emotion regulation develops.
• Torre, J. B., & Lieberman, M. D. (2018). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling as implicit emotion regulation. Emotion Review, 10(2), 116–124. Source Putting feelings into words (affect labeling) eased emotional reactions in experiments; mostly lab research.

How we choose and label our sources: Evidence and editorial standards