OVERCOMING PAINFUL EMOTIONS LIKE heartbreak and resisting temptations like…

OVERCOMING PAINFUL EMOTIONS LIKE heartbreak and resisting temptations like cigarettes, unprotected sex, and uneth-ical financial schemes all require cooling the hot system and activating the cool system. Both actions depend on the same two mechanisms: psychological distancing and cognitive reappraisal.

— from The Heart in the Cockpit (Emotion/Awe/Anxiety/Regret/Empathy) · Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control is the Engine of Success by Walter Mischel

In the book

The crucial distinction is between experiencing anger, which is a private internal event, and acting it out, which unloads it onto another human being — often someone who simply had the bad luck to be standing there. The brain has a "hot" system and a "cool" system, and they inhibit each other: when the hot one floods in, the cool one shuts down. So the whole art is buying time for the cool system to come back online. — The Heart in the Cockpit (Emotion/Awe/Anxiety/Regret/Empathy)

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