Self-reg­u­la­tion is de­fined in psy­chol­o­gy as the abil­i­ty to man­age your thoughts, emo­tions, be­hav­iours, and im­puls­es to achieve pos­i­tive out­comes, adapt to sit­u­a­tions, and have bet­ter over­all well-be­ing. It in­volves a num­ber of self-in­ter­ven­tions like self-mon­i­tor­ing, self-eval­u­a­tion, and self-con­trol in or­der to act in ac­cor­dance with or up­hold one’s long-held or long-term val­ues rather than act­ing im­pul­sive­ly or ac­qui­esc­ing to stim­uli from more im­me­di­ate feel­ings.

The Amer­i­can Psy­cho­log­i­cal As­so­ci­a­tion (APA) dic­tio­nary de­fines self-reg­u­la­tion as “the con­trol of one’s be­hav­iour through the use of self-mon­i­tor­ing (keep­ing a record of be­hav­iour), self-eval­u­a­tion (as­sess­ing the in­for­ma­tion ob­tained dur­ing self-mon­i­tor­ing), and self-re­in­force­ment (re­ward­ing one­self for ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour or for at­tain­ing a goal).”

Self-con­trol, the APA says, is “the abil­i­ty to be in com­mand of one’s be­hav­iour (overt, covert, emo­tion­al, or phys­i­cal) and to re­strain or in­hib­it one’s im­puls­es. In cir­cum­stances in which short-term gain is pit­ted against long-term greater gain, self-con­trol is the abil­i­ty to opt for the long-term out­come.” Choos­ing the short-term out­come is what we know as im­pul­sive­ness.

The con­stant sto­ries of in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lent deaths, road fa­tal­i­ties with sus­pect­ed al­co­hol in­hi­bi­tion or speed mis­man­age­ment is­sues, and the un­easi­ness of the threat of mil­i­tary ac­tion in our re­gion, com­pound­ed fur­ther by fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties in which many have found them­selves, and more, all make liv­ing in a struc­tured calm dif­fi­cult.

Or maybe I am caught in a nar­ra­tive cre­at­ed from me­dia high­lights, in­flu­en­tial voic­es, the ret­i­cence of cit­i­zens, and a gov­ern­ment speak­ing loud­ly at us and not to us.

Whichev­er way, the ten­sions seem pal­pa­ble and we ap­pear to be in deep.

This self-reg­u­la­tion in­stal­ment was in­tend­ed to speak to the neg­a­tive sen­ti­ments many ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing the hol­i­days. The fo­cus was that of sur­viv­ing the emo­tions and in­frac­tions, and nav­i­gat­ing the trau­ma from the “re­cur­ring whiplash” of Christ­mas past.

But the self-reg­u­la­tion we need as a pop­u­la­tion seems be­yond man­ag­ing the emo­tion­al in­sta­bil­i­ty of a sea­son. The need seems now to be one of greater in­ten­tion­al­i­ty in man­ag­ing our im­puls­es amid on­go­ing ten­sions and so­cial malaise.

To sur­vive this space in its on­go­ing con­trivances, there must be a reck­on­ing in the in­di­vid­ual man­age­ment of our emo­tions, thoughts, ac­tions, and be­hav­iour. No sin­gle col­umn in a print news­pa­per could change the thing to which I re­fer; that un­set­tle­ment of our cit­i­zen­ry, the bat-fren­zied man­ner in which we choose to in­ter­act, the hos­til­i­ty we have been per­pet­u­at­ing against each oth­er – but that will not de­ter me to­day.

While we live with raised hack­les all year round, the sea­son’s ex­cess­es al­ways pro­mote a height­ened anx­i­ety. Ex­cess­es are what make me take co­pi­ous pinch­es of salt as peo­ple pre­pare for Christ­mas. The trau­ma has a deep his­to­ry, suf­fi­cient for me to most­ly shrink away from the sea­son’s fare.

But not on­ly those of us with mus­cle mem­o­ry are af­fect­ed. The Christ­mas “holy ob­ser­vances” of­ten turn “nor­mal peo­ple” in­to snap­ping tur­tles (and again, on cue, I has­ten my with­draw­al in de­fence of my well-be­ing) and this seems alive in the gen­er­a­tions af­ter mine.

Gain­ing the self-reg­u­la­tion we need in sea­son and out of sea­son, how­ev­er, re­quires on­go­ing work. And, main­tain­ing self-reg­u­la­tion is “hard wuk” but it is worth your peace, the calm you bring to the room, the con­fu­sion in­to which you may throw oth­ers with your up­grad­ed “Zen pres­ence,” and your emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal well-be­ing will thank you.

Know this, it is on­go­ing work too, be­cause de­spite suc­cess­es, pe­ri­ods of high stress and low mon­i­tor­ing can make one be­have as though they’ve can­celled their sub­scrip­tion to calm and cen­tred­ness.

I know. I had two of those this year—I was ill alert, the stress was turned up to max­i­mum, and things fell apart. But, I apol­o­gised, I al­so apol­o­gised to my­self and for­gave my­self, took deep breaths, long med­i­ta­tive si­lences, and re­cal­i­brat­ed.

One of the boasts I will al­ways have is that, decades ago, when I saw the work to be done with­in – de­spite how har­row­ing it ap­peared – I used my bravest face and em­ployed my re­sources to a goal of self-man­age­ment and bet­ter self-reg­u­la­tion. It takes lis­ten­ing to your­self and learn­ing about you, then ap­ply­ing that learn­ing to your be­hav­iour and re­flex­es.

So, for the sea­sons ahead, try this process, which I con­tin­ue to em­ploy to gain, re­gain and main­tain self-reg­u­la­tion:

• Self-mon­i­tor­ing: Pay at­ten­tion to your in­ter­nal states (emo­tions, thoughts) and be­hav­iours. For decades, I have tracked my be­hav­iour by writ­ing things down reg­u­lar­ly. That has re­ward­ed me with a fas­ci­nat­ing sen­si­bil­i­ty to what I am ex­pe­ri­enc­ing and why I am ex­pe­ri­enc­ing it in the man­ner I am. There is pow­er in that lev­el of self-aware­ness!

• Self-eval­u­a­tion: APA says this is “com­par­ing your cur­rent state to per­son­al stan­dards or goals.” The work, though, is to have stan­dards and goals to which you can hold your­self.

• Self-re­in­force­ment/Con­trol: Ad­just your ac­tions, thoughts, or feel­ings to meet those stan­dards, by in­hibit­ing im­puls­es or choos­ing the de­sired be­hav­iours.

Self-reg­u­la­tion helps you stay calm, fo­cused, de­lay grat­i­fi­ca­tion, and prompt you to act in your best in­ter­est, nav­i­gat­ing dai­ly life more ef­fec­tive­ly.

To­day is a good day to start your process!