Merly Kammerling explains how you can recognise and manage the stresses of emotional exhaustion and dysregulation.

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Emotional labour refers to regulating or managing our emotional expressions with others, as part of our professional role. There is no avoiding emotional labour when working in this industry, and it’s indeed necessary in customer-facing roles, as well as working within a team.

It’s not always a bad thing, as it can actually provide a well-needed distraction and solace from the challenging experiences and emotions that happen in our lives behind the scenes. However, when our days are constantly emotionally laborious with little awareness or opportunity to reflect, regulate our true emotions and express ourselves authentically, what is the cost to ourselves and our teams? Emotional labour can be divided into two types: surface acting and deep acting. 

SURFACE ACTING

Displaying emotions that are not genuine and without any attempt to align internal feelings with the outward expression. For example, a bartender who forces a smile and a professional tone with a drunk and rude customer, despite feeling very sad because of a break up with a long-term partner. 

DEEP ACTING

This involves actively trying to feel the emotions that are required to be displayed. It’s a more involved process of modifying one’s internal emotional state to match the expected emotional display required. For example, a general manager reflects on the positive outcomes of a recent event, which evoke feelings of motivation and passion for her role and her team. 

Both elements are essential to maintain a professional demeanour. Surface acting can lead to better quality of service, and deep acting can lead to higher job engagement. However, if there is no time or opportunity to ‘fill up your own cup’ through rest and emotional regulation, this can lead to emotional dysregulation (an inability to manage and control emotional responses effectively on a day-to-day basis) and/or emotional exhaustion (a state of emotional depletion and fatigue stemming from prolonged stress). 

Key differences between emotional exhaustion and emotional dysregulation: 

Core experience

• Emotional exhaustion: Characterised by a feeling of being emotionally drained, depleted and overwhelmed due to prolonged exposure to stressors. It’s a state of “burnout” where one’s emotional resources are significantly depleted.

• Emotional dysregulation: Involves difficulty managing and controlling emotional responses, leading to reactions that are either too intense, too prolonged, or inappropriate for the situation.

Focus

• Emotional exhaustion: Focuses on the overall experience of stress and its impact on one’s emotional capacity. It’s about feeling tapped out and unable to cope with emotional demands.

• Emotional dysregulation: Focuses on the specific difficulty in regulating emotional responses, which can manifest as intense emotional reactions, mood swings, or difficulty managing emotional impulses.

Outcome

• Emotional exhaustion: Leads to a feeling of being emotionally spent, detached and cynical. It can also impact physical health and cognitive function.

• Emotional dysregulation: Can result in a range of problematic behaviours, including angry outbursts, anxiety, substance abuse and self-harming behaviours. It can also disrupt relationships and daily functioning.

Emotional regulation is crucial in emotionally laborious jobs because it helps you manage the stress and exhaustion associated with managing your own emotions and the emotions of others. In particular, it can help manage and replenish from the psychological strain of emotional dissonance – the mismatch between the emotions one is expected to display in order to do their job and the feelings one genuinely feels. 

ARE YOU TIRED OR EMOTIONALLY DYSREGULATED? 

Certain symptoms which you think are linked to simple tiredness may be, in fact, emotional dysregulation:

• Low frustration tolerance

• Difficulty disengaging from emotional experiences

• Struggling to label feelings

• Feeling overwhelmed or ‘wired’

• Emotional shutdown – withdrawing from emotional expression and interaction. It can manifest as reduced communication and a general disengagement from relationships or situations.

• Finding it hard to stay calm

• Anxiety

• Experiencing strong emotional reactions that outweigh the situation