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Key Takeaways:
- Affect labeling is the simple act of putting your feelings into words to lower emotional intensity.
- Labeling emotions is a form of implicit regulation that distracts us from our anxiety and helps us start to process our feelings.
- There are some limitations to affect labeling, such as a lack of long-term effectiveness and the risk of crystallization.
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When we’re stressed, it’s not uncommon to hear someone tell us to take a deep breath. However, you could be missing a vital step before that breath called affect labeling. While “putting your feelings into words” may seem basic, research has discovered that the simple act of labeling emotions can put your mind at ease.
This article will take a closer look at the concept of “naming it to tame it” and how you can use this tool to regain control of your emotions and actions.
What is Affect Labeling?
Affect labeling is the process of putting your feelings into words. Unlike strategies such as deep breathing or mindfulness, affect labeling does not require actively trying to change how you feel.
Suppose you’re about to give a presentation in front of a crowd. Right before your turn, your heart starts racing, and your palms get sweaty. Affect labeling might look like stepping back mentally and admitting your feelings to yourself. You might say, “I’m really anxious right now. I can feel it in my chest. I’m afraid of what my coworkers will think of my presentation.”
While labeling your emotions doesn’t immediately solve the problem, it can bring down the raw emotional intensity and help you feel more grounded.
The “Putting Feelings Into Words” Study
The 2007 Putting Feelings Into Words study explores why putting feelings into words makes us feel better [*]. The study took a closer look at the underlying neural mechanics of talking by placing 30 healthy participants under fMRI scanners while looking at images of human faces displaying various emotions.
The researchers then observed these participants under three different circumstances:
- Participants simply observed the faces shown to them.
- Participants assigned an emotion to each of the faces. For example, they would label the faces as ANGRY or FEARFUL.
- Participants established control conditions by completing unrelated, non-linguistic tasks, such as identifying the genders of each face or giving them names.
The fMRI scanner would then record changes in blood flow to determine which parts of the brain were most active when performing certain tasks.
What Researchers Observed in the Brain
The results of the experiment focused on two specific parts of the brain:
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The amygdala: This is the brain’s alarm system. It activates your fight-or-flight response by detecting threats and triggering emotional responses.
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The prefrontal cortex: This is the brain’s thinking center. It manages logic, self-control, planning, and language. It turns abstract concepts into language.
The researchers observed opposite reactions on both sides of the brain depending on what the participant was doing. When participants were just looking at the faces, the amygdala lit up. It would perceive the angry faces as a threat.
When participants labeled the feeling, the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) lit up, and the alarm system turned down. However, it wasn’t that one area was on while the other was off; both were communicating. While the prefrontal cortex worked to find the appropriate label, activity in the amygdala decreased.
How Affect Labeling Reduces Emotional Intensity
Understanding how affect labeling reduces emotional intensity involves exploring how the brain processes emotional reactivity. When you encounter an emotional trigger, such as a confrontation, a traumatizing memory, or a sudden accident, it activates the amygdala [*].
The amygdala then contextualizes this trigger, which releases cortisol and causes somatic symptoms in the body. When the amygdala is hyperactive, the prefrontal cortex doesn’t function as well as it should. Suddenly, your body becomes trapped in a loop of stress.
The study proved that you don’t need to fix a problem right away. Naming your emotions shifts you from survival mode to processing mode. Now, you can experience the emotion instead of reacting to it.
When you reduce activity in the amygdala through affect labeling, it lowers your heart rate, relaxes the muscles, and slows your breathing. It also restores executive functioning. But how?
Language is like an emergency circuit breaker that interrupts automatic responses (like snapping at someone or running away) [*]. Your brain can’t maintain the resources required to be on high alert because it’s too busy catering to the cognitive demands of labeling your emotions.
Let’s take a closer look at an example of how language can help.
Suppose you’re walking through a large crowd in a new mall by yourself. Everything feels unfamiliar, and you’re getting anxious. You take yourself to a quiet spot, such as a restroom, and tell yourself you’re experiencing social anxiety and that it’s making your thoughts race. Labeling these physical sensations de-escalates the alarm in your brain and helps you recognize the experience based on facts—not survival instincts.
Affect labeling also creates distance between you and the emotion itself. When you label the emotion, you can observe it instead of embodying it. Before you apply a label, you may feel fused to the emotion. When you apply the label, you separate yourself from physical sensations like tightening in your chest or spinning in your head.
Limitations of Affect Labeling Research
While affect labeling is an effective method of lowering emotional stress, it doesn’t eliminate the unwanted emotions.
One of the limitations explained by cognitive research is the crystallization effect [*]. When you label an emotion, you risk crystallizing it. For example, a child who fails a test might think, “I’m so angry at myself for failing this test.” Thus, they might associate failure with self-hatred rather than something natural that can be overcome later. Crystallization can also lead to rumination. You might hyper-focus on the label and overanalyze it, which can prolong emotional stress.
Affect labeling also lacks long-term effectiveness [*]. Labeling your emotions doesn’t make it easier to deal with them over time. Instead, it provides some short-term relief without addressing the root cause of the emotions themselves.
Not only that, emotions are highly complex, and affect labeling can only go so deep. You risk oversimplifying your emotions. For example, when you lose a loved one who has been suffering from a long-term illness, you might feel devastated by the loss but relieved that they are no longer in pain.
The Bottom Line
Learning how to translate raw, physical emotions and sensations gives you more power than you think. Instead of feeling trapped by your emotions, you can look at them from a different perspective and find productive ways to process them.
Sources:
- Lieberman MD, Eisenberger NI, Crockett MJ, Tom SM, Pfeifer JH, Way BM. “Putting Feelings Into Words.” Psychological Science, 2007.
- Šimić G, Tkalčić M, Vukić V, et al. “Understanding Emotions: Origins and Roles of the Amygdala.” Biomolecules, 2021.
- Riou M, et al. “'Tell me exactly what's happened': When linguistic choices affect the efficiency of emergency calls for cardiac arrest.” Resuscitation, 2017.
- Shinpei Y, Kouga S, Keiichi O. “Diminished negative emotion regulation through affect labeling and reappraisal: insights from functional near infrared spectroscopy on lateral prefrontal cortex activation.” BMC Psychology, 2024.
- Chen J. “Impact of affect labelling as an implicit emotion regulation strategy on negative and positive emotions.” Cognition and Emotion, 2026.
