How to Rewire Your Emotions: Master HRV and Take Control of Your Mind

Ep 118. Unlock Emotional Resilience: Train Your Brain, Breath & Body for Inner Peace

In today's fast-paced world, emotional regulation isn't a luxury—it's survival. Emotions are not just fleeting reactions—they are deeply embedded in the human condition, influencing how we perceive reality, form opinions, and make decisions. Every thought, memory, or external event—whether joyful or painful—triggers emotional states. These emotions shape our perspective, becoming a filter through which we interpret life.

But here's the problem: when the body is in chronic stress, our nervous system becomes dysregulated. This activates the brain's default mode network, disconnecting us from a sense of safety. Suddenly, everyday moments—relationships, careers, even self-worth—can feel threatening or overwhelming.

💡 The key? Heart Rate Variability (HRV) training. By learning to regulate your breath and heart rhythm, you build emotional resilience. You shift from reactive to responsive—navigating life with clarity instead of chaos.

🎧 Whether you're struggling with anxiety, burnout, or just want to upgrade your mental clarity and emotional intelligence, mastering HRV is your next step toward inner peace and peak performance.

👉 Start now. Breathe. Reset. Train your heart. Master your mind.

#EmotionalResilience #HRVTraining #MentalHealthAwareness #StressRelief #Neuroscience #MindBodyConnection #PeakPerformance #EmotionalIntelligence #SelfRegulation #AnxietyRelief #Podcast #YouTubeShorts #Mindfulness

Transcript

Welcome back folks. Episode 118 of the Running Man Self-Regulation Skills Project podcast with me, your host, Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in Health Psychology, licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor at a local community college. What we're going to be discussing today has to do with taking control of your emotions. And self-regulation skills is what this whole podcast is about. But the reason I'm doing this one is that I had a request from a friend.

That was asking about what? Podcasts which ones that have been done in my podcast the running man podcast or useful for someone that's wanted to take control of their emotions and I will give you a very simple rundown. It's an incredibly simple system of doing but it requires not only self-awareness and it's kind of like doing nursing triage wherever you see symptoms and you diagnose in a sense, but not in a medical diagnosis sense, but

rather determine what the problem is. But the simplest way has to do with developing some skills, but also being aware of the symptoms of stress happening in the body and catching it early. That'll help you learn how to not only self-regulate, but in quotes, take control of those emotions. And we will step into that next. Alrighty. So what we're going to do first is separate what the terms are that we're speaking of and emotions are things that are arising in us.

as result of something happening in our environment and a lot of it has to do with how we think so there's a cognitive process involved and also a judgment which we'll call in quotes our opinion that is driven by said emotions that we're experiencing and we're going to separate the term feelings from emotions because our feeling has to do with our body sense or experiencing whatever state of stress we're experiencing from whatever irritation in our external environment or whatever we may

believed to be or expecting to occur or maybe has occurred not unlike in stress anxiety or even PTSD reactivity where we remember something that was dangerous to us at one point or threatening in such that we recall it in our lower brain response to it as if it's real not reliving but rather just to prevent you from experiencing that again so it tends to generalize to things when it's out of control but feelings once again we're talking about the sensations of

armando (03:09.584)
in body. A lot of times you may experience elevated heart rate, claminess in your hands. You may even experience heat rising in the body, the spine, and your ears may turn red. You may actually have physical symptoms of flushing, pressure, and feeling like your face is glowing or pressured somehow, especially around the cheeks and the lips, this sort of thing, as we're very vascular in those areas. But we also tend to show a lot of color, not unlike when we're out in the sun very

long where our face tends to glow red and these are some of the symptoms of stress that we have to pay attention to. So these are kind of our guidelines that tell us whenever things may be getting uncomfortable. When there's embarrassment, often we get flushing. Whenever there's anger, we get flushing. Whenever we feel scared, we can get flushing, but once we get to the point of terror, that flush goes away and our face becomes very, very white. If you're an average complexion

is called vasoconstriction, wherever the blood flow is being limited because the vessels are shutting off or shutting down or making themselves smaller, so to speak. And then you have vasodilation and that usually is involved whenever you have a release of pressure relaxation and also when there's more heat at the surface where we have more blood.

So therefore we may get more of that coloring or flushing but just some dynamics that are going on there now Whenever we have the adrenals involved or kidneys if they drop some adrenaline sometimes it doesn't have to be a terror But just a little shock or scare that's enough to get us to wherever we get surprised more oriented and maybe even more alert But there's some change there but generally

across the body, blood flow shifts because the heart rate increases in many cases, if there's something that is stressful to me. And whenever we talk about controlling emotions as a default, we're considering the fact that our environment at some level is feeling threatening or is an unknown or so novel, I don't know what to do or how to respond to it. And that can be very disconcerting, not knowing what to do next in a situation that we don't recognize or remember or feel that may be occurring too fast.

armando (05:33.76)
is thrust upon us or maybe we get stuck in without any way that we can egress or get out of there. So there's a number of things we have to take into consideration. Yes, when we speak about this generally, but whenever we're going to answer this, how can I control or take control of my emotions? We need a very specific strategy and it's going to have to work across all these realms, not only the physiological, but the cognitive. am I thinking? And also the belief quality, the subjective interpretation

of quality that arises from what I believe my values, guidelines, and what our expectations and also what our social contracts are. What are the assumed expectations of my behavior out in public? But yet whenever we hear as a, instance, a gun go off in a distance or even fireworks in our body, shirks or, or it twitches because of the sound and we go into a reflexive crouch, the more a reflex, a startle reflex, then we know that that guideline didn't provide for our protection.

because we were behaving right, but yet my capacity to defend if in quotes things hit the fan, so to speak, that my body will be ready regardless of what happens, because we realize it's a social quality of our lives that we interact in day to day is rather empty. It's not real. It's an agreement that we choose to play along with, not a lie per se, but an agreement once again. And whenever we realize that we realize there's a deeper reality. And this

is we enter into the self regulatory skills or the control of emotions that we're going to be discussing for the remainder of the podcast. first element I want to introduce as far as self-regulation or self-control or taking control of one's emotions is recognizing that we have two environments. One is the internal environment that occurs not just in our mind, but also in our body that involves the blood flow, heart rate, muscular tension, breathing, this sort of stuff, body temperature, but all of

Those kind of as a conglomerate are our experience moment to moment of our internal environment and awareness of that is very important to learning how to regulate or develop a sense of self-control over one's emotional states, especially if they become rather sudden in onset or they're particularly strong. So we'll keep that idea in mind as far as all those systems kind of working together, not separately. The second part, the second understanding. So we have an external environment that from the skin out from the

armando (08:03.28)
skin ends internal from the skin out external but it's not discontinuous or separate somehow. They plug into each other.

They are literally from the skin out and from the skin in continuous. Whatever happens outside creates change inside. Whatever goes on inside of me can help me change what's going on outside. But what we're going to focus on is what's going on inside. Regardless of whether or not the stimulus comes from within my own thoughts, expectations or worries, or the fact that maybe something is going on outside, but the resultant fact, the emotions are what we're going to be paying attention to. So it's an input.

It's an outcome basically as a result of certain inputs that are going on externally or internally whether I develop them or if something else outside of me does or someone tells me something that's still external environmental. So the next thing we're going to look at is what are we talking about when we're talking about being able to

have control of an emotion, but we're talking about something that involves a thinking process. So that means it's not the arousal of the body and the recognition of fear at the perceptual level where I see something that looks dangerous like the

cardboard cut out of a Bigfoot or something and then we walk up and realize it was just a picture versus whenever we actually see a threat where maybe we're in the same room with an animal that's maybe growling and bearing teeth and that's recognition of the fact that it may be aggressive and it's moving towards us then we're talking about what we'd call very simplistic binary thinking its approach avoid is it dangerous we start to determine that start to wait within fractions of a moment

armando (09:43.904)
And it's not always perfectly discreet thought that it's involved in there, but the emotions I may have have to do with the fact that I may feel like I can't overcome it. I may feel like I can't get away from it. That animal is faster than I am and I'm walking with a limp and a cane. And that means my ability to ambulate out of there quickly to make egress has been limited somehow. And that's a very frightening state to recognize in oneself and elevates one's level of anxiety and stress because those are the stressors.

that might stress responses more correctly that might get me to survive an attack. And this is where we have adrenaline come in. This is where we start getting very narrow thinking, where we start having narrowed vision, where we start really hyper focusing on where the danger is to the detriment of everything in our periphery. We may just see very clearly this creature. We may see somebody that is making faces at us or somebody that may be.

is really angry at us and many folks that have experienced abuse or danger or anything at the hands of somebody else often will, especially if they're in close, remember not only the nostrils flaring but the pores on the nose and the skin around the face because we become hyper focal in that sense and we remember those details incredibly well and adrenaline helps us remember those things even more so it sears that into our mind so to speak and what we're going to do next is realize well if I'm

danger what can I do either fight we can flee we can run

if we can, but if we can't, we might freeze. Another one of the things that they studied and realized that happens within the fight-flight response is fawning. Wherever we may be trying to placate, then that may look from the perspective of the social scheme where there is a sense of cowardice and it looks like we may be begging. We are actually trying to protect our life and it is something that precedes our opinions and valuation of behaviors. It may look like cowardice, it may look like succumbing.

armando (11:44.976)
up but it also looks like survival and this is something that it's a an ugly realization but it's a realistic one and animals do this we're wired for the same where we may show our throat and show our belly to show that we're not a threat and the dominant animal will put their

their teeth on the throat of another dog or cat or whatever and let them go once they realize there's no fighting. They're not reacting. Maybe a little rough, but they won't kill them generally speaking. So we have very similar responses. But what about the emotions we're talking about? Often when we get emotional, we have an opinion and we may feel that we may not be able to control what's going on. And if we can't do that and we feel disempowered, often we are rumored

on the details and thinking about things and maybe even start thinking in the sense of just and unjust and being victimized somehow and overpowered being scared and we may even start to fantasize this is something most people don't talk about when it comes to emotional regulation that we tend to fantasize how we're going to get back to these people and give them their comeuppance so to speak and this is where a lot of times things will loop and people get angry and work themselves up to a point where they will act out

out at some point.

because if they get hyper aroused and really get angry often we know that we have a drop in IQ. The blood flow changes. We are no longer at safe assumption that everything's okay in my environment. That assumption of safety is not met. And I'm generally going to be a little more hyper aroused than I would be at my baseline. But also the blood flow not being in the prefrontal cortical area. That means that limits my ability to do really good reasoning and rationalizing.

armando (13:34.608)
and I start experiencing things in the immediate now and I start to see and visualize what it is I want to happen, but I may also lose my capacity to negotiate to speak very well. Blood flow leads the front part of the brain. My IQ drops on the average about 10 to 14 percent if it's not a terror. We're talking terror now we're talking about close to 30 percent. FBI uses this statistic and the fact that the average global IQ is 100 to 105 now we're

at the 10 to 14 percent average threat range, stress range, then we're looking at a drop of IQ to about 86 to 92, somewhere around this area, and then at the more extreme range around 80 or 75. And when 1 plus 1 equals 2 is easy since we've been doing it since first grade,

Now it becomes a chore, it becomes work because I don't have the requisite glucose floating around in the blood in that structure, my prefrontal cortical area to be able to do that reasoning, to do linear processing, which means by default I become more binary in thinking black and white, up and down, more absolute, which means I'm more apt to be highly suggestible to what the situation may look like to the detriment of the gray area where there may be some answers within that. So

How do I regulate my emotions? That's still the question. I keep reiterating that. I want you to think with me. This is a thinking process. It's also a self-awareness process of figuring out, where along this line do I start learning how to regulate my emotions? Well, I will tell you it's not going to happen in the middle of what it is that would be your stressor. It's not going to happen right then. You have to do the work beforehand. And that's the little secret many people tell you about, but kind of gets glossed over because we want to get to the answer.

and to the fix and to the cure and to the salve of that thing that will make my wounds heal faster, which I don't blame us for thinking that way. That's rather human. We want to find the shortcut.

armando (15:37.044)
And we can't help that we're hedonic by nature. We want the pain to stop even if it's not pleasure, but by comparison, no pleasure and a neutral feel is much better than being in pain. So technically in comparison to pain is kind of like pleasure. So we're trying to stop that, which is uncomfortable and that makes a lot of sense. So what are some of the other things that occur that create that binary thinking because the blood flow left, well, the blood flow goes to the skeletal muscles and that is a default. You can't choose that.

The stress goes up, we have to be strong. Our wiring overpowers our best thinking and we tend to really overvalue our higher cortical areas and we tend to think that there's some sort of carryover unless you're some sort of Delta Force Navy Seal operator or some sort in training this sort of high stress scenario daily. Your level of day-to-day stress inoculation is not going to meet the conditions of an average stress without

somehow practicing or expecting it. When we do that, we repeat things day to day in our lives. But when it comes to the extreme stress or something that actually puts me in arousal, stress, anxious, or even panicky mode or where I feel threatened without having some sense of cardiovascular resilience, you can overcome it with your just getting through it and you eat it. Then you have the leftovers of the cortisol and

no way to mitigate it. Let's say I can't run because I'm using a walk or I'm in a wheelchair or I have limitations, then we have some problems long term. Those consistently will in effect create health problems. So

The first way that we're going to learn how to recognize stress is know that, know, there's places that we probably shouldn't be, and also be aware of, well, I don't respond well to these kinds of situations, avoiding situations being strategic, but above and beyond all, we want to improve our heart rate variability. Now in a few podcasts I've mentioned, and I'm not an affiliate to these folks, and I mentioned the wave on the last podcast and probably one or two others that I used to use to help

armando (17:43.514)
learn how to biofeedback regulate just by intention and wanting my heart rate to drop to gain control over that and realize that just by my thought, not necessarily the thinking process. Okay. A ventricle slows down. then the, the art arteries start to open up. don't tell myself stuff like this. You can use visualizations that kind of help. And it's nonverbal. If you like doing that, some people respond well, but really just by the intention of wanting your heart rate to drop and having an idea.

which tends to be partially feel, partially visual, and it's not a very distinct methodology, but it is one by just intending, just knowing that you're working at dropping your heart rate, that gets...

Interpreted at the level of body somehow and it drops your heart rate just in tension alone. That's enough practice Do you want to do some breathing with that? Absolutely can you don't want to do deep breathing if you're trying to slow down your heart rate You want to do something like the box breath or the square breath and that helps you regulate how your body's breathing and absorbing oxygen so at the gas exchange level inhaling count of four hold kind of four Exhale kind of four hold again count of four and then start inhaling

again and it should be an internal count for no pressure but the magic within that really is the fact that you have two spaces in which you inhale and you're absorbing oxygen you exhale co2 but you hold again that means the oxygen you breathe in you have twice the amount of time to absorb that so your residual o2 saturation

goes up. So your carbonic gas does not build up your CO2 to where you start getting that anxiety feeling like you have to breathe faster, like you got to suck wind. If you're going to want to relax.

armando (19:29.644)
You don't want to start with deep breathing from a high stress state. If you're already relaxed and you're on the recliner, you can do deep breathing then. That will help regulate the emotions. Notice I'm talking about physiological states because your emotions arise from your body and how it feels. Not only that,

The more comfy you are, your opinions tend to be a little more positive and you tend to be more apt to interpret those well. Now, if you had a really bad day and Sally called you bad names and then Archie stole your Sharpie from your workstation, then you might have gotten upset. But when you try to sit down in the evening and really work on just calming and not continuing to ruminate about that, then we have to realize that our state of body is going to proceed or our ability to let go of those thoughts.

Our brain wants to work on things. It's a thought generator and whenever it's most quiet, it will generate stuff. Some of the most horrendous stuff, some of it ugly, some of it is just gonna be flat random and you're gonna wonder where did that come from and some of it's even silly and that's whenever some people break away from trying to self-regulate because they think that they're not supposed to be thinking those things. Well, maybe not as a matter of rule, guideline or course, but that those are things that are gonna come up and the more you have opinions and attached onto them, this is a very

quality practice then the more you're get them the more you push back the more it's gonna give you because that's where our ego arises the more you validate that like eyes on when you watch somebody when you have eyes on what you were thinking you're watching yourself you're watching your ego and the more you give it the more it's gonna give you back because it feels alive it's that practical application of I think therefore I am but whenever I'm not actively thinking therefore I'm

Wait, hold on. And that's what we want, the hiatus, wherever we get to that non-thinking.

armando (21:22.698)
as far as not on purpose, distinctly reasoning and letting just the mind observe. You're using your actual self to just watch your thinking as it arises. And when you get to that observer self, you're getting to a state of quality of quiet. You're not going to get a perfect no thought space, not right away. And to get to that takes many years, but it doesn't mean you can't reap the quality of regulating the stress, which will regulate your emotions. Being aware that stress

will color the emotions and also will intensify whatever emotions you experience. So the first thing I'm going to tell you is get in a very regular habit of walking because if you have that feeling sense, the body's first language that we speak is motion in utero before we ever learned to perceive through our eyes and all this stuff outside, not that we don't see internally all that stuff, but

What I will tell you is that by learning how to use your heart rate to move you away from somewhere will suggest to you subconsciously and consciously that you can get away from consequence and circumstance. That means that if your assumption of safety is not met right then and there, it doesn't mean you're in danger, but uncomfortable words and feelings and being around people you don't want to be around, walk away.

If you can run, but don't run too fast. And sometimes it's best to back away from situations like that because of people are upset and you try to walk away. They will follow you that natural predator instinct that we all have may get kicked on if things are pretty heated. So sometimes backing out until you can walk away at a distance and then turn. That's fine. Just know where your points of egress are before you go in, which means strategically, you're not worried intense about it, but you know where things are. So you don't have to be worried intense about it when things happen.

You can just kind of go because you already know where those things are at. So be prepared if you know you're going into uncomfortable situations or places you're not aware of having too many exits. Know where they're at at least.

armando (23:21.462)
So novelty is helpful, but sometimes novelty under stress is an unknown and unknowns can sometimes get interpreted negatively. So first off heart rate variability or ability for a heart rate to go up and down as far as intensity and not just stay up all the time, which is a lack of variability. And it's one of those elements of heart attack and stroke that tend to be noted where people lack heart rate variability. stand up, sit up, get down on the floor, work on crawling around sometimes.

if you have time just for health but on top of that walk. If you can try to do some resistance training kettlebells and club builds are what I use and that will elevate your heart rate if you can't do a lot of running cardio and it will give you a cardio workout where your heart

goes into a stressor of sorts but controlled and then it goes back down and it's learning how not to stay stuck at a certain perceived level of stress reactivity. So those are the things that help emotional regulation being not only capable of heart rate variability but being aware of where you're going knowing that you have more controls and not just running willy-nilly into a situation without preparation but if you must heart rate variability will bear you out. Resilience

from that. And the healthier you are, more resilient you become. Resilience isn't just a thought process, it's a matter of recognizing when your body feels safe in your environment.

is safe and you're not threatened and you can say okay I could sit here then you're more able to respond emotionally in a healthy way in a way that's not reactive but what if you're getting reactive what's going on in your thoughts that's the problem attaching on to thinking and not giving yourself time to look at thoughts without quickly jumping on them as if they must be addressed at that moment and there's some thoughts that just flatly don't require your attention nope

armando (25:17.986)
Body really cares about whether or not Mickey Mouse is wearing underwear. Why do we need to think about that? But hey, we start thinking about it. People say, well, I start thinking about this at three in the morning. Well, you might, but sometimes we just have to observe.

And not attach and have an opinion because if we have opinions, that means I'm judging things and I have emotions involved. And if I do that, that means I've just awakened myself and my reticular activating system says, Hey, things are going on. And then it's going to take time for you to wind down. So.

Some ideas on emotional regulation have to do with developing one, resilience, two, by heart rate variability and getting exercise, and three, being able to walk away. Another one, four, is not attaching onto those thoughts and having opinions and judgments about it because often those are the things that will cause us to wind up. And as the heart rate goes up, our capacity to be not only suggested to, but to become suggestible to our own suggestions and get honked off and upset,

to go up. So much of it once again has to do with heart rate variability and not buying into what you're thinking because do you believe everything that you think? That is a rhetorical question mind you and I wouldn't answer that because the fact of the matter is we are quite capable of thinking just about anything to an incredible extreme and it doesn't make it real but do you believe it?

When sloths fly airplanes, right? Do you believe that? Well, that's a good question. Will they someday? Who knows? With AI? Possible. All joking aside.

armando (26:50.976)
I thank you for just passing some time with me this Wednesday evening. And I'm hoping that this podcast will be useful to y'all. And if you know somebody that may need some thoughts on how to regulate emotion, please pass this along to them, share it with them. I'd like to see the YouTube channel grow. So go there and like subscribe and share. And, I don't have a whole lot of subscribers, but I do have quite a few viewers there. I just want to increase the numbers of people that are subscribing. That would be really helpful to me. We have things coming down the pipe and we're.

So close to starting the interview process now we're probably going to be doing audio and video interviews both and there's some other things coming down the pipes after that, but that's the most immediate project we're working on and once again, thank you for your time. Great talking to you. This was specially done for somebody that had a request and if you have any requests of something you'd like to hear, please send those requests and also comments and any feedback to the email at running man get.

skillsproject at gmail. I'd love to hear from you. Take care. Walk well.