You’re exhausted from feeling everything all the time.
The simmering tension before a Zoom call, the throb of regret at 2 a.m., or even the way a passing comment hijacks your peace for hours. You try journaling, meditating, breathing in for four, out for six… But still, your emotions barrel through your body like they own the place.
Welcome, as Ethan Kross addresses the first chapter of his book, to your emotional life.
It’s messy and unpredictable. But not unmanageable.
And once you know what to reach for, everything shifts.
Who is Ethan Kross?
If you’ve yet to hear the name “Ethan Kross,” then you’re about to learn about the scientist who’s been quietly decoding your emotional life. He’s an experimental psychologist, a professor at the University of Michigan, and one of the world’s foremost experts on emotional regulation and self-talk.
Not only that, but he’s also the kind of thinker who turns childhood questions into global research agendas.
Long before the lab coats and TED Talks, though, Ethan was a child watching his grandmother survive in silence. A Holocaust survivor who lost her entire family, she rebuilt a joyful life in New York but never spoke about the trauma, except during one sacred ceremony each year. That contrast between the invisibility of emotion and its gravitational pull stayed with him.
Now, he runs one of the top emotion science labs in the world, advises Fortune 100 leaders, and teaches both psychology and business.
And if those accomplishments weren’t already stacked, just Google “Ethan Kross book,” and you’ll find these bestsellers:
- Chatter, which explores the voice in your head and how to work with it
- Shift, which shows you how to navigate emotions with clarity and control
(Disclosure: This includes an affiliate link. If you make a purchase through it, the Mindvalley Book Club may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)
“So often in our lives we don’t experience our emotions proportionally; we experience them too intensely, or they last too long,” he tells Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani in a Mindvalley Book Club interview. “That’s where I think science has a lot to offer with respect to providing people with tools they can use to rein in those emotional responses.”
And that’s the point of his latest, Shift: emotion with direction.
Watch Ethan’s full interview on the Mindvalley Book Club with Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani:
The weight of emotional overwhelm, according to Ethan Kross
Chances are, you know the feeling. One anxious email, one cutting comment, one unresolved memory, and suddenly, your whole emotional system’s flooded.
Even though you’re not in any danger, your body reacts like you are. Your chest tightens, your thoughts race, and you can’t focus on anything except how to make it stop.
We have been socialized to understand how to manage our physical body. We have not when it comes to our emotional health.
— Ethan Kross, author of Shift
It’s what Ethan describes as a disproportionate emotional response. It’s a reaction that’s louder, longer, or sharper than the situation requires. And it’s more common than anyone wants to admit.
Research shows that prolonged emotional reactivity, especially when unmanaged, can impair cognitive functioning and worsen physical health. In fact, one study found that lingering negative emotions significantly disrupt working memory and executive attention, key systems responsible for decision-making and self-regulation.
In reality though, your emotions aren’t really the problem. They’re actually designed to help you.
Take anxiety, for instance. It alerts you to potential threats. Sadness helps you slow down and recalibrate. Anger defends your boundaries.
However, when those emotions linger or spiral, they lose their edge and take you down with them. And while you’ve probably been told to breathe through it, to let it go, or even to be grateful, nobody gave you the blueprint for how to shift your state in real time.
Why emotional overwhelm goes unnoticed—and why it matters
No one rewards you for breaking down. So you don’t. Instead, you keep showing up at work, in relationships, and online while quietly unraveling inside.
“We have been socialized to understand how to manage our physical body,” points out Ethan. However, the opposite is true when it comes to our emotional health.
The unfortunate thing is, we’ve gotten good at functioning through emotional chaos. And because we can still send the emails, make the calls, fold the laundry, and perform, it rarely registers as a crisis.
This can happen for a few reasons:
- We equate productivity with wellness. For instance, if you’re functioning, you must be fine.
- Chronic stress has become so normalized, it no longer raises red flags.
- Emotional exhaustion rarely comes with visible symptoms.
- Culturally, we’re taught to power through rather than speak up.
- Most of us haven’t learned how to name what we feel beyond “tired” or “stressed.”
Big emotions consume our attention, leaving very little left over to allow us to do the things we often need to do.
— Ethan Kross, author of Shift
It’s no wonder that, according to Gallup’s 2023 Global Emotions Report, 41% of adults worldwide experience high levels of worry, and 40% report significant stress.
What’s more, based on the American Psychological Association’s Work in America™ Survey 2023, burnout is most prevalent among women, younger adults, and caregivers. And nearly 50% of workers under 35 report emotional exhaustion.
The problem is, when overwhelm hides behind productivity, it festers. It builds quietly until it changes how your brain prioritizes, reacts, and connects.
“Big emotions consume our attention, leaving very little left over to allow us to do the things we often need to do,” says Ethan. And when we allow them to run wild, they “undermine our ability to think and perform; they can also create enormous friction in our relationships.”
Now, recognizing the problem is one thing. But knowing what to do next? That’s where the real shift begins.
Ethan Kross’s 5 simple tools to help shift to emotional resilience
There’s no single way to manage a big feeling. But there are tools that make it possible.
“There are lots of tools that exist in the toolbox,” says Ethan. And his goal isn’t to prescribe one fix, but to equip people with options they can experiment with until they find what actually helps.
His book, Shift, obviously is a wonderful rolodex of these tools—“probably like 30 different tools,” he adds. But here are five he highlights in the Mindvalley Book Club interview that can get you started.
1. Distant self-talk
This isn’t your typical pep talk. Instead, it’s the practice of addressing yourself in the third person, like a coach guiding a player from the sidelines.
Instead of saying, “I’m freaking out about this meeting,” you say, “Okay, Larry, you’ve prepped. You’ve done this before. You’ve got this.”
Ethan does exactly this. He explains, “I address myself using my name: ‘Ethan, why are you worried about this? You’ve thought about this a thousand times… What’s the deal here? Move on.’”
It might sound odd. But science shows when you use your name instead of “I,” your brain creates psychological distance between you and the emotion you’re experiencing. That distance gives you just enough space to pause, evaluate, and respond rather than react.
In a way, you’re speaking from your higher self. It’s the part of you that sees more clearly, speaks more kindly, and isn’t drowning in the moment.
Ethan explains that this is also often how we naturally speak to friends who are spiraling. However, we tend to forget to apply it to ourselves.
And it’s so simple. So much so that it can short-circuit rumination and bring clarity in seconds.
2. Zoom your perspective out
When emotions hijack your present, one of the fastest ways to ground yourself is to leave it. Mentally, at least.
In the interview, Ethan shares how he thinks about his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, when his own stress feels oversized. “That ability to broaden my perspective is really helpful,” he says. “It could be a lot worse.”
That kind of shift isn’t about minimizing your feelings. It helps you reframe them.
Plus, it shows you that storms pass. Because you’ve been through plenty before.
3. Sensation-based tools
Your senses are emotional shortcuts, and most of the time, you’re using them without even realizing it.
Ethan points to music as one of the most powerful tools we have for shifting state. A single song changed the mood of his entire household one Saturday morning. Since then, he’s built a playlist he returns to anytime emotions feel stuck.
Music (or sound, really) is just one entry point. So are scent, texture, taste, and even what you see. The senses offer immediate access to the nervous system, often bypassing the overthinking brain entirely.
In his book, Ethan also explores how we physically relate to space. For instance, a cluttered room can increase stress. Stepping into nature, even for a few minutes, can lower emotional reactivity.
The bottom line is, your shift doesn’t need to be dramatic. What matters is that it’s deliberate.
4. Expressive writing
There’s journaling, and then, there’s expressive writing. The difference? One’s about reflection, and the other’s about release.
The latter, simply, is putting your deepest emotions into words. It’s unfiltered, uncensored, and raw.
And there’s something so clarifying in taking just 15 to 20 minutes of brain dumping onto paper. In fact, research shows that it helps to:
- Reduce stress,
- Improve memory, and
- Help people make sense of emotionally charged experiences.
“In 2020 my team administered a large study on coping with anxiety during the COVID pandemic in which we asked people to report on the tools they used each day to manage their anxiety,” writes Ethan in Shift. “Journaling was one of the most effective strategies.”
That’s the thing, right? While it requires only a pen and paper, it can truly help you shift from emotional overload to emotional agility.
5. Building an advisory network
Having a network of friends is wonderful. But when you feel like sh*t’s about to hit the fan, you only need one or two to keep you steady.
These are the friends who just nod and say, “That sucks.” They’re also the ones who listen fully, then help you pull back and see the bigger picture.
According to Ethan, this two-step support process:
- Support, validate, and empathize. For example: “That sounds incredibly tough. I’d probably feel the same way if I were in your shoes.”
- Perspective broadening. Like, “You’ve been through worse and came out stronger. What would you tell yourself if this were happening a year from now?”
Not all your friends are capable of this responsibility, though. And that’s okay.
As Ethan points out in his book, “Not everybody can be everything to us. You can let people into your world without necessarily turning to them for help shifting.”
But for the sake of your emotional health, do have one or two who can.
Fuel your mind
“Figuring out which ritual will help you in your quest for emotion regulation means looking at your life and identifying where you could use some help,” as is written in Shift by Ethan Kross.
That’s what the right read can do. It meets you where you are and shows you what’s possible.
When you join the Mindvalley Book Club, you get more than just a reading list. Every week, you’ll receive:
- Expert-curated recommendations
- Behind-the-scenes author insights
- Access to live Q&As with authors like Ethan, where you hear directly from the person who wrote the book
Plus, it doesn’t hurt that the Mindvalley Book Club is completely free. And it’s built for readers who want more than the CliffNotes.
Welcome in.
