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Resilient Responders

Emotional Fitness

Regulate your emotions and stay calm by practising techniques like box breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and visualisation.

Last updated 28 May 2026

When you are feeling overwhelmed, the following strategies can help you regulate your emotions and calm yourself down. Practising these strategies in between your shifts at your station or at home lets you gain familiarity with them, so that the tips and tricks can readily come to your mind when you need them!

Shift Your Focus of Attention

The first technique is to shift your focus of attention away from the emotions you are experiencing – physically, or mentally. This gives yourself some time and space to slow down first, and think through the situation more carefully later on.

Graphic showing three tips to manage emotions: change your environment, focus on something else, do something practical.

Deep Breathing

Another technique is deep breathing, which can help you quickly control your emotional responses when you feel overwhelmed by giving you time to calm down and relook at the situation.

Box breathing involves 4 steps, each lasting for 4 seconds:

  • #1: Breathe in

  • #2: Hold your breath

  • #3: Breathe out

  • #4: Hold your breath

Try it out by following this video! What's great about this strategy is that you can do it whenever you need it and wherever you are at - whether you are at home or at the station!

Diagram guiding breathing exercise: 4 seconds each for breathe in, hold, breathe out, and hold, moving clockwise.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Another technique is progressive muscle relaxation, starting from your head to your toes. Try out a PMR audio exercise here!

You can engage in PMR while seated:

Instructions for Progressive Muscle Relaxation: sit comfortably, scrunch and then relax face, tense arms and then relax, tense shoulders and chest and relax, tense legs and relax, breathe evenly.

Alternatively, you can engage in PMR while lying down. Try doing this when resting on your back, the steps are the same:

Another graphic showing instructions for Progressive Muscle Relaxation, with a person lying down.

Visualisation

The last technique is visualisation. Similar to daydreaming, visualisation is accomplished through using your imagination. You can close your eyes and listen to a visualisation audio exercise here.

Graphic showing steps of visualisation: sit or lie down in a relaxed position, close your eyes to breathe deeply, and imagine a peaceful scene like a quiet beach.
Graphic showing steps of visualisation: think of details of the scene you are visualising, soak them in, relax and breathe deeply.

Where do you feel most relaxed? Try out some fun ways of visualisation during your rest breaks at your station!

References