Distraction as an Emotional Regulation Strategy: When Does It Become Denial?

Last week, I wrote about acceptance as an important step in emotion regulation, specifically how acceptance enables us to face reality head on and engage in productive and targeted change.

Accepting our circumstances as they are is challenging for a few different reasons, one of which is the emotional difficulty associated with acknowledging when things aren’t going well, or as hoped.

In today’s post, I’ll talk about distraction as an emotion regulation strategy, and how to know when distraction is actually functioning as unhealthy avoidance.

Defining Distraction

The American Psychological Association’s Dictionary of Psychology presents two definitions:

1. the process of interrupting attention.
2. a stimulus or task that draws attention away from the task of primary interest.
   

The first definition is most applicable for this post because the concept of “task of primary interest” isn’t relevant to distraction in an emotion regulation context. 

For our discussion here, I will expand on this definition as follows: “Distraction is intentionally redirecting attention from unpleasant or unchangeable circumstances to something pleasurable or soothing.”

What Healthy Distraction Looks Like

Let’s say you’re sitting in rush hour traffic, and even though you knew you’d be stuck in traffic, you’re resisting the reality of it by staying in a state of anger and frustration. Using the terms of our distraction definition above, your attention is focused on the unchangeable circumstance of traffic.

In this situation, distraction is a GREAT emotion regulation strategy for two reasons:

1. The stressor is out of your control, and 
2. The stressor is time-limited.

Distraction could look like listening to enjoyable music, calling a friend to catch up, or thinking about something that is within your control. Basically, anything that is pleasurable and soothing that you can implement in the moment counts as distraction.

For more information on specific activities or behaviors that can help distract, a good starting place is a workbook titled Distress Tolerance Made Easy: Dialectical behavior therapy skills for dealing with intense emotions in difficult times by S. Van Dijk and others. 

Another example of using distraction, but with a more prolonged stressor comes from my own experience a few weeks ago.

I applied for a TEDx talk earlier this month and I knew the notification of acceptance or rejection would come within about 2 weeks. There was nothing I could do to change the timeline and it was time-limited, but 2 weeks of waiting felt like an eternity!

On some days during the waiting period, I was already distracted by other things I needed to do, but there were more than a few times when I found myself obsessively refreshing my email and feeling frustrated and anxious when there was no news (even on day 5.)

When I caught myself engaging in this form of non-acceptance, I would distract myself with a work task, or walking around the house, or chores. I got rejected, which is what I expected given how incredibly competitive the opportunity was, but the sting was far outweighed by the relief to just finally know the decision!

Situations Where Distraction May Not Be Healthy

Situations where distraction may not be healthy are when there actually is something you can do, but you’re distracting yourself repeatedly instead of just doing it, and there are negative consequences as a result of this avoidance. 

Imagine you need to deliver some negative feedback to someone who works on your team, but you feel anxious about doing it and so you distract yourself from your own anxiety by not thinking about it, or working on other tasks. You may not even realize you’re distracting from your anxiety.

Why is distraction in this situation potentially unhealthy?

First, the ball’s in your court, there actually is something you can do and you know what it is. Second, there’s no external parameter that will end the situation. You could theoretically wait for months before initiating the conversation, but this would likely hamper the work itself as well as your team member’s growth and your own growth in being able to deliver difficult feedback.

It’s important to note here that the line between healthy and unhealthy distraction is very much a matter of degrees and context.

It might not be problematic to distract yourself from thinking about this difficult conversation for a week or two, and then get to it, but if weeks become months, and the problem you’re wanting to address isn’t improving, that might be a sign that you’ve crossed into unhealthy avoidance. 

Developing self-awareness will help you make these determinations for yourself. To help with that, here are some questions to help you assess the function of your own distraction in any given situation.

Four Questions to Differentiate Healthy Distraction from Unhealthy Distraction

These questions are starting points for reflection. Depending on the situation, some may be more relevant than others, and they can be used in any order, in combination or alone.

1. Are you mindfully applying distraction, or are you engaging in distraction without even realizing it?Unconscious use of distraction (or any coping strategy for that matter) may point to avoidance because when we respond without thinking, or reflexively, we’re bypassing deliberate problem solving and so our response is more likely to be completely emotion-driven.
   
   
2. How much control do you have over the circumstances?The more control you have over the circumstances, the more you can do to change them, and so distraction as a long term strategy in these cases may be serving more of an avoidance function than a regulating function.
   
   
3. Is distraction your only coping strategy for managing difficult circumstances?If distraction is your go-to response for any and all unpleasant circumstances, it increases the likelihood that at least some of the time, you’re using distraction to avoid things. Diversifying your coping toolbox will help you achieve more control of how you respond to difficult circumstances, and therefore you’ll be better positioned to use distraction mindfully (as opposed to reactively.)
   
   
4. What are the short-term and long-term impacts of your distraction?Unhealthy distraction is sometimes most apparent after the fact, when the negative consequences of our avoidance begin to pile up. These consequences can be internal (discouragement, anger, depression) or external (missing deadlines, relationship strain). Observing the outcomes of our behavior is the best way to inform our future actions, and so cultivating self-awareness is the foundation of developing a healthy set of emotion regulation strategies.

In Conclusion

Distraction can be a healthy emotion regulation strategy when you’re facing stressors that are out of your control and time-limited. It becomes unhealthy when it turns into avoidance; when there’s something you can do but you keep distracting yourself instead, leading to negative consequences.

The key is self-awareness: notice whether you’re using distraction mindfully or reflexively, how much control you have over the situation, whether it’s your only coping tool, and what the short- and long-term impacts are.

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