Navigating Flooding: Managing Emotional Overload During Conflicts

Roamers I August 2024

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John Gottman’s studies about romantic relationships illuminate multiple aspects of happy, long-lasting relationships. One strong point they emphasize is conflict management. Gottman and his colleagues found that in happy relationships, the partners’ way of arguing is softer and more emotionally regulated. You might ask what makes a conflict between partners soft. Conflicts between partners involve initiative and a more gentle start-up, and during the conflict, partners are willing to accept influence from each other and have more positive affection. Of course, conflicts can cause regrettable things to be said, but both partners are willing to take action to repair it, and they are willing to compromise. Even though these steps seem easy, high physiological arousal makes it hard to perform these steps. In the context of Gottman’s theory, this high physiological arousal that appeared during the conflict is called flooding. Flooding might cause conflicts to become a knot that is hard to resolve. In this therapy sketch, we will explain the concept of flooding and how we can manage it during the conflict.

What is Flooding?

Highly emotional conflicts or emotional responses can cause a sensation called flooding, a term coined by psychologist Dr. John Gottman to describe the emotional state the body enters to cope with interpersonal stress. The conflict you are having with your partner is the trigger, and during the conflict, you can experience strong negative feelings such as anger or sadness. When these emotions are too strong to handle, your body responds to those feelings. Strong negative emotions set off increased heart rate, sweating, and cognitive dysfunctions such as the inability to pay attention or think clearly. You may feel like the walls are closing in on you, and all rational judgment is out the window. This is called flooding; you are experiencing an emotional overload, which makes your body function differently than usual. But why are you or your partner experiencing this unusual emotional and physiological activity? The reason why this happens is that we have a mechanism called diffuse physiological arousal.

Diffuse Physiological Arousal

Diffuse physiological arousal triggers the nervous system to enter a hyperarousal or hypoarousal state, which creates a psychological and physical reaction to the presented stress. It causes physiological changes and prepares the body for a challenge caused by this specific stressful event. These changes affect multiple systems in the body, such as:

Hormone release: With anger, the heart rate starts to beat faster than the heart’s intrinsic rhythm of 100 beats per minute. This arousal triggers the release of multiple hormones, such as cortisol and adrenalin. The release of the cortisol hormone causes an energy burst, which mobilizes the body. The release of adrenaline causes the heart rate to accelerate, preparing the body to confront or withdraw from a stressful situation.
Physiological Changes: Changes in hormones trigger muscles to become more tense. Also, pupils dilate, and sweating starts to cool the body down.
Increase in energy: More glucose is released in the bloodstream to provide more energy to the muscles.
Cognitive changes: Also, the brain reacts differently under stressful situations. The emotional center of the brain, the amygdala, becomes more active. The amygdala is the source of fear, and it helps us focus on threats. During the activation of the amygdala, the reasonable part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, is less active, so we can take quick action without making any plans. These changes make us more impulsive. With the decrease in prefrontal cortex activity, we are not able to think clearly. Together, these changes can cause difficulty in articulating our thoughts and might lead to saying something we don’t want to mean in the first place.

Diffuse Physiological Arousal and Flooding

Once you are flooding, you are experiencing the diffuse physiological arousal mechanism and undergo a lot of physiological and cognitive changes, which makes you unable to communicate the way you would like to. When communication is not constructive, good conflict management is almost impossible. Let’s make an example of flooding to emphasize it better. In this example, you and your partner are having a conflict about planning a vacation. You think you are planning everything, and you would like to use some help from your partner, but they keep postponing because they are busy. You start arguing about this topic, and they state you are impatient about this. You feel like you are emotionally overloaded with anger and also helplessness simultaneously because you are waiting for them to help you for about two weeks. You are breathing rapidly, your heart is beating fast, and you have started sweating. These are the physiological changes you are noticing. Starting from this point, you are in diffuse physiological arousal and experiencing flooding. You might start yelling or arguing more intensely because you are experiencing some cognitive change that you are not aware of at the moment. You might use some unhealthy communication styles, such as being defensive, quick to criticize, or shutting yourself down. Also, it is possible for you to avoid discussing the issue altogether or experiencing emotional numbness. As you might conclude, flooding affects the way your communication style and responses caused by flooding escalate the conflict.

How to recover from flooding?

To manage flooding, you should be aware of the signs of diffuse physiological arousal. Once you monitor your body and are aware of the signs, you will be able to think about what you can do in that situation. Once you are mindful of your body and flooding symptoms, you are able to take a break during the conflict, and you can take repair actions once you recover from the flooding. To illustrate how to manage flooding successfully, let’s take a look at how to navigate your flooding step by step.

Once you notice that you are flooding, you should take a break from conflict. In order to make an effective break, you should state you need a break without getting in the last word in a gentle manner. You can say something like, “I feel a little bit overwhelmed. Can we take a break?”
You and your partner need to agree upon a break time. You can say something like, “Can we get back to this conversation in 20 minutes?” This will help your partner not feel abandoned.
The time out should be at least 20 minutes to 48 hours at most to secrete relaxing hormones such as norepinephrine, which diffuse the blood system and regulate your body.
During the break, you should not ruminate about the conflict over and over again and create different responses to what your partner has said to you and what you will say after the time out because rumination does not help reduce cortisol and adrenaline in your body. During the time out, you can take a shower, listen to music, practice self-soothing activities as follows:
- Deep breathing: Since your breathing and heart rate are fast, you will need to balance your breathing first. Think of your breathing as exhaling as if you were smelling a flower and inhaling as if you were blowing out a candle. You can also count your breaths in and out, which will regulate your breathing.
- Focusing on a neutral word: For this activity, you can choose a neutral word with a meaning that you will focus on. For example, you can focus on the words “wise” when inhaling and “mind” when exhaling. If you notice your mind drifting, simply refocus your attention on the exercise without judging yourself.
- Relaxation techniques: Since your muscles are more tense than they are in their normal state, engaging muscle relaxation techniques can help reduce arousal.
- Observing yourself and your surroundings: To do this exercise, you can sit down somewhere you can be alone and close your eyes. First, you can focus on the sensations in your body. Focus on what you feel in your body, from your toes to the top of your head. After scanning your body, focus your attention on the sounds you hear. These sounds can be your own breathing, the sound of the air conditioner, or traffic noises from outside. Once you have counted them one by one, open your eyes and notice what you see around you. You may notice something in a room you’ve been in for years that you hadn’t noticed before.
- Physical activity: Physical activities like walking can decrease arousal by balancing cortisol and other hormones.
After the time-out ends, you need to check your body to see whether it’s regulated. If you feel like you are still flooded, you can repeat this process, discuss it with your partner, and take extra time to cool down.

Takeaways

When you are feeling emotionally overwhelmed, this causes an increased heart rate, the influx of stress hormones, and the front lobe to “shut down,” which makes it difficult to think clearly and problem-solve effectively. These changes make it challenging and even impossible to communicate with your partner and resolve the issue at hand constructively. Understanding your physiological changes during the conflict and being mindful of that prompts deeper acknowledgment of how you handle stress due to conflict. By recognizing diffuse physiological arousal and flooding, you can take more proactive steps to calm yourself and engage in healthy communication styles with your partner.

While our physical offices are located in South Loop and Lakeview neighborhoods in Chicago, Illinois for in-person sessions, we also welcome and serve clients for online therapy from anywhere in Illinois and Washington, D.C. Clients from the Chicagoland area may choose in-office or online therapy and usually commute from surrounding areas such as River North, West Loop, Gold Coast, Old Town, Lincoln Park, Lake View, Rogers Park, Logan Square, Pilsen, Bridgeport, Little Village, Bronzeville, South Shore, Hyde Park, Back of the Yards, Wicker Park, Bucktown and many more.

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At Roamers Therapy, our psychotherapists are here to support you through anxiety, depression, trauma and relationship issues, race-ethnicity issues, LGBTQIA+ issues, ADHD, Autism, or any challenges you encounter. Our psychotherapists are trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Acceptance, and Commitment Therapy, Person-Centered Therapy, and Gottman Therapy.

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This page is also part of the Roamers Therapy Glossary; a collection of mental-health related definitions that are written by our therapists.

While our offices are currently located at the South Loop neighborhood of Downtown Chicago, Illinois, we also welcome and serve clients for online therapy from anywhere in Illinois and Washington, D.C. Clients from the Chicagoland area may choose in-office or online therapy and usually commute from surrounding areas such as River North, West Loop, Gold Coast, Old Town, Lincoln Park, Lake View, Rogers Park, Logan Square, Pilsen, Bridgeport, Little Village, Bronzeville, South Shore, Hyde Park, Back of the Yards, Wicker Park, Bucktown and many more. You can visit our contact page to access detailed information on our office location.