There's a concept in neuroscience called affect labelling.
It sounds academic. But what it means is beautifully simple: when you name a feeling — when you say the word out loud — something measurable shifts in your brain. The amygdala, the region responsible for the stress response, quiets down. The prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for reasoning and decision-making, activates more.
In plain English: naming a feeling literally makes you calmer and more capable of handling it.
Dr. Matthew Lieberman at UCLA has studied this extensively. His finding? Simply saying "I feel angry" reduces the intensity of that anger more effectively than ignoring it, distracting from it, or trying to logic your way out of it.
Why this matters for kids (and for us)
Most of us manage our emotions in one of three ways:
- Suppress — push it down, don't talk about it
- Explode — overwhelm from emotions we haven't processed
- Distract — screen time, food, anything to not feel it
None of these work long-term. And all three are what we learned growing up.
What actually works is the thing most of us weren't taught: label, accept, share.
- Label it. Name what you're feeling. Out loud if possible.
- Accept it. You're allowed to feel it. Feelings aren't right or wrong.
- Share it. With a trusted person, or even in a journal.
How Feeling Cards help
When my son can't find the words, I lay the Feeling Cards on the table. Something shifts. He's not being asked to come up with the language himself — it's already there, in his hands. He just has to point.
"That one. And that one."
Frustrated. And scared.
Five words. But everything changed. We had a real conversation that night.
Try this today
Tonight at dinner, before you eat, try this:
- Lay 6–8 Feeling Cards face-up on the table.
- Invite everyone to pick the one that matches how they feel right now.
- Say: "I feel [card] because [one sentence]."
- Listen without fixing. Just listen.
That's it. That's the whole practice.
You don't have to be a therapist. You don't have to know what to say. You just have to start the conversation.
The cards do the rest.
— Anne
Want to learn more about the neuroscience of emotions and how to build emotional intelligence as a family? Join the mailing list — I go deep on this stuff every week.