How do we regulate our emotions?

I recently finished the book "How we decide" by Jonah Lehrer. I highly recommend it. He talks about the importance to use the different parts of the brain for different types of decisions, and to do this, we need to think harder (and smarter) about how we think. Here is an interesting quote, an interesting strategy for developing emotional intelligence both in children and adults.

"How do we regulate our emotions? The answer is surprisingly simple: by thinking about them. The prefrontal cortex allows each of us to contemplate his or her own mind, a talent psychologists call metacognition. We know when we are angry; every emotional state comes with self awareness attached, so that an individual can try to figure out why he is feeling what he is feeling. "

Jonah Lehrer, How We Decide
http://www.jonahlehrer.com/books/how-we-decide/