I used to the same, but that didn't brought me anything good as I started ignoring my emotional state up to the point that people around me started saying that

I used to the same, but that didn't brought me anything good as I started ignoring my emotional state up to the point that people around me started saying that I was like a robot or something. Lately, I've started to read some peer-reviewed research and book by researchers on emotions, and I've come to accept that emotions are mostly a biological mechanism which allows for a faster reaction to inputs (from external inputs or internal inputs - thoughts) before your intellect has time to process those inputs. The book "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman has a very interesting chapter (Anatomy of an Emotional Hijackin) that tries to explain biologically what happens with emotions. The idea is that some of the sensory inputs, for instance, visual, are sent to the amygdala as well as to the visual cortex. But since the visual cortex has to do some processing which takes time, the amygdala has a faster but sloppier response. For instance, someone throws a ball into you while you're looking away. You can grasp something by the corner of your eye, and then you raise your arms to defend yourself. Only later you see that it was an inoffensive beach ball. The first reaction was by the amygdala while the identification of the ball was done slowly by the visual cortex.. So now I try to enforce a small amount of time to understand my emotional feedback mechanism before reacting to things. But if it's a shark coming my way, I flee, of course. You learn a lot about your self and your own beliefs by listening to your automatic emotional responses before commiting yourself to any action/reaction. For the case of the coworker, ideally I would say him to slowdown, unless I knew beforehand he was a jerk, and maybe I could be more prepared..