Abstract: Research on emotion regulation often compares the effects of one strategy versus another at a single point in time. Yet in daily life, people often switch back and forth between different strategies as they seek to control their emotions. What implications does this switching process have for the impact that different emotion regulation strategies have on the way people feel? Here we examine this question, focusing specifically on the role that two different types of “self-talk” strategies play in enhancing versus diminishing negative affect associated while reflecting on painful emotional experiences. Across two studies, we find that the effectiveness of third person self-talk for reducing negative emotional reactivity was present regardless of when this strategy was implemented relative to first person self-talk, another type of self-talk strategy that functioned to enhance participants’ negative emotional reactivity. Moreover, the benefits of third person self-talk for reducing emotional reactivity increased linearly with how intense the emotion was.