Regarding to aversive stimuli, previous studies on emotion response and formation are plentiful, whereas concentrations on the emotional recovery are comparatively insufficient. The present study focused on the discomfort induced by looking at aversive pictures, and the emotional self-regulation during the following recovery period. A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment with prolonged paradigm was recruited to investigate how brain-state shifted across three stages: picture viewing, earlier resting period, and latter resting period. Comparing with neutral pictures, aversive pictures activated the caudate nucleus centric subcortical areas, which also kept firing during the resting period. Meanwhile an activation pattern gradually appeared in fronto-parietal regions that were found negatively correlated to subcortical areas. Our findings suggest that the emotional recovery from discomfort is also a procedure accompanied by the strategy shift from passively suppressing emotional response to actively controlling the attention. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.