The term emotional health is a holistic term that refers to your ability to self-regulate and manage your emotional state to meet the moment in any situation. When you’re in a stress state, or conversely in a sloth state, your lack of emotional well-being will play out in the choices you make, with real and lasting consequences.

An important aspect of emotional health is being able to remain in the present moment, even in a dark or challenging time, with awareness, understanding, and self-acceptance. 

This is not about denying negative emotions like anger, sadness, or grief – but rather diving headfirst into them. At first, being fully present in a difficult emotion can be overwhelming. Especially if you have a strong self-preservation instinct, it can seem more logical to simply compartmentalize the feeling. But over time, what gets pushed down will rise back up. 

Sitting with your feelings in all their complexity, all their irrational self-contradiction, gets easier the more often you do it. The floodgates only open once (or twice.) Once you develop intimate access to your deepest darkest feelings, the process of mindfulness is well underway. Change follows naturally from deep awareness.

Does Emotional Health Affect My Overall Health?

Yes, the quality of your thoughts and emotions can affect your physical health. Stress is a leading factor in all the leading causes of death in the developed world. Don’t let that cause you anxiety. There are so many simple techniques for managing your emotional health and reducing your stress. 

When you allow your emotions to be freely expressed or experienced without judgment, they tend to flow more fluidly without prolonged negative impacts. Research shows that good emotional health and good may result in reduced heart rate and blood pressure. 

Repressing your emotions because feeling them feels like too much can, ironically, be draining. Over time, repressed emotions negatively impact the body and build up in vulnerable places. This is why it is important to be aware of your emotions and recognize them when they appear, and as best as you can open to them.

How to Improve Emotional Health

Improving your emotional health takes practice and support. Here are eight ways to improve your emotional health.

1. Stay in Tune With Your Emotions

Towards the latter part of his life, Charles Darwin discovered that there is an evolutionary purpose to emotions. They’re adaptive, and they’re there for a reason - to be felt. Emotions can give you insight as to what you are thinking about a situation, or how you perceive the world.

Emotions can also be a signal that something needs to be done – a signal that action is required on your part to resolve the emotion. This is why stress feels bad. Stress is meant to prepare you to problem-solve under pressure. When you feel it, ask yourself, what is the motion, what is the action, that this feeling is asking me to take. 

When we don’t listen to our emotions, our nervous systems can get “switched on.” When we get used to a constant din of problems and stress, our bodies stop healing and digesting properly. This is why it’s important to be proactive, and take the time and stay in tune with your emotions to improve your emotional health.

2. Establish a Mindfulness Practice

Physical exercise helps your body stay in good shape. Similarly, establishing a mindfulness practice, like meditation, can help your mind stay in shape. Mindfulness is is having the tools to switch from a high mental gear, like problem-solving mode, into a lower gear where you can just be present, grateful, and open.

Having a mindfulness practice can help you increase your focus and concentration, which can greatly improve your emotional health. The ability to train your mind helps keep distracting or recurring negative thoughts from arising as often. 

While establishing your mindful practice, it is important to make it a habit. You’re training your brain and nervous system to rewire! Start small. Try taking 3 conscious breaths first thing in the morning when you wake up, before you reach for your phone or do anything else.

Remember, you wouldn’t expect to see results after one jog. Make it consistent and check back in a few weeks to measure your progress.

3. Keep a Gratitude Journal

Gratitude journaling can have a profound effect on mental health and emotional health. You can get a journal just for that purpose, or use notes on your phone. 

If making a list of what you are grateful for sounds a bit cringe, know that there is real science behind it. One study found that when the participants wrote down what they were grateful for, each week, they were more optimistic about the future and had overall positive emotions about their lives as a whole. 

Your list does not have to be that deep, or it can be a mix. You can be grateful for your family, and also for a perfect espresso beverage. Overfixating on our aspirations – our goals, and inspo – can take up an unhealthy amount of headspace. Think of your gratitude journaling practice as simply a way of grounding yourself in what matters.

4. Acknowledge Your Thoughts

Thoughts are not facts; they are fleeting mental states that arise. It can sometimes be hard to grasp this, because it can feel slightly dissociative. You are not your thoughts. You can observe yourself having thoughts without being attached to the thoughts that come up. 

Building self-awareness can increase your emotional intelligence, boost your self-esteem, and even help you build good relationships with family members and friends. Instead of repressing negative thoughts, getting curious about how you as an individual respond to your thoughts can provide the insight you need to resolve fraught relationships, and manage the demands of everyday life.

As thoughts come into your mind, acknowledge them, walk around them like museum art pieces. They’re there to inspire you to reflect. Ask yourself how it feels to contemplate a certain thought. After a few moments, let it go. Walk away to the next thought, as it arises.

5. Find Time for Self-Care

Self-care can mean different things to different people, but it is important that you carve out the time for it. Self-care is not just a reward for getting through the day or a remedy for moments of emotional distress, but a routine of active healing that should be scheduled in your day to help improve your mental health. 

Having a self-care routine is important because this relaxation allows you to spend a little time getting to know yourself and what your mind, body, and soul need in order to function at your highest level. 

Some examples of self-care can be setting boundaries, taking yoga classes, prioritizing exercise, eating healthy, petting your dog, talking to a friend, getting enough sleep, listening to your favorite podcast, or getting out to enjoy some sunlight. There's no limit to what self-care can be, as long as it's something that provides a positive sense of well-being. 

6. Connect With Your Support System

Right in the middle of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs lies love, acceptance, and belonging. The need for emotional relationships is what drives human behavior. In order to combat certain mental concerns like loneliness, depression, and anxiety, it is important for all of us to feel connected and accepted.

The people that you can reach out to or lean on in times of need are your support system, like a tree’s roots. Mutual and healthy relationships are important for your emotional health. It’s said that it takes a village, and yet – modern society is more individualistic than ever. Seek out appropriate and generative connections. Connect people you like to other people you like. Create your village.

In addition to relationships with a therapist, support group, or guidance counselor, having a strong community around you will help you move through life's hurdles with resilience, empathy, and expertise. Connecting with your support system will boost your sense of belonging and can boost your confidence.

7. Respond, Don’t React

There is a difference between reacting, and responding. Reacting is behaving impulsively when something is thrown your way. It often looks like lashing out, or withdrawing – instinctively letting whatever patterns you already have in place play out, once again. 

Responding is when you take the time to receive what was thrown at you, like catching a ball in your hand. Feel the force of its impact – how it resonates with you. Look at your own reaction, cueing itself up to explode. Instead, make your own emotions your priority. If someone has just violated your energetic airspace, take a moment to breathe and self-regulate. Take some space from the situation – even if it is literally just 10 seconds to take a breath to decide how you want to respond to whatever just happened.

Taking the moment and giving yourself a chance to respond can give you a chance to express your emotions more clearly. This is more productive, and ultimately feels more satisfying than either lashing out, or holding back.

Choosing to react may feel good in the moment, because it’s a return to what’s familiar. But choosing to respond is better for outcomes, and for your emotional health.

8. Practice Meditation

Practicing meditation is a potent tool to use to improve your emotional health. Taking the time to sit down and become aware of your thoughts, emotions, and breathing while meditating can result in a boost to your parasympathetic nervous system, your ‘rest and digest’ system. 

The parasympathetic nervous system reduces cortisol, the stress hormone, in your body, boosting emotional well-being. Moreover, studies show that meditation can be as effective as an antidepressant, and as therapy for trauma.

Conclusion

Emotional health is essential for all-around health. These eight practices are all ways to improve your emotional health and well-being. Explore them all and then practice the ones that speak to you with consistency. Watch the practice work its magic, and experience the holistic benefits. 

Sources:

Emotional Well-Being: High-Priority Research Networks | NIH 

Developing Your Support System | University at Buffalo

Well-Being Concepts | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)