Emotional Health Week 2025 runs from the 19th to the 23rd of February and is a campaign raising awareness of emotional wellbeing. Along with your physical and mental health, your emotions are important, and of course all areas of wellbeing are closely linked.
In this article we will explore what emotional wellbeing is, how it can affect you, and some practical ways to build self-awareness and manage emotions.
What is emotional wellbeing?
Emotional wellbeing can be described as the ability to cope with and regulate emotions. This means acknowledging, accepting and normalising the wide range of emotions you may feel.
It can be easy to think that experiencing ‘negative’ emotions is bad, and that you shouldn’t allow yourself to feel sad, or angry, or frustrated. But actually, this is an important part of emotional wellbeing and intelligence.
So why is this important?
Your emotions affect how you function in day-to-day life, handle situations, and your ability to foster positive relationships. Something that is important in your personal and professional life.
Imagine if something in the workplace caused you to feel angry, responding with aggression and confrontation is likely to impact colleague relationships and leave you feeling negative about your job. Conversely, acknowledging your emotions, and allowing yourself to pause and reflect on them, is likely to have a better outcome.
Emotional intelligence is not just about your own emotions, but understanding others too, so be empathetic to why someone may be feeling or reacting a certain way.
A quick bit on the science…
When you experience emotions like fear or anger, it can trigger your ‘fight or flight’ response. The release of hormones, such as adrenaline, impacts your nervous system and prepares you to fight…or run away. You may notice an increased heart rate, palpitations and feelings of agitation. Although this is a natural response, knowing how to bring your body and mind back to a place of calm is key to emotional wellbeing.
You can read more about this on the Mental Health Foundation website.
How can I build my emotional wellbeing?
Recognise your emotions
Pause to recognise the emotion you are experiencing, name it, and allow yourself to sit with it. This is crucial for building self-awareness, and gives you time to think about your response. Acceptance is key here, life inevitably brings adverse events and stress, but recognising your emotions, and what is behind them, will help build resilience. Of course it is just as important to recognise positive emotions too!
The Feelings Wheel is a great tool for identifying and labelling how you feel.
Build your wellbeing toolkit
Your wellbeing toolkit contains things you can instantly draw on to calm your nervous system, such as breathing techniques, meditation, a 5-minute walk or simply making a cuppa. This isn’t about ignoring feelings, rather giving you the chance to pause and work through them.
You may have built less healthy coping strategies such as drinking, smoking or emotional eating and it can take time to change these. Experiment and find what works for you.
Journal or keep a mood diary
This is another great thing to have in your toolkit and provides a safe and non-judgemental space to release your thoughts and feelings. it might feel hard to begin with, but you don’t need to do anything fancy. Use a notepad, your laptop, or phone, and just write! Even if it is just a couple of sentences to start.
Talk about it
Some people find it comforting to talk about their emotions, after all, a problem shared is a problem halved. This could be to friends, family or colleagues, or by seeking professional support. If you do feel overwhelmed or are struggling to cope, speak to your GP, or visit Hub of Hope, which will show support services in your local area.
Conclusion
To conclude, emotional wellbeing is a key area of health and can have a big impact on your quality of life. Be sure to try some of the above tips, and if you would like to further support your employees in emotional wellbeing, get in touch with us at We Are Wellbeing. We deliver workshops, webinars and 1:1 coaching on a variety of topics.
