In our fast-paced world, it can be easy to feel like our emotional and mental wellbeing is taking a backseat to the chaos of life. While it’s important to be mindful of our physical health, it’s also vital to take care of your emotional self. Emotional self-care is a great way to manage stress and cultivate feelings of positivity and resilience. Here, we’ll discuss a variety of techniques that can help you nourish your emotions and stay in control of your mental health.

1. De-Stressing and Recharging – Emotional Self-Care Techniques

It’s no secret how much easier life can be when we’re emotionally strong and have healthy self-esteem. De-stressing and recharging are important components of emotional self-care, and there are many wonderful techniques we can use to achieve this. Try out these tips to find what works for you.

Grounding Exercises

When we’re feeling overwhelmed and anxious, grounding exercises can bring us back to the here and now and restore our inner balance. Grounding exercises involve focusing on physical sensations in the present moment. Examples include:

• Breathing exercises
• Clenching and relaxing the muscles in different parts of the body
• Identifying five things you can see, four things you can hear, three things you can touch, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste
• Closing your eyes and focusing on the feeling of the air around you

Cognitive Distancing

Cognitive distancing is an important tool for taking a step back when an emotionally charged situation arises. A simple way to do this is to imagine yourself in a cinema watching a film of what’s happening. From the perspective of the detached observer, you can analyse the situation more objectively without getting caught up in your emotions.

Self-Compassion

Self-compassion is about understanding that negative feelings occur in everyone, and that our suffering is part of the shared human experience. Instead of beating ourselves up for how we feel, we should treat ourselves with kindness and understanding.

Create Space for Yourself

When we’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s important to find ways to switch off and create space for ourselves. Make time for activities that make you feel relaxed and refreshed, such as gardening, exercise, listening to your favorite music, or reading a book.

Mindful Moments

Take a few minutes each day to simply focus on feeling and appreciating the moment. Pay attention to your breath, the way your body feels, and your environment. You can also listen to a piece of music, or practice a short mindfulness meditation to help you stay present.

2. Identifying and Releasing Stressful Thoughts

Have you ever noticed the thoughts that overwhelm your peace of mind, leaving you feeling stressed and anxious? It’s easy to identify when stress has kicked in, but learning how to spot the thoughts that created it in the first place can be an improbable feat to many. Understanding and releasing stressful thoughts is the key to a refreshed and balanced state of being.

Recognize Your Stressful Thoughts

The first step in managing stress is to identify the negative self-talk that creates tension. To do that, try actively listening and journaling your thoughts as they come up. Whether it’s cynism or fear, recognizing the thought is the first step to releasing it. To ensure the best results, reflect twice a day, when you wake up and when you go to bed.

Feel the Emotion

It’s important to simply feel the emotion without judging it. If practicing mindfulness seems impossible, just close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Focusing on your breathing is a great way to quiet the mind and be present. If there’s too much emotion to handle, take a walk, have a cuppa tea or talk to a friend.

Engage in self-calming techniques

To reframe thoughts, it’s essential to focus on self-care. Here are some self-calming tips:

• Listen to music
• Watch a romantic comedy
• Take bubble baths
• Eat your favorite meal
• Color pages from adult coloring books
• Try yoga
• Go for a walk in nature

State your affirmations

Once you’ve slowed down and allowed yourself to breathe, you can now start to practice positive self-talk. Create affirmations that help you stay grounded and remind your mind of the strength you hold deep within. Speak them aloud, throw it up on a billboard or contribute positive quotes on social media.

Set yourself up for success

You can set yourself up for success every day, by creating routines that bring joy and clarity into your life. Make a plan filled with activities that make you feel good, which can include checking off a daily “To Do” list, journaling or even brewing a cup of tea. Focusing on the present moment can lessen any stressor that may arise later on.

3. Making Time for Reflection and Joyful Activities

In the hustle and bustle of life, we can often forget how important it is to make time for reflection and joyful activities. We understand that taking a break and giving yourself a moment of respite is necessary for your mental health, but many of us almost seem like it’s a luxury we don’t allow ourselves time for. In this section, we’ll look at how to reclaim that time for yourself, to make sure that you are taking the time to nurture and recharge yourself.

Choosing the Right Time

• The best time to reflect and enjoy a joyful activity is when you can fit it into your schedule
• Choose a time of day that works best for you, and be consistent each day to get the most of the activity
• Set a reminder for yourself, so that you actually make sure you commit to the activity
• If you’re busy all day, see if you can find short moments to do mindful activities throughout the day

Types of Thoughtful Activities

• Spending time outside, walking, running, swimming, or biking
• Journaling your thoughts, from hand-written journals or phone apps
• Victoria-style Coloring books for adults
• Gardening and growing plants
• Yoga or stretching
• Cooking a meal or baking a cake
• Reading a book or magazine
• Playing a musical instrument or singing
• Social activities, such as going to the movies or out for lunch with friends

Finding the Right Balance

It’s important to find a balance between reflection and joy. Make sure that you spend enough time on each. Spend time reflecting on the things that are difficult, but also remember to take time to enjoy yourself and have a bit of fun. If things get difficult, and you’re feeling overwhelmed, that’s a sign that it’s time to take a break. Give yourself permission to pause and do something that brings you joy.

Making Reflection Part of Your Daily Routine

Start small, and make reflection a part of your everyday routine. Take a few minutes each day to pause, be mindful, and take special note of the things that bring you joy. This doesn’t have to take hours out of your day. A simple activity, such as journaling your thoughts, or reading a book, can be enough. Just give yourself permission to take a break, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

Prioritizing Your Time

Ultimately, it’s important to prioritize yourself and make sure you’re taking the time for reflection and joy. Make sure that you’re making time for yourself each day, and not letting every other thing in your life take precedence. Make time to take care of yourself, and you’ll be surprised at the outcome.

4. The Benefits of Nurturing Your Emotions

Recognizing and Nurturing Your Feelings

Everyone experiences emotions, but living in the 21st century, often the things we feel can seem inconvenient, illogical, or even embarrassing. We’re taught to “suck it up” and deny what we’re feeling – but suppressing emotions has been proven to cause serious mental health issues. Instead, it’s vital to recognize and nurture our emotions. Here are the benefits of doing so:

• Managing Stress: When we practice recognizing and validating our emotions, it can help reduce stress. We become more aware of the way in which our stress manifests, and can take action to preemptively address it, before it becomes overwhelming.
• Development of Self-Understanding: When we nurture our emotions, we build a stronger connection with ourselves. We understand better why we react in certain ways, as well as how our feelings inform our decisions. As a result, we have a better sense of our identity.
• Building Empathy: Connecting with our emotions allows us to better comprehend and appreciate how others must feel in similar situations. This facilitates finding solutions to interpersonal conflicts that involve understanding the situation from multiple angles.
• Improved Mental Health: Lastly, nurturing our emotions can significantly improve our mental health. By allowing our emotions to be expressed (in a healthy manner), they won’t bottle up and become unmanageable. This frees us from dealing with issues that could’ve been avoided with this practice.

Therefore, developing the ability to nurture our emotions is imperative for fostering both short-term and long-term wellbeing. Instead of reacting to emotions by shoving them aside, it’s best to reflect on why we’re feeling a certain way, and how we can make ourselves feel better in the long run. Building emotional awareness can leave us feeling calmer, more empathetic, better connected to ourselves, and resilient to future stresses.

Making emotional self-care a regular part of your daily routine can help you manage stress, look after your feelings and ultimately make for a healthier, more mindful life. With a little practice, you can learn to soothe yourself and give yourself the appreciation and understanding that we all need. In the end, it’s all about treating yourself with kindness and gentleness.