Understanding our emotions helps us to regulate them. This helps us think more clearly about our situation and our actions. It can also help us to build better relationships with others.

When we’re feeling emotional it can be difficult to think clearly. Talking about how we’re feeling with someone we trust can help us to connect our logical and emotional thoughts. It gives us the chance to gain a sense of perspective and make sense of how we’re feeling. When reflecting on our emotions it’s important to be compassionate to ourselves. It’s normal to experience a whole range of emotions.

Nurture positive feelings

We can tend to focus on negative events or feelings. If we do this too much, it can affect our mental wellbeing. It’s widely accepted that a key feature of both depression and anxiety is getting caught in a spiral of negative thoughts.

Nurturing positive feelings helps to protect us from falling into a spiral of negative thoughts. We can do this by noticing what we’re grateful for and making time for things we enjoy.

Practice gratitude

Gratitude is increasingly being recognised as not just a feeling but an action we can practise to cultivate positive emotions. We might feel grateful for something someone has done for us or for things in nature, such as the first signs of spring or spotting butterflies dancing together.

Noticing what we’re grateful for just a few times a week can boost our mental wellbeing. Keeping notes in a diary of things we’re grateful for gives us something to look back on when we need a boost.

Improve relationships

Noticing our thoughts and feelings can help us to build better relationships with others.

Being kind and considerate of how others might be feeling is also important for keeping our relationships healthy. Being mindful of both how their feelings might be influencing their behaviours and how our actions might impact their emotions is key.

It’s important to remember we can’t control how people behave towards us, but we can control how we respond.