Anxiety and emotional resilience

When people are struggling with stress, anxiety or anger, they often ask me what they can do to change, and whether I have any techniques they can learn to solve their emotional problems or reduce stress.

What most people are looking for is a quick fix or a better strategy for managing their emotions, as if emotions were problems to be solved. They may believe that being irrational is unhealthy and that having a rational understanding will give them better insight, but it will not lead to emotional or behavioural change.

Accepting our emotions can build emotional resilience

To develop emotional growth and change, we need to accept that our emotions are healthy responses to how we perceive and understand ourselves, and the world we live in.

As long as we are consciously aware of our physical senses and feelings, we are perceiving information about the world that can be useful to us. Very few people would disagree with the idea that joy and love are safe, healthy emotions to experience with family and friends. But what about more difficult, complex emotions like fear and anger? Are these emotions also valid?

For example, feeling anxiety when we are being threatened, or about to take a dangerous risk, is an appropriate response to a fear of injury or emotional distress. Feeling and expressing anger during a conflict when our boundaries have been violated is a healthy response when it is proportionate and designed to protect us from harm.

Of course, some emotions can be experienced as intense and distressing, especially if they overwhelm our capacity to tolerate them. For example, if we experience an accident or are witnesses to a violent crime, we might be traumatised and unable to process our raw emotions.

How to observe and process our emotions

Emotional challenges like stress, anxiety, and anger cannot be resolved merely by learning techniques or rationalising problems. Instead, developing self-awareness through observing physical sensations and emotions allows for more effective responses to stress stimuli and a deeper emotional understanding of yourself.

This is because anxiety is generated by the interaction of the stress response in your brain, a flood of biochemical neurotransmitters in your autonomic nervous system, and the release of stress hormones like adrenaline, cortisol and acetylcholine. Whilst dopamine stimulates and reinforces habitual cycles of stress and anxiety, trauma overwhelms our capacity to make sense of distressing experiences.

Building self-awareness by tracking or observing emotions

This means you are better off tracking your stress responses like an elevated heart rate, hyperventilation, perspiration, gut inflammation, muscle tension/spasms, postural change, etc. Then use your senses to guide your physical responses, such as diaphragmatic breathing, grounding exercises, stretching muscle tension, and aerobic movement. This builds self-awareness, which allows you to soothe your vagus nerve and bring down your stress rates before you get caught up in overthinking.

Focusing on your sensory experience

Emotional well-being is enhanced by paying attention to your bodily sensations and emotions rather than relying solely on cognitive strategies or behaviours, as thinking alone cannot resolve your survival responses or panic attacks.

Self-awareness is an ongoing process

True self-awareness involves developing continuous curiosity and emotional engagement with the world around you. It goes beyond acquiring simple coping strategies, since humans learn largely through non-verbal sensory and emotional interactions, not thoughts alone. 

Embodied consciousness over rational insight

Meaningful emotional and behavioural change requires that you connect with your physical sensations and impulses, as emotions are instinctive and cannot be managed simply by rational understanding or better strategies.

What is the point of mindfulness?

Mindful practice involves pausing to acknowledge, slow down and observe your emotions before you get caught up in them. Practising exercises like these can deepen your sensory awareness and improve your emotional intelligence. This approach emphasises patience and gradual learning through habitual observation rather than seeking quick fixes.

Sensory awareness is foundational

Humans respond primarily to sensory stimuli, and mindful practice requires paying attention to your experiences to change your responses effectively. Without awareness of sensory input, changing your behaviour is unlikely.

Active acceptance of your emotions

Mindfulness starts with actively accepting your emotions as valid information about yourself, rather than defensively ignoring or suppressing them. This acceptance helps rewire the nervous system to better adapt and respond to stress. 

Being rather than overdoing

Mindful practice helps you focus on being present and observing your experiences without judgment, rather than striving for perfect outcomes. Struggles and frustrations during your practice are a natural part of learning. Mindful exercises emphasise the quality of your experience over correctness or achieving a perfect state of inner calm. 

Daily practice is the key to emotional growth and resilience

Try to develop a variety of mindful practices that support your emotional and physical well-being by fostering single-pointed focus on sensations as they emerge. This promotes empathy, self-compassion, experimentation, creativity, and social connection.

These activities range from meditative and reflective exercises to physical challenges and social engagement, each targeting different aspects of your personal growth and emotional resilience.

Self-validation and curiosity

Encouraging your self-worth through daily achievable tasks, rewarding yourself, self-mirroring work, learning new skills, and appreciating small moments to foster gratitude and self-compassion during your personal development.

Adventure and sensory engagement with nature

Activities like walking in the natural world, observing nature close-up, wilderness training, assault courses, stargazing, and multisensory therapies promote your sense of awe, wonder, and curiosity. This will also generate more emotional resilience, risk-taking, and invigoration to support your alertness and emotional regulation.

Physical well-being

Try to engage with activities that promote feelings of calm, self-soothing, and safety, such as massage, stretching, swimming, hot and cold showers, and saunas.

Creative well-being

Try to engage in activities which promote your creativity and instinct to learn or experiment, such as crafting and creative arts. Poetry and painting serve as outlets for tension relief, self-care, and contributing to overall fulfilment and states of calm.

Mindful relationships and empathy

Practices include attentive and empathic listening to your partner, non-verbal mirroring to enhance safety and connection, constructive conflict resolution, shared meditation, and co-regulation with your partners, family and children.

Emotional intelligence and resilience

Rather than seeking quick fixes that inoculate or desensitise us to our emotions, it makes sense to breathe, step back, and observe our emotions to develop self-awareness and help us make more intelligent decisions.

Emotional responses remind us that as humans we all have vulnerabilities and need to take care of ourselves and the people we love and value. There are no wrong or right emotions. There are no off-the-shelf strategies which anyone can learn to control or manage their emotions. But a deeper understanding and awareness can help us make sense of our feelings and respond to them with insight and reflection.

When we make mistakes or respond impulsively, our brains and nervous system are designed to learn from that experience (even if it hurts) and adapt with more emotional intelligence and functional behaviour patterns.