Building Healthy Emotional Self-care Habits

​Ways to build & maintain strategies to manage the competing commitments between work, self-care and your relationships.

Building strong emotional health habits is an important step towards achieving optimal physical and emotional well-being, particularly in challenging circumstances.  Work and career can be a great source of well-being and confidence.  However, there are times and circumstances where it’s depleting, like when you have less control over your work or when your working environment impacts your home life and the amount of time you have for yourself.  These kinds of challenges can impact your emotional well-being and (if left unchecked), your physical well-being too. Building positive emotional health habits can help you navigate workplace challenges with more ease, supporting your overall well-being.
 
Do you remember how to build strong emotional health habits from health class?  No?  That’s because it wasn’t covered.  Emotional health refers to the ability to understand and manage your emotions in different situations effectively, helping to maintain positive relationships with others while sustaining a healthy emotional connection to yourself. This isn’t a topic that’s talked about nearly enough in today’s society, yet emotional health is the cornerstone of well-being.  You can’t only attend to your physical health and assume it can look after everything else, you need to know how to take care of your emotional health too.

Here are some steps to help you build supportive emotional health habits to overcome stress at work and prevent burnout:

  • Define your emotional goals: Start by identifying your emotional goals. What do you want to feel when you’re at work? What don’t you want to feel? What kind of emotional state do you want to be in? What do you need to do to get there? This can include goals like reducing commitments, improving confidence, developing better communication skills or setting boundaries with others.

  • Identify your stressors: Knowing what causes unwanted emotions at work is key to developing supportive emotional health habits. Identify the things that make you feel stressed, frustrated, anxious, sad, angry, or overwhelmed. This can include certain people, situations, or activities. Understanding what these are in advance is an important step towards being able to support yourself emotionally in circumstances that make you feel vulnerable.

  • Develop coping strategies: Once you’ve identified the causes of unwelcome feelings at work, it's important to develop coping strategies to help you manage your emotions and the stress associated with those emotions. This can include “in the moment” strategies like deep breathing exercises, naming/validating your emotions for yourself, and mindfulness (i.e., asking for time before responding in an emotionally charged situation).  Having longer-term strategies like practicing healthy boundaries, acceptance of “what is”, daily journalling and physical activity are also key to supporting your emotional health. It's important to find strategies that you feel motivated to incorporate into your daily routine at work.  Know there is no “magic bullet” and no coping strategy is a “one size fits all”.  Most strategies take practice, but with consistent application your strategies can increase feelings of contentment and happiness, reducing your frustration and vulnerability at work.

  • Build a support network: Having a support network both inside and outside of work is important for emotional well-being. This can include family, friends, co-workers, your manager, a coach and/or mental health professional.  Make sure you have people you can turn to when you need support or guidance to explore and work with your emotions, empowering you to validate what you feel at work and determine what the right action is to support strong emotional habits and goals.  

  • Practice self-care: Taking care of yourself is essential for emotional health. This can include getting enough sleep, eating a healthy diet, and engaging in activities that you enjoy (both away from, and at, work). Make self-care a priority in your daily routine, because without your physical health you won’t be able to consistently build emotional health (and vice versa, they are inextricably linked).

  • Evaluate your progress: It's important to regularly assess your progress with your emotional health habits. This can be one of the more difficult aspects of emotional health care; it can be harder to identify progress emotionally than it is to see it physically.  A simple way to track emotional habit progress is to check in with how you’re feeling, tracking your daily emotions to see your progress over time.  This can also help you reflect on what’s working and what isn't working for you, guiding you to make adjustments to your habits as needed.  

  • Iterate and tweak your habits:  Following your progress is important, but what’s even more valuable is using it to evaluate when and what to tweak so your habits help you meet your emotional needs at work. Planning is an iterative process, being willing to make adjustments to your habits over time will ensure you get the full benefit of caring for your emotional connection to self.

  • Consider what needs to change:  As you use your emotional health habits it can point to other things that need to change.  This can include adjusting your working schedule, your work commitments, re-assessing expectations of yourself, or the need to put healthy boundaries in place with others to support your emotional needs and welfare.  These may be simple changes you can confidently complete on your own. However, reach out for support if more complex changes are needed, engaging the help of your manager, colleagues, a coach or a mental health care provider.  Ask for help as needed to support your mental health at work, it’s a sign of strength.
 
Remember, building supportive emotional health habits is a process that can be simple but takes time and effort.  Just as before starting a new physical exercise program, you should consult your health care provider before embarking on your plan (especially if you’re currently working with a therapist).  Having emotional health habits are also not a substitute for therapy; if creating/executing on your emotional health habits is making you feel worse, please consult a mental health care professional. 
 
Having strong emotional health habits can help you overcome a period of change, frustration and stress at work.  By incorporating these steps into your daily routine, you can develop the skills and strategies you need to achieve optimal emotional well-being in all parts of your life, helping you be successful without the self-destruction.
Working with Carleen I learned to recognize how my work was valuable. It influenced how I see myself in the working environment and I learned to better appreciate myself. I am so grateful for our time together."
The Working Life Wellbeing Assessment isn't a tool to diagnose burnout. Its use is to support you in identifying your risks. The Building Healthy Emotional Self-care Habits guide expressed here is to provide emotional self-care options, but is not comprehensive medical advice. If you have health concerns, please consult your doctor or other care provider to manage the health impacts, sharing your risks from this assessment process and this guide.