Weekly Wellness Update
Week of May 3-7 - Mental Health Week
Why saying “I feel bad” can actually make you feel better
Scientists call it “affect labelling” but more simply it means “putting feelings into words.” Understanding how this works might just change the way you respond to your emotions.
When we’re experiencing negative emotions—whether it’s anxiety or anger, stress or sadness, frustration or fear—it can be really tempting to ignore what we’re feeling or push it down. Unpleasant emotions, well, they’re just that: unpleasant. And they’re just plain uncomfortable. We might think that acknowledging our emotions, saying them out loud or writing them down, might make them more intense or last longer. Maybe we’re afraid to get real about how we feel precisely because we believe that verbalizing our feelings will make them more real and give them more power over us, but that’s not true!
7 steps to calm your inner world with words
Spring has sprung and hope is in the air, but not everyone is feeling peachy. It’s been a tough winter and your inner world might still be thawing out. That’s ok! Before you let the sunshine in, it can actually help you to sit with the stormy stuff you’re going through. According to scientists, putting negative feelings into words can help us understand and regulate negative emotional experiences. In short, the best thing you can do with unpleasant emotions is not to numb them, but to name them.