The Importance of Emotional Self-Awareness
How are you feeling right now? How are your stress levels? These are simple questions, but they can have a powerful impact, particularly when you ask them of yourself.
Since the world is so topsy-turvy I just wanted to share with you a helpful skill for getting a better handle on the emotional swings that life may be throwing at you. While you could think of it as a “brain-hack” it’s really so much more. The cool thing is you don’t need to do anything difficult; it’s about simply directing your attention to your feelings.
The skill is called emotional self-awareness. And working to increase it can help you better manage stress and improve your mood.
Emotional self-awareness is all about checking in with yourself and seeing what you find. Think of it like examining the food in your fridge – if you don’t do it regularly then something might go bad and start to stink up everything else.
In one particular study from Australia (Kauer, 2012) one group of volunteers – the intervention group – was asked at various times throughout the day to rate their sleep quality, stress levels, mood, and activities. The comparison group did most of the same ratings except they were not asked about stress or mood.
The researchers uncovered several helpful findings. For one, they found that regardless of which group you were assigned to, there was a strong relationship between emotional self-awareness and depressive symptoms. That means that being emotionally self-aware is beneficial to depression whether you’re naturally that way or whether you take steps to improve your awareness.
On top of that, both groups showed improvements in depressive symptoms and reductions in rumination. However, the intervention group had greater improvements in both emotional self-awareness and depressive symptoms. So becoming more aware of your sleep and activities is beneficial to your wellbeing, but you can get even more benefit by also becoming more aware of your stress and mood.
The simple act of checking in with yourself periodically about how you’re feeling boosts emotional self-awareness. And increases in emotional self-awareness in turn lead to improvements in regulating mood. The world can be crazy and overwhelming at times, but with a little more emotional self-awareness you may find it easier to get through.
Could you benefit from more emotional self-awareness? It’s one of the many topics I cover in The Upward Spiral Core Program. My first time teaching the program online last month was a great success, and I’ll be opening up a limited enrollment period again in two weeks. You can find out more info and watch the introductory video here: https://www.alexkorbphd.com/neurothentic/the-upward-spiral-core-program/
References:
Kauer, S. D., Reid, S. C., Crooke, A. H. D., Khor, A., Hearps, S. J. C., Jorm, A. F., … & Patton, G. (2012). Self-monitoring using mobile phones in the early stages of adolescent depression: randomized controlled trial. Journal of medical Internet research, 14(3), e67.
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