The 7 Traits of Emotional Fitness

What if you thought about your emotional well-being the same way you think about physical fitness? Many people exercise to improve their health, strengthen their bodies, and simply feel better. Yet, when it comes to mental health, you might tend to avoid flexing those uncomfortable emotional muscles unless forced. That’s where emotional fitness comes in. 

How do I know if I'm emotionally fit?

Enter: Emily Anhalt, a clinical psychologist and co-founder of Coa, a “gym for mental health.” In an effort to define what it means to be emotionally fit, Anhalt conducted around a hundred interviews and found seven key traits that she believes are the cornerstones of emotional fitness: self-awareness, empathy, curiosity, mindfulness, play, resilience, and communication. 

She recommends using the traits as a guide to assess your current emotional fitness level and where you have room for growth. 

Try to bring “more awareness to yourself and the things you avoid emotionally.” This means recognizing the hard conversations, the uncomfortable situations, and the emotions you don’t allow yourself to feel. Then consider why and how you avoid them. Do you find yourself getting distracted by influences like food, alcohol, or even your own internal dialogue? In short, it’s really about getting to know yourself better, which is easier said than done. Therapy can be a useful tool if it’s available to you, as it offers an outside perspective to help identify your patterns more easily.

How to strengthen your emotional muscles 

Start by thinking about a couple of mental exercises — what Anhalt calls “emotional push-ups” — that you’d like to incorporate into your daily routine. These are small moments of emotional discomfort that you can practice consistently over time to help build mental resilience. “What I've found as a psychologist is that pretty much everything we want in life is on the other side of discomfort,” she says.

Everyone’s emotional fitness level and goals will be different, so you can decide which emotional exercises to perform based on the areas you want to improve. Some examples include “apologizing for a mistake, asking for feedback, meditating for five minutes, letting yourself feel sad about something, [or] celebrating a win,” says Anhalt. If “the thought of it makes you a little uncomfortable, then that's a good sign that it might be an emotional push-up worth doing.” 

theSkimm 

The goal of emotional fitness is not to be ashamed of your feelings but to make space for them, work through them, and come out stronger as a result. Reminder: Exercising your emotional muscles is not a replacement for therapy or any clinical treatment for a mental health condition. It’s also not easy, but it’s so worth it.