Health and Wellness
7 Steps to Attain Emotional Resilience
Improving our health and wellness might be challenging until we effectively manage our thoughts and emotions.

This post highlights the importance of emotional resilience for physical and mental health. I provide seven practical steps to enhance emotional resilience via healthy lifestyle choices based on my observations and experience. These principle-oriented and holistic health tips might be customized based on the needs and goals of individuals.
What does emotional resilience mean, and why does it matter?
Emotions run the show in our lives. We make decisions based on feelings rather than intellect. Nature seems to have created feelings as messengers to inform us and encourage us to act for survival and well-being.
Unless we recognize and manage our emotions, it will be difficult to cope with the setbacks and challenges of life.
Emotional resilience, also known as psychological resilience in the literature, refers to the ability to rapidly cope with problems, especially crises, and bounce back to a normal state.
I love this articulated description of emotional and physical resilience by Elizabeth Edwards. She said, “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something good.”
Studies in psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and leadership disciplines indicate that emotional resilience, vitality, and stability are closely related to mental capabilities, physical health, mental health, overall well-being, and longevity. Therefore, emotional intelligence looks like a mandatory ability in this modern world.
My observations during cognitive science studies revealed that people with sharp intellects who lack emotional maturity and resilience experience life crises more than emotionally mature and resilient people.
Life does not make sense to those lacking emotional intelligence, stability, resilience, and maturity, as they cannot connect meaningfully with their inner world and others in their environment.
Therefore, these disadvantaged people become defenseless and remain vulnerable to emotional fluctuations and assaults caused by setbacks and unexpected challenges. Even the most minor threats can crash them.
Those who gain emotional resilience and strength act calm and composed no matter what life throws at them. These wise people become unflappable even amidst crises. Therefore, gaining emotional strength and resilience is a critical life skill for all of us.
I noticed that emotionally mature leaders connect with others efficiently and meaningfully, producing better results joyfully. I also observed that centenarians depict emotional resilience and maturity that contribute to their longevity and healthspan.
1 — Act mindfully and meditate regularly.
I start with the mind, as everything in life begins with a thought. Then come our feelings and emotions, which I cover in the next section.
In my experience, mindfulness practices have been the best tools to improve emotional strength and resilience. One of the most helpful mindfulness practices has been meditation for me and others I observed.
Mindfulness practices and meditation reset and strengthen the neocortex allowing us to regulate our emotions. As a result, we gain cognitive flexibility. In addition, meditation can tame the primitive brain, reducing stress and anxiety.
In addition to improving our day-to-day performance, mindfulness practices and meditation can also increase our cognitive reserves and lower the effects of neurodegenerative disorders as we age.
Based on my experience and reviews, the compelling benefits of incorporating mindfulness practices and meditation into our daily schedule are:
2 — Regulate emotions systematically.
No matter what we do in the material world, we cannot improve our physical and mental health unless we regulate our emotions intentionally. As Marcel Proust articulates, “We are healed from emotional suffering only by experiencing it to the full.”
Emotional regulation is a broad topic in psychology literature. Emotions are invisible yet felt senses communicating to us what is happening at a deeper level. Unrecognized, unexpressed, and unmanaged emotions might be toxic to the body and mind.
Management of our emotions refers to regulating them systematically. We can handle them more efficiently by observing, understanding, and expressing our feelings.
Emotional regulation can reduce our vulnerability to emotional situations, empower us in dealing with impulsivity, and reduce unnecessary suffering.
The crucial point of emotional regulation is to express them meaningfully and timely. Conversely, suppressing and avoiding our emotions for a prolonged time might harm the body and mind in the long run.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, as an interdisciplinary approach, focuses on how our emotions turn into diseases when not appropriately managed by individuals. This unique discipline combines psychology, psychiatry, biochemistry, endocrinology, and neurology.
Studying this discipline taught me that we could regulate our emotions with healthy lifestyle habits. The regular practice of these activities might rewire the brain for joy.
For example, using mindfulness, scheduling fun, improving social connections, and practicing tools such as expressive writing, active listening, therapeutic reading, laughter yoga, joyful exercises, dancing, restorative sleep, and relaxation might naturally regulate our emotions.
3 — Fortify the neocortex to gain cognitive flexibility.
Evidence in the psychological literature shows that managing our thoughts can improve our emotional profile. This concept was evident in my life. I also observed it in others.
Emotions that might be triggered by thoughts might involve both the body and mind. Dealing with our thoughts and emotions can be challenging if we don’t know how to manage them. Our lives might become pathetic without conscious control of our thoughts and feelings.
If we can strengthen our neocortex (thinking brain), we might gain cognitive flexibility. The thinking part of the brain can help us turn our negative feelings into positive ones.
Then we might feel more joy, calmness, and satisfaction, replacing anxiety and depression, coming from the limbic system and primitive part of the brain.
Even though cognitive flexibility is related to the mind, our physical habits, like exercise and eating regimens, might affect it.
Some practical tips to improve cognitive flexibility are developing a growth mindset, optimism, awareness, observations, mindfulness, acceptance, empathy, compassion, neutralizing unpleasant feelings with positive thoughts, moving the body, having fun intentionally, and consuming our feed in specific windows.
4 — Establish stable emotional self-defense and improve adversity quotient.
We must create emotional self-defense as our bodies do physical self-defense. The purpose of emotional self-defense is to lower the risks of unnecessary suffering caused by unexpected emotional attacks from others and our own minds.
Emotional-self defense requires three critical mechanisms. They include awareness of emotional triggers, aggravators, and manipulators, neutralizing emotions by changing perspectives and setting emotional boundaries.
Our relationships with others significantly impact our emotions. Therefore, we must improve them by creating healthy boundaries.
Critical points to set healthy emotional boundaries are awareness and definition of borders, communicating them to involved parties, implementing rules with consistency and persistence, reviewing the health of boundaries, and making necessary adjustments timely.
When we set emotional boundaries, we improve our relationships with others, practice self-love and compassion for others, and even might attract loving people to our lives. Our adversity quotient naturally increases.
5 — Work in a flow state and lower stress.
Work consumes a large part of our lives. Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors at work can significantly affect our emotional profile.
The essential factor at work is to timely and productively manage our stress. Minor stressors might accumulate when experiencing work pressure and turn into chronic stress.
Then it can cause the body to be inflamed and be defensive to even minor stressors that are necessary for our growth. In other words, we cannot cope with the daily stress.
Chronic stress can adversely impact our physical and mental health at a genetic and cellular level. Therefore, working in a flow state is a valuable tool for controlling and managing our daily stress at work.
Intentionally and regularly working in a flow state allows us to rewire our brains for joy and happiness while gaining creativity and productivity. We need to refrain from multitasking to manage our work stress.
My three tips for entering a flow state quickly and maintaining it as much as we want when working are living in the moment, focusing on a single task with full attention, and tricking the brain into self-chosen priorities.
6 — Optimize hormones and neurotransmitters.
I left this item to the end as previous items, both from the physical and mental angles, contribute to balancing and optimizing our hormones and neurotransmitters. This item refers to a holistic health approach for the body and mind.
Hormones and neurotransmitters can impact both our physical and mental health. Therefore, they play a critical role in the emotional profile. Hormonal and neurotransmitter balance translates into a better emotional profile manifesting good feelings and sensations.
For example, hormonal imbalance and issues with neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin manifest as unpleasant feelings.
The critical points that can contribute to hormonal balance are customizing nutrition based on bodily needs, personalizing workouts, creating a solid sleep regimen, living mindfully, meditating daily, having meaningful connections, and getting hormones checked regularly.
From a neurotransmitter’s point of view, the critical biochemical is dopamine which impacts the balance of other neurotransmitters such as serotonin, norepinephrine, and GABA. Excessive dopamine secretion is one of the leading causes of addiction.
Addictions might lead to anxiety and depression if not treated timely. Addiction might cause emotional fluctuations and instability. Therefore, addressing addiction problems with guided or self-therapy can contribute to emotional resilience and maturity, improving physical and mental health.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Accumulated, unaddressed, and unresolved emotional traumas are associated with the manifestation of severe physical and mental disorders such as neurodegenerative disorders, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome, type II diabetes, and cancers.
From my experience, no matter what we do at the physical level, we cannot improve our health unless we regulate and balance our emotions by gaining emotional resilience and maturity. Emotional maturity might give us intuitive capabilities.
The fundamental mechanism of unresolved emotions in the body and mind is the notable manifestation of chronic stress and chronic inflammation, which have epigenetic effects on our cells.
For example, accumulated unpleasant emotions can trigger stress hormones and cause emotional eating making the body insulin and leptin-resistant, leading to metabolic imbalances. I documented a case study on the effects of emotional eating on health.
We can solve physical and mental health issues more efficiently by improving emotional intelligence, enhancing emotional resilience, and gaining emotional maturity. For example, I solved my 12 entangled health issues contributed by emotional stability and resilience.
It is possible to increase emotional intelligence and gain mastery by changing our lifestyle choices and gaining healthy habits unless we have underlying mental health conditions.
Our healthy habits can contribute to our emotional profile and improve our relationships with others. Emotionally intelligent people not only understand their emotions but also gain clues about other people’s emotions. As a result, they gain emotional resilience when they face setbacks. They can quickly bounce back to normal.
I’d like to summarize practical takeaways that might enhance emotional intelligence, resilience, stability, mastery, and maturity.
1 — Start with the mind and enhance cognitive flexibility with mindfulness practices such as meditation, self-talk, and working in a flow state.
2 — Feel various emotions, understand them with intimate observations, and express them rather than suppress them.
3 — Establish a rock-solid emotional self-defense, set emotional boundaries, communicate, and implement them diligently and persistently.
4 — Refrain from perfection, forgive mistakes, love yourself, and show empathy and compassion for others. Forgiveness has healing power.
5 — Lower chronic stress and inflammation, meeting fundamental requirements of the body and establishing healthy lifestyle habits.
6 — Honor the body’s needs for restorative sleep, regular exercise, rest, recovery, fun, and social connections.
7 — Optimize and balance hormones and neurotransmitters with healthy lifestyle choices. Refrain from multitasking, intentionally work in a flow state, and embrace the moment.
8 — Finally, seek help when needed from professionals and loved ones.
Setbacks and challenges of life never end. They are constants that we need to accept and deal with intelligence, intuition, acceptance, and understanding. It will never be too late to take control of our thoughts and manage emotions intentionally.
We can do it at any age and rewire our brains for joy, thanks to the neuroplasticity of brains leading to neurogenesis. One approach is to increase our BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor).
I hope you might customize and incorporate these established principles into your life that might contribute to your physical and mental health.
Please pass along these simple yet vital messages to your friends, colleagues, and loved ones. Let’s spread love and care to heal our emotional wounds collectively.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
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