Mental-Emotional
Well-Being: Practices
Practices to Cultivate Mental-Emotional Well-Being
This section includes are six science-backed ways to cultivate your mental-emotional well-being.
Depending on where your mental-emotional well-being has room to grow, different practices will be more beneficial to you. Think about the ways you want to grow in your mental-emotional well-being and, as you read through these practices, consider which are resonating with you or seem like they might be helpful. [Each of the six below is linked to it’s section on this page for quick reference.]
Mental-Emotional Well-Being:
Our relationship with our minds and how we do (or don’t) work with our minds
Our ability to cope with emotions and life in healthy ways
Our ability to experience (and create!) positive emotions, moods, and thoughts
Our views of ourselves
How we approach and respond to the world around us
Practice 1: Work with your mind
Learning to work with your mind is essential for many components of well-being. You don’t need to be a meditation master, but having some basic skills and tools go a long way for working on other areas of our well-being.
(a) Mindful Self-Awareness
Self-awareness – of our thoughts and emotions, in particular – is essential. Being able to identify unhelpful thoughts and emotions, and then actively engage in helpful ones, is key to many practices that support our well-being. (We can develop self-awareness of our thoughts and emotions through mindfulness practices. Though this can come naturally with time and informal practice, mindfulness practices are a more targeted way to develop this awareness.)
If you don’t currently have a mindfulness practice of just 10 minutes a day, and if you haven’t looked into mindfulness and how it can help with our mental-emotional awareness and well-being, I strongly recommend starting. It’s never too late to start, you don’t have to have an all-or-nothing approach. Some is infinitely better than none!
There are numerous mindfulness apps out there (Headspace, Calm, and Waking Up are all apps that I’ve tried and enjoyed), and countless books.
Books are a great place to learn about mindfulness, but actually practicing it is different than learning about it, which is why I recommend audio-based meditation practices. You can also look on Spotify, Podcast apps, etc., and find countless meditations. I personally really enjoy Dr. Tara Brach’s meditations.
(b) Cultivating Positive Emotions
Positive emotions are a prime indicator of flourishing, and they can be cultivated or learned to improve well-being (Fredrickson, 2001).
Positive emotions can undo the harmful effects of negative emotions and promote resilience (Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004).
Increasing positive emotions helps individuals build physical, intellectual, psychological, and social resources that lead to this resilience and overall well-being.
‘Positive emotions’ encompasses many emotions beyond happiness: joy, excitement, interest, hope, and contentment. Each of those positive emotions can arise from various experiences, practices, and ways of thinking or being in the world. When we improve our habitual thinking and acting to incorporate more positivity, that’s when we improve our mental-emotional well-being. That’s the integration piece – turning the positive from a state (experience) to a trait (ingrained habit).
(c) Growth Mindset
Actively cultivating positive thoughts and emotions doesn’t mean bypassing the hard stuff (also known as toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing).
Being able to face, process, cope with, and heal from the hard stuff is essential. And, being able to grow from the hard stuff is crucial. That points to a growth mindset.
You may have heard this phrase from Dr. Carol Dweck, and this famous Ted Talk is a good introduction to the concept. 8 Steps to Cultivating a Growth Mindset.
Note on the Practices that Follow
A little awareness of our thoughts and emotions goes a long way. Most of us have enough self-awareness to engage in the below practices. However, that doesn’t mean some of these won’t be challenging.
If you find any of these practices to be “triggering,” or to bring up a strong negative reaction in you, please reach out for support and to discuss potential modifications. Alternatively, find a couple of these that work for you – you don’t need to do them all.
Practice 2: Savoring
Savoring is attending to, appreciating, and enhancing positive experiences that occur in one’s life. Savoring is about becoming aware of the experience of pleasure and appreciating the positive emotions derived from that experience (Bryant and Veroff, 2007).
Types of Savoring
The past (reminiscence about past positive events)
The present (bringing your attention to the current moment)
The future (anticipation of upcoming positive events)
Note: Comparing past events to the present moment can be a beneficial savoring strategy, but it works only when the present is better than the past. When the present experience is perceived as worse than similar past experiences, the ability to savor can be thwarted.
Levels of Savoring
Experiences (sensations, emotions, perceptions, thoughts, behaviors)
Processes (connect a positive event to positive emotions)
Responses (amplifying or dampening the intensity and duration of positive emotions)
The following elements should be present in order to develop and experience your savoring ability (Smith & Bryant, 2017)
Being able to connect to the present moment
Freedom from urgent social responsibilities
Basic physical and psychological needs are covered
Presence of mindfulness and meta-awareness regarding positive experiences
Science-backed benefits of cultivating your capacity to savor:
Counterbalances the experience of unpleasant emotions during stressful events (Zautra, Affleck, Tennen, Reich, & Davis, 2005)
Boosts happiness in people experiencing fewer daily positive events (Jose, Lim, & Bryant, 2012)
Predicts greater levels of positive affect and self-esteem in primary school children (Bryant & Veroff, 2007)
Predicts higher levels of life satisfaction, happiness, and perceived control in adolescents and older adults (Bryant, 2003)
Predicts decreased depressive symptoms in older adults (Smith & Hollinger-Smith, 2015)
Predicts reduced levels of depression and anxiety in Chinese caregivers (Hou et al., 2016)
Predicts decreased levels of obsessive-compulsive disorder and social phobia in U.S. undergraduates (Eisner, Johnson, & Carver, 2009)
Positively relates to higher levels of positive affect and life satisfaction (Quoidbach, Berry, Hansenne, & Micolajczk, 2010)
Positively influences satisfaction in long-distance romantic relationships through increased positive affect (Borelli, Rasmussen, Burkhart, & Sbarra, 2015)
Relational savoring, such as explicit disclosure of positive events to a partner, increases the quality of the relationship and levels of self-esteem (Pagania et al., 2015)
Helps people balance family and career responsibilities more effectively (Camgoz, 2014)
Promotes positive relationships when experiencing a wholehearted response to a narrated positive event by other people (Reis, Smith, Tsai, Rodriguez, & Maniaci, 2010)
Savoring Practices
Memory building: Solidify your positive memories through journaling, sharing with others, taking photos, etc.
Self-congratulation: Savoring individual or collective success by relishing achievements is another way to amplify positive feelings.
Sensory-perceptual sharpening: Purposefully focusing attention on specific features of an experience can enable people to deepen their positive experience or explore it in more detail. Example: listening to the ocean, tasting a delicious meal, soaking in a hot bath on a cold day.
Comparing: Taking time to reflect on how a particular experience is better is another savoring strategy. You can compare the experience to a different setting (counterfactual comparison), the past (temporal comparison), or what other people experience (social comparison) to increase and prolong positive emotions.
Sharing: Spend time with people you care about (Kok et al., 2013). Intentionally do something with them that will facilitate positive emotions or be an uplifting experience. Savor that experience and those emotions during the moment. Continue to Savor and Share after that experience by reflecting back on it with the people you care about.
Practice 3: Gratitude
Gratitude isn’t politeness. It is an orientation towards life: a habit of awareness and a pattern of thinking that recognizes and appreciates the fortunate aspects of our circumstances.
Gratitude is a felt sense of wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation for life (Emmons & Shelton, 2002) (though it has been described also as a positive emotion, an attitude, a virtue, a psychological state, a personality trait, a character strength, and coping response; Skrzelinska & Ferreira, 2020).
Why is gratitude important?
In the words of Dr. Rick Hanson, the mind is like velcro for negative experiences and teflon for positive ones: we’re hardwired to focus on the negative and forget the positive.
We have to actively focus on the positive in life because we have a tendency to acclimate to the good, and over-focus on the bad. That helped our ancestors survive. But in our modern world, it doesn’t do us as much good. The good news is that our brains are adaptable, and we can learn to consistently remember the good in our lives.
Sleepwalking through life contributes to hedonic adaptation: getting used to the good around us to the point where we don’t gain as much pleasure, joy, and positive emotions from the good in our life. Practicing gratitude helps us to counteract hedonic adaptation.
“Gratitude is important not only because it helps us feel good but also because it inspires us to do good” (Emmons, 2013, p. vii). Gratitude prompts us to act in prosocial ways that benefit ourselves as well as others, which strengthens our social relationships (Newman et al., 2021; Kersten, 2021).
Gratitude is one of the traits we can learn and cultivate that is most strongly associated with good mental health and overall life satisfaction – more so than traits like optimism, compassion, or hopefulness. An abundance of research (e.g., Emmons & McCullough, 2003; Emmons & Mishra, 2011; Grant & Gino, 2010; Lyubomirsky, 2007) indicates that gratitude is associated with higher levels of happiness, hopefulness, energy, and other positive emotions.
Research examining the impact of gratitude interventions (e.g., journals, letters, visits) shows that simple gratitude practices tend to result in small but meaningful improvements in personal well-being (Davis et al., 2016)
Gratitude Practices
Gratitude journal:
At least every other day, take 5-10 minutes to write down at least 3 things you are grateful for, including why you are grateful for each thing. Be specific, going for depth over breadth.
Here is a well-researched exercise adapted from John Gottman’s work in expressing appreciation. In this exercise you’ll practice cultivating appreciation for a specific person in your life. Follow the instructions in this worksheet.
Gratitude letters:
pdf instructions from Greater Good Science Center; 1 letter/week for 6 weeks.
Gratitude reminders:
To turn gratitude into a habit, set your phone to give you reminders throughout your day (three could be a good starting point) to prompt you to reflect on something you are grateful for.
You could add reflection questions to the reminder, like “What can I be grateful for in this moment?” Allow the positive feelings that come up to sink in (savor!).
Try the Gratitude Journal 365 app for a well-structured combination of many of the strategies discussed above and more. Here it is for Android and iPhone.
Helpful Tips
Pick a time to do it every day, integrating it into a currently established routine.
It’s okay to repeat items, just try to elaborate on what you’ve written before.
Try focusing on different categories of things you are grateful for.
If journaling with pen and paper (recommended!)...
Bring your journal with you everywhere you go.
Find something you want to write in.
Shop around until you find a journal that you like.
Practice 4: Self-Compassion
Having compassion for oneself is very similar to having compassion for others (which is covered in the Relational Well-Being section).
Instead of ignoring, shaming, or wallowing in your own pain and suffering, self-compassion means you stop to tell yourself “this is really difficult right now,” and then ask yourself “how can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?”
“Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings.” - Dr. Kristen Neff
Self-compassion is not:
(from Dr. Kristen Neff’s extensive work on self-compassion):
Self-pity
When individuals feel self-pity, they become immersed in their own problems and forget that others have similar problems.
Self-compassion, on the other hand, allows one to see the related experiences of self and other without these feelings of isolation and disconnection.
Self-indulgence
Many people say they are reluctant to be self-compassionate because they’re afraid they would let themselves get away with anything. People are often very hard on themselves when they notice something they want to change because they think they can shame themselves into action – the self-flagellation approach. However, this approach often backfires if you can’t face difficult truths about yourself because you are so afraid of hating yourself if you do.
In contrast, the care intrinsic to compassion provides a powerful motivating force for growth and change, while also providing the safety needed to see the self clearly without fear of self-condemnation.
Self-esteem
Self-esteem refers to our sense of self-worth, perceived value, or how much we like ourselves. Attempts to raise self-esteem may result in narcissistic, self-absorbed behavior, or lead us to put others down in order to feel better about ourselves.
Self-compassion is not based on self-evaluations. People feel compassion for themselves because all human beings deserve compassion and understanding, not because they possess some particular set of traits (pretty, smart, talented, and so on).
Research indicates that in comparison to self-esteem, self-compassion is associated with greater emotional resilience, more accurate self-concepts, more caring relationship behavior, as well as less narcissism and reactive anger.
Elements of Self-Compassion
Self-kindness
Self-compassion entails being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or berating ourselves with self-criticism. Self-compassionate people recognize that being imperfect, failing, and experiencing life difficulties is inevitable, so they tend to be gentle with themselves when confronted with painful experiences rather than getting angry when life falls short of set ideals.
People cannot always be or get exactly what they want. When this reality is denied or fought against suffering increases in the form of stress, frustration and self-criticism. When this reality is accepted with sympathy and kindness, greater emotional equanimity is experienced.
Common Humanity
Self-compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience – something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone.
Mindfulness
Self-compassion requires taking a balanced approach to our negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated.
This balanced stance stems from the process of relating personal experiences to those of others who are also suffering, thus putting our own situation into a larger perspective. It also stems from the willingness to observe our negative thoughts and emotions with openness and clarity, so that they are held in mindful awareness.
We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. On the other hand, mindfulness requires that we not be “over-identified” with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negative reactivity.
Self-Compassion Practice
I strongly recommend checking out the list of audio recorded practices on Dr. Kristen Neff’s website to get started with self-compassion practices. https://self-compassion.org/category/exercises/
4 Steps of Self-Compassion:
Pause to identify your suffering (recognition)
Acknowledge your suffering (mindfulness)
Recognize this suffering as a shared human experience (common humanity / empathy)
Offer self-kindness: place a hand over your heart and say to yourself “may I be gentle with myself.”
Practice 5: Best Self Exercise
The “best possible self” exercise allows us to clarify our goals and priorities, painting a detailed picture of where we want to be in our lives. This picture should be ambitious but realistic so that it motivates us to make changes toward a more purposeful life.
[From the Greater Good in Action page]
Best Self Exercise
Take a moment to imagine your life in the future. What is the best possible life you can imagine? Consider all of the relevant areas of your life, such as your career, academic work, relationships, hobbies, and health. What would happen in these areas of your life in your best possible future?
For the next 15 minutes, write continuously about what you imagine this best possible future to be. Use the instructions below to help guide you through this process.
It may be easy for this exercise to lead you to examine how your current life may not match this best possible future. You may be tempted to think about ways in which accomplishing goals has been difficult for you in the past, or about financial/time/social barriers to being able to make these accomplishments happen. For the purpose of this exercise, however, we encourage you to focus on the future—imagine a brighter future in which you are your best self and your circumstances change just enough to make this best possible life happen.
This exercise is most useful when it is very specific—if you think about a new job, imagine exactly what you would do, who you would work with, and where it would be. The more specific you are, the more engaged you will be in the exercise and the more you’ll get out of it.
Be as creative and imaginative as you want, and don’t worry about grammar or spelling.
Practice 6: Connect with Nature
“Forest bathing” emerged in the 1980s in Japan (shinrin-yoku). We all know that being in nature usually feels pretty good: the sounds of the forest, the smells of the trees and clean air, the rustling leaves – it is both restorative and invigorating.
Forest bathing isn’t about exercise. It is about simply being in nature and awakening our senses – hearing, sight, taste, touch, smell – to the world around us.
An abundance of research demonstrates the benefits of time in nature, though I think most of us innately understand how good we feel after a couple hours in nature.
Forest Bathing
Leave technology behind, if you can. Or keep it on airplane mode and don’t plan to take any pictures.
Find a spot in the forest where you are safe, but where you can wonder somewhat aimlessly.
It is important to find a spot that suits you and your preferences. Think about the kinds of plants you like to be around, whether you want to be near a stream, etc. Find a spot that sounds appealing to you.
Walk and wander slowly, observing everything around you with all of your senses.
Close your eyes and listen to the sounds. Take a deep breath and notice the smells.
Touch the trees you walk by; feel the petals of flowers.
Stop to observe the patterns of branches, ferns, moss, flowers, pine cones, cacti (yes, you can do this in a desert!), and any other flora around you.
Hear any birds? Hear the wind through the trees or over the hills?
Once you have learned how to forest bathe, you’ll find you can do it anywhere: in a park or garden, walking through your neighborhood, or with the plants at the doctor’s office.
Additional Ways to Connect with Nature
While I would advocate for everyone to live fully immersed in nature, I recognize that is not possible for most of us in the modern world. Thus, I’ve tried to focus these practices on ways we can connect with nature, even if living in the city and only getting to visit “nature” every now and then.
I strongly recommend two practices for helping connect us with nature:
Listening to nature sound music.
Having and caring for houseplants.
First, it’s super easy these days to look up “nature sounds” on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you’re able and find an abundance of options for listening to the ocean, bird sounds, a stream, the forest, the desert, or any other ecosystem or spot in nature. I recommend finding a track you like, setting up a comfortable spot to rest in your home, and then closing your eyes while you listen to the sounds of nature. You can also do this while working, taking a bath, doing the dishes, or anything else. It is quite calming and rejuvenating.
Second, I am a strong advocate for getting your hands in some dirt. Not all of us can have a garden, but having just a couple houseplants can be a great way to reap some of the same benefits. Potting the plants, watering them every week, and maybe even propagating them to have more plants or give some away – it’s all very akin to gardening. The point is to bring some living greenery into your home and cultivate a mini relationship with nature through caring for those plants.