We often think about heart health in terms of food, movement, sleep and exercise, however there is another piece of the picture that deserves more attention – how we actually feel as we move through our days. Your heart doesn’t exist separately from your emotional life; it responds to excitement, anticipation, fear, frustration, connection, disappointment and joy, and while stress is a completely normal part of being human, the problem begins when little stresses keep accumulating without enough opportunity for the body and mind to come back down again.
That is why emotional wellness isn’t about attempting to be happy all the time. It is about developing the ability to move through life’s inevitable challenges without allowing every difficult moment to take up permanent residence in your nervous system.
Notice the stress you have normalised
Some of the biggest sources of stress aren’t dramatic events at all. They’re the tiny things we barely notice – the unanswered message sitting on your phone, the conversation you keep replaying in your head, the news you consumed first thing in the morning, the appointment you’re worried about, the person who drains you, the constant feeling that you should be doing more, and that strange sense that you’re always slightly behind.
Individually, these things may seem insignificant, however emotionally they can create a background hum of tension that follows you from morning until bedtime. One of the most heart-supportive things you can do is simply start noticing what repeatedly raises your internal stress level. You don’t have to fix everything immediately; awareness comes first, because once you recognise the patterns quietly draining you, you have something you can actually work with.
Stop carrying tomorrow into today
One of the most exhausting habits we develop is mentally living in the future. We rehearse conversations that haven’t happened, anticipate problems that may never occur and create elaborate solutions for situations that don’t yet exist, while the present moment quietly passes us by.
When you notice yourself doing this, ask yourself, ‘is there anything I actually need to do about this right now?’ If the answer is yes, take the next practical step, however if the answer is no, gently bring your attention back to what is actually happening around you. There is something powerful about separating preparation from worry, because preparation can be useful whereas worry without action simply consumes energy.
Give your emotions somewhere to go
Emotional suppression can be surprisingly exhausting. When something upsets you, you don’t necessarily need to analyse it for hours – neither do you need to pretend it didn’t happen. Attempting to give difficult emotions a little space by writing down what you’re feeling, talking honestly with someone you trust, taking a quiet walk without your phone, or simply acknowledging that something has genuinely affected you can each be helpful options.
There is a difference between feeling an emotion and becoming consumed by it. You can acknowledge anger without becoming an angry person, feel disappointed without allowing disappointment to define your day, and experience sadness while still making space for moments of connection, beauty and gratitude.
Emotional resilience isn’t the absence of difficult emotions; it’s the ability to experience them without being completely overtaken by them.
Create emotional boundaries
This may be one of the most underrated forms of heart care. Not every problem belongs to you, not every request deserves an immediate response, not every argument needs to be won, and not every person needs unrestricted access to your emotional energy.
A useful question to ask ourselves if we’re not sure about the best way to respond is ‘how important is it?’
Sometimes the healthiest thing you can say is, ‘I’m not able to deal with that right now,’ or, ‘I’ll think about it and get back to you.’
These aren’t selfish statements; they are boundaries. When we continually say yes while internally wanting to say no, our emotional life can become filled with resentment, frustration and exhaustion. Protecting your time and energy isn’t about becoming less caring; it can actually allow you to be more present for the people and things that genuinely matter.
Build small moments of emotional recovery
We tend to think recovery requires a weekend away, a holiday or an afternoon at a spa, however your nervous system doesn’t necessarily need a dramatic escape. It needs regular opportunities to shift out of high alert, and those moments can be surprisingly small.
A few ideas – sit outside with your morning drink rather than immediately reaching for your phone, take five minutes between work and home to decompress, listen to music while preparing dinner, spend a few minutes talking to someone you love without either of you looking at a screen, or take a slow walk and deliberately notice what is happening around you. These moments may appear insignificant, although they create psychological breathing space, and sometimes that’s exactly what a busy heart needs.
Change the conversation inside your head
Pay attention to the way you speak to yourself, because your internal dialogue can influence how you experience everyday stress. Would you talk to your best friend the way you sometimes talk to yourself? Probably not, yet many of us become remarkably harsh when the conversation is happening inside our own heads.
Attempt replacing ‘I should be coping better’ with ‘this is a challenging period and I’m doing my best,’ or replace ‘I haven’t achieved enough today’ with ‘I’ve done what I could with the energy I had.’ This isn’t about pretending everything is wonderful; it is about developing an inner voice that is realistic, compassionate and supportive rather than relentlessly critical.
Let connection become part of your heart care
Human beings are not designed to navigate everything alone. A meaningful conversation, a shared laugh, time with friends, belonging to a community or simply knowing that someone has your back can change the emotional texture of an entire day. Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do isn’t to find another technique or another piece of information; it’s to pick up the phone, ask someone how they really are, tell someone you love them or invite a friend for a walk.
Mindfulness can also help us develop the ability to pause rather than automatically react. A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis of eight randomised controlled trials involving 623 people with coronary artery disease found that mindfulness-based interventions were associated with improvements in anxiety, depression and stress. 1
Give yourself permission to slow down
Perhaps one of the greatest emotional challenges of modern life is that being busy has somehow become associated with being valuable. We rush from one task to another, fill every quiet moment and sometimes even feel guilty when we aren’t being productive, however your body doesn’t know that your overflowing calendar is evidence of your importance; it simply experiences demand.
So occasionally, deliberately do less. Leave some space in your day, eat without multitasking, walk without needing to achieve anything, sit somewhere beautiful and don’t take a photograph, or have a conversation that has nowhere particular to go. Your heart doesn’t need every minute of your life to be productive.
Make emotional wellness a daily practice
You don’t need to eliminate stress from your life to support your heart, because that life doesn’t exist. Instead, think about creating a little more space between the stressful event and your response – notice what is happening, pause, breathe, decide what deserves your energy and let go of what doesn’t.
Connect with people who nourish you, protect your emotional boundaries, and give yourself permission to recover without feeling that you have somehow failed. Emotional wellness is about becoming better at moving through stress, processing what happens, protecting your emotional energy and returning to a place of calm.
Perhaps that is one of the most valuable forms of heart care there is – not simply asking how long your heart can keep going – instead creating a life that gives your heart more moments in which it can feel safe, connected, supported and at ease.
See you on this week’s #AlivewithFi 🙂
Fi Jamieson-Folland D.O., I.N.H.C., is The LifeStyle Aligner. She’s an experienced practitioner since 1992 in Europe, Asia and New Zealand as a qualified Osteopath, Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, speaker, educator, writer, certified raw vegan gluten-free chef, and Health Brand Ambassador.
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1 ‘Effect of mindfulness-based interventions on anxiety, depression, and stress in patients with coronary artery disease – a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials’ — Frontiers in Psychology, 2024.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1435243/full?utm_source