Mental and emotional health continue to be hot topics these days. In this week’s blog we give an overview of what is meant by mental health and emotional health, and how we can use this understanding to provide people with the right type of well-being support.
Mental vs. emotional health—what’s the difference?
While we sometimes use the terms “mental health” and “emotional health” interchangeably, they really are two different things:
Mental health is an overarching term which includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being; it affects how we think, feel, and act.1 At WebMD Health Services we align with the American Psychological Association’s (APA) definition of mental health, described as emotional well-being, good behavioral adjustment, relative freedom from anxiety and disabling symptoms, and a capacity to establish constructive relationships and cope with the ordinary demands and stresses of life (APA, 2018).
Mental health is distinct from mental illness, which refers to a diagnosable mental disorder, like clinical depression, clinical anxiety, substance use disorder, eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Emotional health is a subset or aspect of mental health and refers to our “ability to cope with both positive and negative emotions, including our awareness of them.” In general, emotionally healthy people tend to have good coping mechanisms for negative emotions.
Mental and emotional health work as a sort of tag team. Mental health helps us process information; emotional health is our ability to manage and express feelings which are based upon the information we’ve processed. Sometimes conditions we might be experiencing can hinder our ability to regulate our emotions. For example, if our cognitive functioning is impaired by anxiety, we might respond out of character to a last-minute change in plans or having to meet a new person.
How can we boost emotional health?
We certainly can’t control every situation in life and experiencing “negative” emotions is part of being human. Fortunately, there are things we can do to work on our emotional wellness so we can handle the challenges life throws our way and respond appropriately. The National Institutes of Health Emotional Wellness Toolkit has some great tips for boosting emotional health, including ways to work on resilience, reduce stress, get quality sleep, strengthen social connections, cope with loss, and practice mindfulness.
What can organizations do to support emotional health?
Organizations can do many things to support employees’ emotional health. We’ve rounded up the top seven ways to best support employee emotional health below:
- Destigmatize conversations on mental health. Leaders, directors, and managers can make an impact by normalizing the conversation and sharing personal stories, when appropriate.
- Encourage healthy behaviors. Emotional health can benefit from prioritizing healthy habits like consuming whole foods, moving throughout the day, practicing good sleep hygiene and seeking out social connections.
- Offer resiliency training. Resilience is our ability to deal with adversity and recover quickly after experiencing a challenging time, and it’s key to helping employees cope in the workplace. Resiliency training can help employees build skills to manage emotions, remain calm, cope with stress, take on new challenges, reframe setbacks, and improve thought processes.
- Utilize your corporate well-being program. Well-being programs offer a range of tools to support emotional health and help employees improve their ability to deal with challenging situations. If you don’t have access to a well-being program, you can still support employees with standalone, or point solutions, many of which are offered by health plans.
- Provide stress management support. Stress is an inevitable part of life, and a certain amount of stress can spur us to do our best work. But when it becomes unmanageable, it can lead to burnout. Some tools you can offer employees to reduce stress include:
- Mindfulness or meditation apps
- Virtual or onsite yoga or tai chi classes
- Access to a health coach
- Give easy access to mental health professionals. Employees should know that they don’t need to be having a mental health crisis to benefit from regularly discussing emotions with an impartial resource. Working with therapists via apps, chat, and text are convenient ways to tend to our mental health just as we do our physical health.
- Urge employees to take a break. It goes without saying, but an important aspect of managing emotions includes the ability to turn off work for a while. Encourage employees to take advantage of paid time off and perhaps add a mental health day or two to your benefits package.
How to support managers’ emotional health.
This is a group that deserves special attention when it comes to emotional health. Managers absorb stress from employees who report to them and respond to demands from those above them. You can support them with:
- Forums that allow them to talk about stress and seek out social support.
- Mental health first aid trainings that help them better detect and respond to the mental health challenges their employees are experiencing.
- Encouragement to seek self-care. Communicate that getting enough sleep and exercise, eating well, and practicing self-care are not indulgent.
Finally, make sure all employees are aware of the mental health resources your organization offers. We often find that lack of resource awareness is one of the most significant obstacles preventing employees from using their mental health benefits.
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One last note: our 2024 Workplace Survey finds that mental health continues to be a concern, especially for younger generations. Compared with other generations in the workforce, Gen Z (18-29 years old) reported the lowest levels of mental health and 48% of Gen Z survey respondents indicated their mental health fell between “poor” and “fair.”
It’s estimated that Gen Z will make up about 30% of the U.S. workforce by 2030, which underscores the importance of creating an organizational culture that supports employee mental health. Leaders must set the tone and stress that caring for our emotional and mental health is as important as caring for our physical health. Employers can support the emotional aspects of mental health by giving employees the tools to cope with stress, setbacks, and challenges.
Contact us at connect@webmd.net to learn more about how you can support the mental and emotional health of your employees.
