Practicing and Increasing Your Emotional Awareness

Sometimes, our emotions get the best of us. We feel the physical sting of a hurtful comment and don’t know where to turn when we feel two things at once. Emotional awareness provides a roadmap that moves you from experiencing an emotion to understanding it.

In this article, we’ll explain what emotional awareness looks like and how you can put it into practice. By the end, we hope you’ll have the tools you need to start responding to your personal world with intention.

What is Emotional Awareness?

Emotional awareness is the ability to identify and understand one’s own emotions, which is a key component of emotional intelligence. Higher levels of emotional awareness allow us to regulate and respond well to stressors.

Practically, emotional awareness can influence many aspects of our lives, including how we interact with others, how we make decisions, and how happy we are in our routines.

We can measure emotional awareness using LEAS, or the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale [*]. These levels include the following:

1. Physical Sensations: We’re most likely to notice physical sensations in our bodies before we realize what’s happening mentally or emotionally. At this base level, you might notice symptoms like a racing heart, sweaty palms, or shaking.
2. Action Tendencies: Following physical symptoms, you might feel a desire to act, whether positively or negatively. You might want to throw something, yell, or slam a door.
3. Single Emotions: At this stage, you’ll start to recognize the feeling. You’ll become aware that you’re angry, frustrated, sad, or something else.
4. Blends of Emotion: By this stage, you should be able to organize your thoughts and start understanding the emotions you’re experiencing, even when they’re conflicting. You might realize you can feel happy for someone over their success, but envious of it at the same time.
5. Social Perspective: The last stage marks the highest level of awareness. You can understand your emotions and those of others.
   

Why Emotional Awareness is Important

Without emotional awareness, we tend to respond to external factors too quickly and automatically. We might “snap” or do something we’ll regret later on, so it’s important to understand why it’s an important aspect of emotional intelligence.

Helps regulate your emotions

Regulation is only possible when you understand what emotions you’re experiencing. Exercising emotional awareness enhances our introceptive awareness, the ability to comprehend bodily signals related to emotions [*].

Instead of becoming overwhelmed, you can step back and understand that what you’re feeling (maybe anxiety or stress) is an external, passing event.

Improves communication and relationships

When we become too emotional, it can feel impossible to communicate. Sometimes our emotions get the better of us, and we say things we don’t mean.

Developing emotional awareness helps us identify and differentiate primary and secondary emotions [*]. For instance, during an argument with a loved one, you might think you're angry, which is a secondary emotion. Reflection might reveal you’re actually hurt, perhaps by something they said or did.

The more you hone your emotional awareness, the better you can provide validation through empathy. At this stage, you can realize that it’s possible to have two conflicting perspectives while being respectful.

Supports better decision-making

Life involves tough choices, and we will face many. An emotionally aware person understands that logic and emotion are not opposites but signals guiding healthy decisions.

Gut feelings, for example, are more meaningful than we might assume. These hunches can manifest as physical sensations or somatic markers, which the body does to protect itself.

People who’ve developed higher emotional awareness can also filter out emotional noise. They can recognize when they’re experiencing irrelevant emotions (stemming from hunger, exhaustion, or an unrelated incident) and focus solely on the situation at hand.

Reduces stress and impulsive reactions

When we encounter something stressful, we often immediately slip into fight-or-flight mode [*]. We might feel trapped by impulse, and our stress might snowball into something unmanageable.

Emotional awareness allows us to identify physical sensations and name our feelings, which helps our rational brain step back in. When we understand what we are feeling, we feel more in control.

Practicing Emotional Awareness

Emotional awareness is a skill that requires practice. The more you apply it to your daily life, the better your skills improve. Here are a few ways you can practice emotional awareness.

Noticing your emotions

Noticing your emotions is the first step toward becoming more emotionally aware. One practical way to do this is through a body scan. Check in with yourself by noticing any physical responses you have to your environment.

Then, name your emotions and get specific. For example, if you’re feeling upset, narrow it down to the specific reason. Are you resentful of someone? Are you burned out or fed up? From here, you can start deciding the healthiest way to react to these emotions.

Noticing others’ emotions

Being emotionally aware involves noticing others' emotions and responding with kindness and empathy. Observe their micro-expressions—whether they furrow their brow or fidget. When you sense discomfort, adapt your tone, offer reassurance, or step back from the conversation.

Avoid projecting or attributing your emotions to others. Don’t assume how someone else feels. Instead, be upfront: ask, "I noticed you’re quieter than usual today. Would you like to share how you’re feeling?”

Sharing your emotions

Someone who is emotionally aware will share their feelings without “dumping” on someone else. They’ll use their emotions as an opportunity to relate and connect—not manipulate.

Sharing emotions can help resolve conflicts. Instead of blaming with, "You never listen to me! That’s why we fight," try saying, “When you interrupt me, I feel overlooked.” This vulnerability fosters more productive, less defensive conversations.

How to Increase Emotional Awareness

Increasing emotional awareness is like learning to play an instrument or ride a bike. It takes practice and experimentation. Here are a few ways to work on your emotional awareness.

Label your emotions

Affect labeling involves identifying and articulating emotions [*]. When we do this, it alters brain activity: the prefrontal cortex, responsible for focus and decision-making, becomes more active, while the amygdala, the alarm center, quiets down.

Just telling yourself, “Okay, I’m really frustrated right now,” puts you in a better position to accept the situation you’re experiencing.

Try practicing emotional granularity, the ability to be specific about one’s emotions. If you’re feeling “bad,” try to figure out what kind of bad it is. Maybe you’re actually exhausted, impatient, or even enraged.

Identify emotional triggers

Sometimes, we are triggered by the same things over and over. When we identify these triggers, we can learn how to handle them better or eliminate them entirely.

The next time you feel physical changes in your body or become mentally alert, observe what is happening around you. Did you just get bad news? Forget to do something important? See something on TV that reminded you of a bad experience?

Identify your triggers and reflect on your reactions. Are they intense or disproportionate? The more familiar you are with these triggers, the quicker you can work to eliminate them.

Practice mindfulness meditation

Being mindful allows us to process our emotions without judgment, and that’s just one of the benefits of meditation. Through meditation, we can work through difficult feelings and notice body signals before they escalate.

With meditation, the goal is to avoid emotional flooding and be more in tune with how your body reacts to stressors. You can try guided meditations, incorporate a body scan, or recite positive affirmations.

Pause and check in with yourself

Daily check-ins can put us in the right mindset to go about our day or be prepared for the next one. Instead of reacting to your environment, observe your experience.

Use the HALT tool, which requires that you check whether you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired before reacting to a stressor.

Practicing regular check-ins can help you establish an emotional baseline and identify patterns you want to eliminate.

Practice self-compassion

We are our harshest critics, and a negative self-image can be more damaging than helpful. When emotional, avoid self-judgment. Instead of saying, “I couldn’t control my emotions, so I’m crying,” be kind and say, “I’m overwhelmed and need to cry it out briefly.”

Find ways to self-soothe when you’re overwhelmed. You might take deep breaths, meditate for a few moments, or use an aroma inhaler.

Keep an emotion journal

Prefer to write about your feelings? Keep an emotion journal. Start with what works for you, whether that be free writing pages in the morning and evening. If you prefer, you can try a structured approach that outlines:

• What triggered you
• What sensations you felt in the moment
• The specific emotions you felt
• The significance of the event

Guided prompts can be helpful when you’re feeling “stuck” on what to write about.

Expand your emotional vocabulary

When you can assign a specific word to a feeling, you can process and understand it more effectively. Feelings lists are a helpful place to get started.

A simple way to reflect on your personal emotional spectrum is through a mood-tracking app or mood meter. These apps often plot emotions on an energy (high to low) and pleasantness (negative to positive) axis.

For example, a high-energy/unpleasant emotion might be anxiety, fury, or panic, while a low-energy/pleasant emotion might be security, tranquility, and calmness.

A rich emotional vocabulary puts you in a better position to downregulate intense feelings and identify triggers faster.

The Bottom Line

When we’re aware of our emotions, we have better control over how we respond to our environment. We’re less likely to overreact or do something counterproductive.

Learn more about how to manage your emotions by studying our feelings worksheets.

Sources:

1. Lane RD, Smith R. “Levels of Emotional Awareness: Theory and Measurement of a Socio-Emotional Skill.” Journal of Intelligence, 2021.
2. Füstös J, Gramann K, Herbert BM, Pollatos O. “On the embodiment of emotion regulation: interoceptive awareness facilitates reappraisal.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2012.
3. Thompson-Brenner H, Smith M, Brooks G, Franklin DR, Espel-Huynh H, Boswell JF. Mindful Emotion Awareness. Thompson-Brenner H, Smith M, Brooks G, Franklin DR, Espel-Huynh H, Boswell JF, eds. “The Renfrew Unified Treatment for Eating Disorders and Comorbidity.” Oxford Academic, 2021.
4. Roelofs K. “Freeze for action: neurobiological mechanisms in animal and human freezing.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2017.