These are times of extreme anxiety and isolation, so feeling worried and lonely just makes sense. Good mental health doesn’t mean feeling happy all the time. This Mental Health Week, let’s name, express and deal with our emotions— even the uncomfortable ones. Because heavy feelings lighten when you put them into words. Embrace all of your emotions—whether they feel good or challenging or difficult. It’s all part of being human.
This week—and every week after—don’t go uncomfortably numb. #GetReal about how you feel. And name it, don’t numb it.
CMHA Mental Health Week 2021 – Fact Sheet About Mental Health Week
• Every year since 1951, CMHA has hosted Mental Health Week in the first full week in May, making 2021 the 70th year.
• This year, CMHA Mental Health Week is being observed May 3-9, 2021.
• Mental Health Week is a Canadian tradition, with communities, schools and
workplaces rallying to celebrate, protect and promote mental health.
• The core objective of Mental Health Week is to promote mental health because mental health is something we can promote and protect, not just something we can lose.
About the 2021 CMHA Mental Health Week campaign
• The theme of this year’s Mental Health Week is understanding our emotions.
• Recognizing, labeling and accepting our feelings are all part of protecting and
promoting good mental health for everyone.
• Naming, expressing and dealing with our emotions—even when they’re
uncomfortable—can make us feel better.
A time of unprecedented stress and anxiety
• People are experiencing unprecedented stresses and feelings of anxiety related to COVID-19.
• 40% of Canadians say their mental health has deteriorated since the onset of the
pandemic.
About the basics of emotions
• Emotional literacy is the ability to recognize how we feel, understand our feelings, label them and express them.
• When we are emotionally literate, we are better able to manage our emotions, or “regulate” them.
• Although we “feel” our emotions in the body and may recognize they are there, sometimes our emotions can be hard to put into words.2
• An event can trigger emotions very quickly, automatically, and even unconsciously.
• Emotional events can trigger changes in our facial expressions, muscle tone, and voice tone, in our autonomic nervous system that regulates our heart and respiratory rate, digestion, perspiration, and in our endocrine system, which involves our hormones.
About putting emotions into words
• Scientists call the act of putting feelings into words affect labelling.
• Saying “I feel sad” or writing about what’s upsetting you are both examples of
affect labelling.
• When we put our feelings into words, we are actually constructing and making meaning of our emotions. Without words for emotions, our feelings might seem unclear to us.
• Affect labelling has been compared to the effect of hitting the brakes when driving a car. When you put feelings into words, you are putting the brakes on your emotional responses.
How affect labeling works
• When people put their feelings and thoughts about upsetting experiences into language, their physical and mental health often improve. Writing about our feelings can reduce physician visits and positively influence our immune function. Writing can also reduce cortisol (stress) levels and negative mood states
• Giving attention to our feelings can help ease anxiety and decrease rumination (or obsessive thinking).
• Naming, talking and writing about our emotions helps to regulate them by decreasing our anger or fear response.
• Naming our emotions lowers amygdala activity – the part of the brain involved in the fear response – and activates the prefrontal region of the brain thought to be involved in inhibiting behavior and processing emotions.
• Affect labeling can reduce the anxiety response in our bodies; for instance, talking about your feelings before giving a speech can help reduce your physiological stress response and anxiety.
About uncomfortable emotions
• Although negative emotional states like sadness are not usually considered desirable in Western society, these emotions can actually help us adapt.
• The experience of “negative” emotions has traditionally been linked to physical illness and decline. However, research shows that our health is based on a complex interplay of positive and negative emotions and that good physical health is promoted when we feel both “the good with the bad.”10
• Expressing so-called negative emotions can have a positive impact on our relationships.
• Expressing “negative” emotions – such as anxiety, fear and sadness – increases support from others, builds trust in new relationships and deepens intimacy.11
If emotions are overwhelming, please seek support
• Naming – or labelling – our emotions can help us understand and process them. It can even make us feel better. However, if your emotions are overwhelming, persistent and/or are interfering with your daily life, it is important to seek mental health supports.
source: mentalhealthweek.ca / Canadian Mental Health Association