Emotional support

Emotional Support

Emotional support is a process in which one communicates or cares for another person through verbal and nonverbal ways, offering empathy, comfort, and acceptance. It is a remedy that helps us cope with daily problems, disappointments, stress, or pains and makes us feel happy.

According to research in the US, around 80% of adults aged 18 to 34 said they always need emotional support. Giving emotional support is not always easy. Not every person have the capability to listen carefully and respond empathetically. It requires a person who listens without judgment and focuses on the needs of the person seeking support. Check out our Listening experiences – and receive emotional care and support on your terms, and when you need it.

Different types of emotional support

Emotional support is of different types. Some of them are as follows

Active Listening

Active listening means carefully listening to others' problems. People may feel satisfied when they assure that other people listen to them attentively. For instance, a person can show interest through active listening by:

Changing body texture such as turning their body towards them, relaxing their face, etc.
Nodding with their words and making arguments if required.
Asking questions if something is unclear and to path and recipient
Summarizing what they have said.

Empathizing and validating

Showing empathy towards other problems is an integral part of emotional support. Although it's challenging to validate others' emotions if that person has not experienced them earlier. So, while dealing with such situations, one should always be honest. Hence, the following phrases can be used in someone's pain:

I can feel how difficult the situation is.
I felt really sorry to hear about this.
It isn't easy to handle such conditions.
That must be such a challenging case.

Strategizing

Strategizing is one of the critical parts of emotional support. While providing emotional support, it is essential to move forward strategically. Instead of advising someone, try to listen to them seriously. They may be looking for someone who can listen to their problems to process what they are going through. For instance, if they want to get advice, several questions may ask such as:

Is there anything that irritates you the most?
What are possible solutions that you want?
Can you think of any way that would work best right now?
Would you like my advice?

Why do people need emotional support?

Emotional support is a great motivational tool that can convert someone's life from darkness to light. As human beings, we sometimes require support. It does not matter what other people say about it. But in the true sense, everybody seeks some sort of validation from others.

The people who claim they don't care what other people think of them are lying. They need at least one source of validation. It is this validation that provides emotional support.

Hence, emotional support is an integral part of people's lives, and it plays a significant role in their success. However, if you want to get emotional support, you don't need the support of the entire world, only one person is enough.

Benefits of Emotional Support

Receiving emotional support is vital to maintaining a healthy relationship. Researchers have shown that having emotional support in your life can benefit your mental and physical health. Here are a few more benefits:

Most mental health issues nowadays revolve around anxiety and depression. Emotional support helps us cope with stress and psychological distress. There has been a strong link between low anxiety and depression levels and high emotional support.
Emotional support has a positive impact on our health. There is strong evidence that social and emotional support from others can protect our health by improving our emotional balance.
Sharing our thoughts with others can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, faster recovery from surgery, and strengthen our immune system.
Having higher emotional support decrease the mortality rate and can increase longevity.
Strong emotional support can boost physical health as well as emotional well-being. We need support for good emotional health, as it gives us a sense of belonging during difficult times.

Summary: emotional support

Emotional support is a technique that cannot be replaced with therapists or medical treatment. Remember, different situations call for different types of support. But the bigger issue is that right people are not always available at the right time for you. They may be far away, unavailable, busy with your problems or you may simple not have close people, to give you emotional support.

Here, on Emotions Market we have a solution for that. You can explore emotional support experiences from emotional experience creators on emotions.market. We are not therapists and do not offer any medical treatment. We only deal with emotions.