Emotional Intelligence for Healthcare Providers: 5 Steps to Increase Your Resilience

Healthcare workers, like many other professionals, can experience depression, anxiety, and stress. These issues intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. One study reported that, among the healthcare workers surveyed:

• Nearly 65% had symptoms of depression

• Almost 52% reported anxiety

• About 41% reported stress 

In addition, an estimated 50% of healthcare providers report they feel burned out. Compassion fatigue — a type of burnout experienced by those in “helping professions” — is also common.

The good news is there are skills you can focus on to help build your resilience and better manage stress. Improving emotional intelligence is one of them.

What is emotional intelligence?

According to the original 1990 definition, from Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, emotional intelligence is the “ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.” 

When you learn to notice and label your emotions, you’re better able to decide how to respond to them. And you can manage how you express your emotions instead of your emotions controlling you. When you’re able to manage your emotions, how you interact with others and navigate difficult situations also improves. 

How can you increase your emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is a set of skills that can be taught. And research suggests that focusing on these skills can have a positive impact on work performance and workplace culture. 

Here are five steps you can follow to help you develop your emotional intelligence.

1. Recognize your emotions 

Before you can learn to manage how you express your emotions, you need to recognize them when they crop up. 

Your body can give you important clues about your emotions. Physical sensations may alert you to an emotion even before your brain has registered it. You might notice fluttering in your stomach when you feel anxious, or heaviness in your chest when you feel sad. 

2. Name your emotions

When you notice that you’re having a strong emotion, name it. For example, is the fluttering in your stomach related to anxiety or excitement? Notice patterns between your body sensations and the emotion they’re connected to. This will help you name emotions faster.

3. Tolerate strong emotions

Some emotions can be unpleasant to experience, especially when they’re intense. But you can learn to tolerate these feelings. And that will give you time to decide how to respond to them. Otherwise, you’re likely to react to them without thinking, just to get rid of the unpleasantness.

When you’re sitting with a strong emotion, the following coping skills may help:

• Mindfulness meditation: This practice can help you focus on the present moment and reduce the intensity of very strong emotions.

• Grounding exercises: These exercises help you feel anchored, even when strong emotions want to pull you into an action.

• Deep breathing: Focusing on your breathing can help you dial down the intensity of strong emotions, as well as help you regroup.

• Self-compassion exercises: The exercises remind you that sitting with strong emotions can be uncomfortable but that you’re not alone in how you feel. They also help you remember to be kind to yourself while you ride out strong emotions.

4. Realize that emotions are time-limited

Emotions don’t last forever. The next time you’re experiencing a difficult emotion, remind yourself that it will pass on its own. Remember that you typically experience emotions in two phases. First, the emotion strengthens and seems to balloon in intensity before it then begins to fade in the second stage. 

Even the most intense emotions may pass faster than you think. Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor suggests that most emotions pass within 90 seconds. But this only holds true if you’re able to simply observe an emotion, rather than act on it.

5. Respond, don’t react

Once you’ve learned to pause before acting on strong emotions, you have some time to think about how you want to respond. In fact, you might even decide to let an emotion pass without responding at all. Pausing before you respond to an emotion at its most intense gives you more options.

Benefits of practicing emotional intelligence

While you can’t always control what emotions you experience, you can learn how to manage them. Learning how to manage your emotions helps you better gauge how you want to act. And it also helps you have better personal and professional relationships. 

More specific benefits of practicing emotional intelligence for healthcare providers include:

• Better social and intimate relationships: One study found that psychology students who had emotional intelligence skills were better able to start and manage social relationships.

• Enhanced mental and physical health: Research suggests nurses with higher emotional intelligence may have better health overall. 

• Improved academic achievement: Emotional intelligence has been linked to stronger academic performance in university students.

• Positive impact on work and career: In a study involving a group of nurses, emotional intelligence protected against burnout and led to greater job satisfaction.

How are emotional intelligence and social intelligence related?

Social intelligence is your ability to recognize and respond to the emotional experiences of others. But recognizing and responding to other people’s emotions starts with recognizing and responding to your own.

Researchers have found that there are benefits to having high emotional and social intelligence in both personal and professional settings. For those in a leadership position at work, social intelligence can help you guide your employees more effectively. And in one recent study, emotional intelligence enhanced communication between nurses. In romantic relationships, emotional intelligence increases relationship satisfaction.

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Written by:

Tracy Asamoah, MD

Tracy Asamoah, MD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, writer, and physician coach in private practice in Austin, Texas. She completed medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, and both her general psychiatry residency and child and adolescent fellowship at the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine.

Edited by:

Renée Fabian, MA

Renée Fabian is the senior pet health editor at GoodRx. She’s worked for nearly 10 years as a journalist and editor across a wide range of health and well-being topics.

Reviewed by:

Karla Robinson, MD

Karla Robinson, MD, is a medical editor for GoodRx. She is a licensed, board-certified family physician with almost 20 years of experience in health through varied clinical, administrative, and educational roles.

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