Emotional intelligence generally deals with the ability to

In fact, when it comes to gauging important job candidates, many companies now rate emotional intelligence as important as technical ability and employ EQ testing before hiring. Your physical health.

This can lead to serious health problems. Uncontrolled stress raises blood pressure, suppresses the immune system, increases the risk of heart attacks and strokes, contributes to infertility, and speeds up the aging process. The first step to improving emotional intelligence is to learn how to manage stress. Your mental health. Uncontrolled emotions and stress can also impact your mental health, making you vulnerable to anxiety and depression. This in turn can leave you feeling lonely and isolated and further exacerbate any mental health problems.

Your relationships. This allows you to communicate more effectively and forge stronger relationships, both at work and in your personal life.

2. You pause.

Your social intelligence. Being in tune with your emotions serves a social purpose, connecting you to other people and the world around you. The skills that make up emotional intelligence can be learned at any time. In order to permanently change behavior in ways that stand up under pressure, you need to learn how to overcome stress in the moment, and in your relationships, in order to remain emotionally aware.

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The key skills for building your EQ and improving your ability to manage emotions and connect with others are:. In order for you to engage your EQ, you must be able use your emotions to make constructive decisions about your behavior. When you become overly stressed, you can lose control of your emotions and the ability to act thoughtfully and appropriately. Think about a time when stress has overwhelmed you.

Was it easy to think clearly or make a rational decision? Probably not. Emotions are important pieces of information that tell you about yourself and others, but in the face of stress that takes us out of our comfort zone, we can become overwhelmed and lose control of ourselves. With the ability to manage stress and stay emotionally present, you can learn to receive upsetting information without letting it override your thoughts and self-control. Managing stress is just the first step to building emotional intelligence. The science of attachment indicates that your current emotional experience is likely a reflection of your early life experience.

Your ability to manage core feelings such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy often depends on the quality and consistency of your early life emotional experiences. But being able to connect to your emotions—having a moment-to-moment connection with your changing emotional experience—is the key to understanding how emotion influences your thoughts and actions. Do you experience feelings that flow, encountering one emotion after another as your experiences change from moment to moment?

Are your emotions accompanied by physical sensations that you experience in places like your stomach, throat, or chest? Do you experience individual feelings and emotions, such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy, each of which is evident in subtle facial expressions?

Can you experience intense feelings that are strong enough to capture both your attention and that of others? Do you pay attention to your emotions? Do they factor into your decision making? In order to build EQ—and become emotionally healthy—you must reconnect to your core emotions, accept them, and become comfortable with them.

You can achieve this through the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment—and without judgment. The cultivation of mindfulness has roots in Buddhism, but most religions include some type of similar prayer or meditation technique.

Mindfulness helps shift your preoccupation with thought toward an appreciation of the moment, your physical and emotional sensations, and brings a larger perspective on life. Mindfulness calms and focuses you, making you more self-aware in the process. Social awareness enables you to recognize and interpret the mainly nonverbal cues others are constantly using to communicate with you. To build social awareness, you need to recognize the importance of mindfulness in the social process. Social awareness requires your presence in the moment.

Here are some tips. Listen: If you want to understand what other people are feeling, the first step is to pay attention. Take the time to listen to what people are trying to tell you, both verbally and non-verbally. Body language can carry a great deal of meaning.

When you sense that someone is feeling a certain way, consider the different factors that might be contributing to that emotion. Empathize: Picking up on emotions is critical, but you also need to be able to put yourself into someone else's shoes in order to truly understand their point of view. Practice empathizing with other people. Imagine how you would feel in their situation. Such activities can help you build an emotional understanding of a specific situation as well as develop stronger emotional skills in the long-term.

Reflect: The ability to reason with emotions is an important part of emotional intelligence. Consider how your own emotions influence your decisions and behaviors. When you are thinking about how other people respond, assess the role that their emotions play. Why is this person feeling this way?

Are there any unseen factors that might be contributing to these feelings? How to your emotions differ from theirs?

As you explore such questions, you may find that it becomes easier to understand the role that emotions play in how people think and behave. Emotional intelligence is essential for good interpersonal communication. Some experts believe that this ability is more important in determining life success than IQ alone. Fortunately, there are things that you can do to strengthen your own social and emotional intelligence.

1. Practice Self-Awareness

Understanding emotions can be the key to better relationships, improved well-being, and stronger communication skills. Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. More in Theories. A Brief History. View All. Later Developments.

The Emergence of Emotional Intelligence. Emotions help prioritize what we pay attention and react to; we respond emotionally to things that garner our attention. If someone is expressing angry emotions, the observer must interpret the cause of the person's anger and what it could mean. For example, if your boss is acting angry, it might mean that he is dissatisfied with your work, or it could be because he got a speeding ticket on his way to work that morning or that he's been fighting with his wife.

Regulating emotions, responding appropriately, and responding to the emotions of others are all important aspect of emotional management. There are many examples of how emotional intelligence can play a role in daily life. The test is available to professionals who are qualified to use the assessment. Test-takers perform tasks designed to assess their ability to perceive, identify, understand, and manage emotions.

The test is designed to evaluate the social and emotional abilities that help distinguish people as strong leaders. A Word From Verywell. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Article Sources. Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Emotional Intelligence Measures. Models of Emotional Intelligence. In Sternberg RJ ed.

Handbook of Intelligence. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press; Salovey P, Mayer J.