When I think about Valentine’s Day I think about bunches of red roses, grand gestures and showing our love to others. But this year, I encourage you to also practise some self love and turn that care inward! This isn’t about indulgence or big wholesale change: practising self love is consistently taking small, supportive steps that protect your emotional wellbeing, helping you feel more balanced, resilient and grounded. 

Emotional wellbeing is the overall quality of your inner emotional life: how you feel day to day, how you relate to your emotions, and how you see your life as a whole. It isn’t about feeling happy all the time; it’s about having a flexible, resilient emotional system that helps you navigate life’s ups and downs.

Importantly, emotional wellbeing and physical wellbeing are deeply connected. Chronic stress, poor sleep, nutrient gaps and blood-sugar imbalances can all influence mood, energy and mental clarity. Equally, long-term emotional strain can affect you physically in terms of your digestion, immunity, hormone balance, cardiovascular health and much more.

This Valentine’s Day, consider giving yourself the gift of self care! Here are five ways to support your emotional wellbeing through nutrition, sleep, and lifestyle foundations:

Blood sugar balance plays a major role in emotional stability. Large swings in blood glucose can contribute to irritability, anxiety, shakiness, fatigue and poor concentration. Over time, this rollercoaster can leave you feeling emotionally fragile and depleted. 

Balanced blood sugar helps emotional wellbeing by keeping the brain’s energy supply steady and stress hormones in check, which has been shown to promote calmer, more consistent mood and better overall emotional resilience.

Aim to build meals around a balance of protein, fibre, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates. This combination slows digestion and helps provide a steady release of energy to the brain. Think of these meals like an anchor to your emotional wellbeing. Simple examples include:

• Eggs with vegetables and wholegrain sourdough toast
• Greek yoghurt with berries, nuts and seeds
• Salmon, quinoa and roasted vegetables

Try to avoid relying on sugary snacks or skipping meals, as both can intensify blood sugar imbalance and mood fluctuations. If mornings are busy, a protein-rich smoothie or overnight oats can be an easy way to start the day on the right foot. How you ‘break your fast’ is key to setting up your blood-sugar trajectory for the day. 

Certain nutrients are particularly important for emotional wellbeing because they support neurotransmitter production, brain energy and the body’s response to stress. Key nutrients include:

• B vitamins help convert food into energy and are essential for producing mood-related neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine
• Magnesium supports relaxation and helps regulate the nervous system’s stress responseZinc is involved in cognition, serotonin and dopamine balance, and mood regulation
• Omega 3 fatty acids are integral to brain cell structure and have been linked to reduced depressive symptoms

These nutrients are abundant in leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, oily fish, eggs, and lean meats. However, modern dietary patterns and chronic stress can both reduce intake and increase the body’s demand, making a nutrient dense, wholefood diet especially important for emotional stability. 

Supplementing with a comprehensive multi-nutrient formula like Multee can help to ensure consistent intake of the key nutrients. Meanwhile, taking a quality Magnesium supplement can support relaxation, particularly during times of increased stress.

Sleep is one of the most powerful regulators of emotional wellbeing. In fact, research suggests that sleep deprivation can heighten emotional reactivity, lower stress tolerance and reduce emotional regulation capabilities. Getting a restorative night’s sleep can be complex for many people, but covering off the basics of good sleep hygiene is the first place to start:

1. Aim for a consistent sleep schedule where possible, going to bed and waking at similar times each day. 
2. Create a calming pre-bed routine to signal to your body that it is time to wind down. This might include reading, gentle stretching, a warm bath, or listening to some calming music.
3. Limit caffeine after midday and reduce screen exposure in the hour before bed, to remove any unnecessary stimulation. 
4. Get outside first thing in the morning. Our light environment is a powerful signal to reinforce our circadian rhythm (our sleep-wake cycle).

If you struggle to switch off, Extracted’s revolutionary product Sleepee can help support relaxation and sleep quality as part of this broader bedtime routine.

The gut and the brain are closely connected through the gut-brain axis - an incredible superhighway of constant communication involving nerves, immune signals and microbial metabolites. 

A diverse, balanced gut microbiome helps regulate inflammation, supports the integrity of the gut lining, and produces or influences key neurotransmitters and messengers such as serotonin, GABA, and short chain fatty acids, which can promote calmer mood and more stable stress responses. So, supporting a diverse and thriving gut microbiome is a powerful way to support your emotional wellbeing. Here are three key ways to do that:

• Eat a variety of plant foods including vegetables, fruit, wholegrains, legumes, nuts and seeds across the week - aiming for 30 different types where possible
• Include fermented foods such as yoghurt, kefir, sauerkraut or kimchi if tolerated
• Eat mindfully: Chew food thoroughly and eat in a calm environment

Highly processed foods and excessive sugar can disrupt the microbiome and contribute to inflammation, which may negatively impact mood over time, so keep these to a minimum. Focusing on small, consistent changes in dietary diversity can have meaningful benefits for both digestion and emotional wellbeing.

Emotional wellbeing is not only about what you eat or how you sleep - it’s also shaped by how connected, supported and safe you feel in your daily life. In today’s frantic modern world, where our days are hurried and busy, taking micro moments to calm your nervous system and create connection is ever more important. This can include:

• Taking a few slow breaths between tasks: How we breathe has a profound impact on how well regulated our nervous system is. Taking time to slow your breathing helps to switch the body out of ‘fight or flight’ response and into ‘rest and digest' mode, which is essential for our emotional wellbeing. 
• Spending time outdoors: Time in nature has been shown to have a positive impact on mood and stress regulation, so incorporating this into your weekly routine can be beneficial to emotional wellbeing. 
• Connecting with a friend or loved one: Humans are social beings and yet many of our ways of living and working can now be incredibly isolating. Connecting with a friend or loved one supports emotional wellbeing by providing a sense of safety, belonging and being understood, which directly lowers perceived stress and emotional load.
• Doing something creative or joyful: So much of modern life feels like hard work and often we don’t make enough time for joy or creativity. Creative hobbies and playful activities (like art, music, dance, gardening, or crafting) offer a safe outlet for emotions, helping you express and process feelings that may be hard to put into words, which can ease anxiety and low mood.

These micro moments help shift the nervous system out of a constant ‘fight or flight’ state and into a more balanced mode, where repair and resilience can happen.

And if you’re finding that your emotional wellbeing needs some extra TLC right now, Extracted’s Calmee, with its unique formulation including Lactium® which mimics the calming compounds found in mother's milk, could be a useful tool to add to your toolkit. 

This Valentine’s Day, I encourage you to ask yourself: 

• What helps me feel supported?
• What helps me feel calm?
• What does self-love look like for me right now?

The answers do not need to be grand. Often, the most powerful changes are the simple and repeatable daily habits that compound over time. By supporting your body with nourishing food, targeted nutrients, quality sleep and moments of calm, you are laying the foundations for stronger emotional wellbeing not just for one day, but for the long term.