--- title: "More Than a Third of Women in Britain Reported High Anxiety This Year: 7 Ways to Build Emotional Resilience Before 2027" description: What emotional resilience means and how to build it, from naming your feelings to protecting your sleep, as 37% of British women report high anxiety. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-04T13:00:00.062Z updated: 2026-11-04T13:00:00.070Z canonical: https://richwoman.co/article/more-than-a-third-of-women-in-britain-reported-high-anxiety-this-year-7-ways-to-build-emotional-resi image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/unsplash-yzbccixsiqw.webp categories: Wellbeing, Mindfulness content_type: Guide publication: Rich Woman Magazine schema_type: Article --- This year has asked a lot of women. When the Office for National Statistics surveyed adults in Great Britain in February, 37% of women reported high anxiety, against 29% of men. The cost of living topped the list of worries at 88%, followed by the NHS and the economy, and concern about jobs reached its highest level since October 2022. If you are reaching the end of 2026 tired, stretched or shaken, you are in large company. Emotional resilience is the ability to adapt well when you face adversity, loss or heavy stress. It does not mean you stop feeling pain. The road to resilience often runs straight through distress, and people who come through hard times well still grieve, worry and cry along the way. It is also far more ordinary than its reputation suggests: resilience is a set of habits, thoughts and actions that anyone can learn, and it grows the way a muscle grows, with regular use. The research behind it is more nuanced than many headlines. Studies of widows and widowers found that most people recover from loss remarkably well, and only a small minority struggle enough to need professional help. Yet when the same kind of data on bereavement, divorce and unemployment was analysed again under different statistical assumptions, the resilient group went from the most common to the least common. Recovery after a major blow is often slower and more uneven than the cheerful version of the story, and a slow recovery is not a failure. Here are seven ways to build emotional resilience you can start before the year is out. ## Name What You Feel, Precisely When you put a feeling into words, the part of your brain that sounds the alarm calms down, and a region at the front of the brain that regulates emotion becomes more active. Brain scans have shown this effect when people simply put a word to the emotion in a distressing image. A vague 'I feel awful' does little. A precise 'I feel overstretched and afraid of letting my team down' gives your brain something it can work with. Next time your chest tightens, finish the sentence 'I feel...' with the most exact word you can find. ## Protect Your Sleep Before Anything Else Sleep is one of the strongest supports your emotional resilience has. After 35 hours without sleep, the brain's emotional centre became more than 60% more reactive to upsetting images, and its link to the region that handles reasoning weakened. Instead, it connected more strongly to an area that floods the body with noradrenaline, the chemical behind the fight-or-flight response. A poor night can turn a sharp email into what feels like an attack. Set a fixed time to stop working in December, keep your bedroom cool and dark, and resist using a glass of wine to take the edge off a hard day, as alcohol masks the pain without dealing with it. Our guide to [calming your nervous system in minutes](https://richwoman.co/article/how-to-calm-your-nervous-system-7-fast-techniques) has more ways to switch off. ## List the Hard Things You Have Already Survived You have more evidence of your own strength than you think. Write down three difficult moments from 2026 and, next to each one, the skill that got you through: patience, humour, organisation, asking for help. Then look at the challenge in front of you now and ask which of those skills it needs. The NHS recommends exactly this approach, starting from what you are good at and applying it where life is hardest. For a deeper look back at your year, try our [seven self-awareness hacks for learning from this year's challenges](https://richwoman.co/article/lessons-learned-from-this-years-challenges). ## Keep the People Who Listen Close Connection is one of the strongest foundations of resilience. Spend time with people who are empathetic and trustworthy, who let you speak without rushing to fix you, and accept the support they offer rather than retreating. Belonging to a group, whether a choir, a faith community, a book club or a local volunteer network, adds purpose and hope as well as company. Before the festive rush takes over your diary, book one unhurried conversation a week with someone who makes you feel understood. ## Turn a Big Worry Into a Small Next Step Overwhelm feeds on problems that feel too large to touch. Acknowledge how you feel, then ask what you can actually do. Give yourself ten minutes alone with a notebook and four questions: What are the issues? What should I do first? What worked last time? Can I see this differently? Break the answer into steps small enough to start today. Each finished step shows you that the situation is moving, and the problem starts to feel smaller. ## Accept What This Year Has Changed Some plans you made for 2026 may no longer be possible, after an illness, a job loss, a break-up or the death of someone you love. Accepting what you cannot change frees your energy for what you can. Watch for catastrophising, the habit of jumping from one setback to the worst possible outcome, and replace it with a more balanced thought: one hard year does not fix the shape of every year that follows. Our piece on [why mental resilience needs a framework, not just motivation](https://richwoman.co/article/the-structure-of-perseverance-why-mental-resilience-needs-a-framework-not-just-motivation) explores how to keep going when the original plan has gone. ## Do Something Kind for Someone Else Helping another person builds purpose, self-worth and connection. It does not need to be grand. Cook for a neighbour who lives alone, mentor a younger colleague or give an afternoon to a local charity this December. When your own life feels out of your control, making a difference to someone else's restores a sense that your actions matter. Building emotional resilience takes time, so look back each week or each month at what you handled and reward yourself for it. If you find you cannot manage daily life as well as you would like after a stressful experience, speak to your GP or a qualified therapist. Asking for help is one of the most resilient things you can do.