No, Mental and Emotional Health Aren’t the Same Thing. These Are the 5 Differences to Know

Mental health, emotional health—potato, pot-ah-to, right? Not quite. When comparing mental vs. emotional health, the two aren’t as interchangeable as conventional use might have you believe.

“There’s sometimes confusion when we talk about behavioral health, mental health, and emotional health,” says Thomas R. Milam, MD, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer of Iris Telehealth. That’s in part because of the stigma around mental illness, he believes; some people might feel more comfortable referring to “emotional health or wellness” instead. 

But learning about what mental and emotional health actually refer to and how they influence each other can help you improve both—and better understand and communicate with the loved ones in your life too. 

What Is Mental Health? 

There’s not one single, universally agreed-upon definition for mental health, says Emily Anhalt, PsyD, a clinical psychologist, chief clinical officer of Coa, and author of the 2025 book “Flex Your Feelings: Train Your Brain to Develop the 7 Traits of Emotional Fitness.”

That said, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) says mental health includes “our emotional, psychological, and social wellbeing. It affects how we think, feel, and act, and helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices.” 

The American Psychological Association, meanwhile, defines mental health as “a state of mind” including emotional wellbeing, appropriate behavior, a lack of debilitating anxiety or other mental illness symptoms, strong relationship skills, and an ability to cope with everyday demands and stresses. 

Dr. Milam views mental health as what’s going on inside your mind, including your “inner thoughts and cognitive processes, your awareness and perceptions of people and the environment around us, your inner sense of safety versus potential harm, and your internal experience of emotions such as grief, anger, sadness, frustration.” 

What Is Emotional Health, and How Is It Different from Mental Health? 

While each mental health professional and organization might have a slightly different take on mental vs. emotional health, a key differentiator seems to be that emotional health is more specifically about, well, emotions. Here are a few specific differences of mental vs. emotional health.

1. Emotional Health Is More Specific Than Mental Health 

Mental health is quite encompassing; emotional health is narrower. SAMHSA describes emotional wellness as “the ability to express feelings, adjust to emotional challenges, cope with life’s stressors, and enjoy life.” The organization also says understanding your own strengths and opportunities for growth, as well as an ability to both rely on yourself and be open to help from others, plays into emotional wellness too.

2. Emotional Health Is More of a Signal

Anhalt says emotions are like a compass that tell us what we need to pay attention to. For example, maybe that sense of freedom and euphoria when playing an instrument means it’s a hobby you should lean into; maybe that tension and unease around an acquaintance means the friendship isn’t healthy for you. 

In that sense, strong emotional health isn’t about feeling happy all of the time, it’s about having a well-tuned antenna to your full range of emotions and reacting appropriately. “Our emotional health is how attuned we are to our emotions, and how helpful those emotions are in giving us an accurate picture of our lives,” Anhalt says. 

3. Emotional Health Is More Outer; Mental Health Is More Inner

Where Dr. Milam sees mental health as what happens inside your mind, he sees emotional health as how well those thoughts and feelings are expressed outwardly—tears, a smile, a request for a listening ear. “How does all that stuff that’s going on in there move out of you?” he says, noting that the word “emotion” comes from the Latin term for “to move out.” 

“Mental health is more about what goes on inside our brains, while emotional health is what we express with our faces and bodies and voices—things outside of our brains,” he adds. 

4. Emotional Health Is More Relational 

Having strong social connections is an aspect of mental health, but other aspects—the presence or absence of psychiatric conditions, the thoughts no one else sees or hears—are part of mental health too. But when it comes to emotional health, other people are usually part of the equation.

“If you just experienced your emotions and didn’t interact with any other people, you would just feel like you,” Dr. Milam says. But in modern society, emotional health is a skill people have to work on due to how other people and the culture at large influence what we think about our emotions, and how (or not) to express them. Put another way, when we experience emotions around other people, we can feel judged (or judge ourselves) for how they come out. “You think, ‘I shouldn’t cry here’ or ‘I shouldn’t get angry even though this person just said something to hurt my feelings,’” he says.  

5. Emotional Health Is More Readily Learned 

Some mental health conditions may have a genetic component, among other life and environmental factors. And though people naturally vary on how wide their range of emotions is and how deeply they experience those feelings, emotional health tends to be even more shaped by experience and culture, Dr. Milam says.

Developing strong emotional health is partly about “teaching people how their emotions impact their social situations positively or negatively, and that starts with family,” he says. For example, some people grow up in a household that embraces both tears and laughter; others are shaped by environments that look down on demeanors that are anything but stoic. 

“People who’ve grown up in very traumatic or challenging family environments learn to protect themselves by having an emotional face that doesn’t reveal too much because it might have been used against them,” Dr. Milam says.

How Are Mental and Emotional Health Interconnected? 

Mental and emotional health are, clearly, closely tied. It’s hard to have strong mental health without good emotional health, and poor emotional health is going to negatively affect your mental health, Anhalt says. 

“The more attuned you are to your emotional life, the more mentally healthy you are going to be all around,” she says. “But if you have mental health struggles, that makes it harder to work on your emotional fitness. If you’re super depressed, it’s going to be hard to get up and do the [emotional] work, just like if you’re physically sick it’s going to be hard to get to the gym.”

At the same time, in the sense that good emotional health typically means congruence with mental health, it’s still possible to have the former without the latter, Dr. Milam says. For example, someone with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be working to improve their mental health, but they could have fairly strong emotional health if they’re regularly and authentically writing about what PTSD is like for them and developing a community in the process. 

“Is there a disconnect between what’s going on in their brain and what they emote?” Dr. Milam says. “Or is it integrated?” If so, that’s a sign of good emotional health. 

Tips for Improving Emotional Health

One of Anhalt’s top tips for working on your emotional health is to identify the feelings you struggle with the most. 

“We all work really hard not to feel certain things, and one of the best things for your emotional health is to ask yourself: What emotions am I uncomfortable feeling, and what emotions are more intense than I think they belong?” she says.  

For example, she says she’s pretty comfortable feeling sad, but uncomfortable feeling angry. So she’s working on noticing when anger comes up and if it’s directed in the appropriate way—like towards the friend who upset her, not the stranger who cut her off in traffic. The goal isn’t to stop feeling uncomfortable, it’s to get more comfortable with discomfort, her book explains. Think of it this way: If you stopped running the second it became uncomfortable, you’d never improve. Similarly, if you don’t learn to sit with uncomfortable emotions, you won’t strengthen your emotional “fitness.” 

Looking back on what you were taught about your feelings can help you improve your emotional health too. “Were you given permission and support to feel your feelings?” Anhalt asks. “If not, how can you create that support and permission for yourself now?”  

Tips for Improving Mental Health 

Mental health is, of course, complex, and what works for you might not work for someone else—or what worked for you in the past might not work for you now. For example, maybe the thing you need most is sleep, while someone else’s mental health would benefit most from stronger social connections.

But generally, focusing on your physical health can unlock good mental health, Anhalt says. “One of the most important things you can do for your mental health is prioritize your physical health because the two are so intertwined, and as you improve one the other one will become easier to improve as well,” she says. That typically looks like regularly exercising, fueling your body with healthy meals, staying hydrated, and getting plenty of sleep.

Other ways you can take care of your mental health include meditating, practicing gratitude, focusing on the positive, doing breathing exercises, and making time for relaxing activities you enjoy, such as being in nature, reading, or listening to music, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. (You can do lots of those things with the Peloton App, by the way.)

Finally, it’s crucial to note that these are by no means exhaustive lists for how to improve your emotional and/or mental health. Everyone has a unique background and journey, and there are many paths you can take to strengthen your emotional and mental health. Working with a licensed mental health professional to find the best path forward is an important and beneficial tool for many folks as well. Remember, it’s always smart to speak with your healthcare provider about what’s right for you.

The Takeaway 

Mental and emotional health have many similarities, but while mental health can encompass a wide range of internal experiences and conditions, emotional health is more descriptive of your feelings and how you encounter them. Typically, strength in one area translates to strength in the other, though it’s possible to have mental health challenges and good emotional health. Understanding and working on each—often while integrating physical health practices—can uplift each part of your wellbeing, as well as your relationships.

“As social creatures,” Dr. Milam says, “humans need to understand and appreciate our inner mental health, while monitoring how we express ourselves outwardly—our emotional health.”