Why Your Emotions Feel Bigger Than Before
Middle school can feel like your emotions suddenly upgraded from “normal volume” to “maximum volume.” You might find yourself getting frustrated quickly, feeling embarrassed out of nowhere, or switching from calm to overwhelmed in a matter of seconds. This doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It means your brain is growing.
As your brain develops, the emotional center reacts faster than the part that helps you think things through. This is why feelings seem stronger and harder to predict. You’re not alone — everyone at your age goes through this.
How Naming Your Emotions Helps You Stay in Control
A powerful way to understand emotions is to name them. When you say exactly what you’re feeling, your brain starts to make sense of it. Instead of “I’m mad,” try words that describe what’s actually happening:
- frustrated
- embarrassed
- overwhelmed
- confused
- excited
- disappointed
- nervous
These words help you know what your brain and body are trying to tell you. When you identify the feeling, you can decide what to do next.
Naming emotions doesn’t make them disappear, but it makes them easier to handle. It stops you from feeling stuck in confusion and gives you the power to respond instead of react.
Why Emotional Awareness Makes Life Easier
Understanding your emotions doesn’t just help you feel better in the moment. It affects your entire day, your schoolwork, your relationships, and even the choices you make without realizing it. When you learn to notice and understand what you’re feeling, everything in life becomes a little more manageable.
School
Emotional awareness makes school less stressful. When you understand your feelings, you can figure out why something bothers you. Maybe a tough assignment makes you anxious because you don’t understand the directions. Maybe you got frustrated because you were already having a rough morning. When you know the reason behind the emotion, you know what to ask for — help, clarification, or a quick reset.
Friendships
Misunderstandings happen all the time in middle school. Emotional awareness helps you communicate clearly so small problems don’t turn into big arguments. If you can say, “I felt left out,” “I was embarrassed,” or “I needed space,” your friends understand what happened instead of guessing. When you understand your own emotions, you naturally become better at understanding others too.
Decision-Making
Most quick decisions come from feelings, not logic. Recognizing your emotions helps you pause before reacting on impulse. Instead of snapping back, shutting down, or making a choice you regret later, you give your brain a chance to think. That small pause can change the outcome of an entire situation.
Self-Confidence
Knowing what you feel — and why — makes you more confident. You trust yourself more. You understand your reactions instead of being confused by them. When you know what’s going on inside you, the day feels less unpredictable. You don’t feel controlled by sudden emotions because you understand how to respond to them.
Emotional awareness isn’t about being perfect or never feeling upset. It’s about paying attention to your mind and body, noticing your reactions, and choosing responses that help you feel more in control. The more you practice understanding your emotions, the easier daily life becomes — in school, with friends, and within yourself.
Simple Strategies to Understand Your Emotions
Here are ways to understand your emotions more clearly:
- Pause before reacting
- Notice what your body feels like (heart racing, tense stomach, etc.)
- Think back to what triggered the feeling
- Use emotion words instead of general ones
- Write down what happened before the feeling started
These small steps build emotional strength over time.
Reflection
Write 5–7 sentences about:
• The emotion you felt most this week
• What caused it
• How your body reacted
• How you handled it
• What you might try next time to understand that emotion better
When you’re finished, check out the rest of our blog for more tips, ideas, and activities to help you learn and grow. Be sure to follow our classroom Instagram page for behind-the-scenes moments, project highlights, and fun updates. Let’s work together to make learning fun, exciting, and something you look forward to every day!
27 Responses
I felt mostly happy and included this week because of my best friend and my group of friends. What caused it was when we would all hang out together and be laughing and singing with eachother ( but uh, yelling HI and busting eachothers eardrums in the making ). My body reacted in such a happy and warm feeling because it felt amazing to hang out with my favorite people. I handled it by making sure I don’t take things to far with jokes and that I would not get too excited. because I will try to understand this emotion better by learning how to control how excited I may be.
This week I have been feeling excited and nervous. That’s because I am going to the movie theaters this week. The reason I’m nervous is that the test we are having is this week. My body reacts a little jumpy because I’m going to my grandma’s house for Christmas and I love the food there. How I handled it is doing other things to forget it.
I can never understand my emotions because if I wear something to school I atuomatically feel embarrassed even before I get to school, or sometimes scared of being embarrassed. I honestly get frustrated pretty easily and its normally when I get a question wrong or can’t understand and question, I take deep breaths to calm my self down or fidget with something to keep me calm, I also get frustrated when its too cold or too hot. Sometimes I get disappointed in myself when someones mad at me because its my fault.
The emotions I felt the most this week is boredum I was bored this hole. Week because school and because there is nothing to do.
My body reacted by just sitting and saying nothing and. Just doing homework I handled it by talking to friends or playing with my sister.
On a game or by drawing drawing is fun and not bored at all and. Talking to friends is funny because you can talk about funny stuff.
And playing with siblings that you really like because there nice to you. Is funny and fun because we play games and laugh.
And next time i fell bored I will just play a game or go outside and play or I can find cool bugs.
The emotion I felt was mostly happy this week. This was caused by all the fun activities I did. My body reacted well and didn’t have any trouble. I handled it great, I made sure I kept that happy feeling. I might try and have better days to understand this emotion. All in all, the emotion I felt was mostly happy this week.
The emotion you felt most this week is happy because I got to be with my friends and also because there wasn’t anything to do that was hard. What caused me to be happy was that there is no hard work to do and also just because I am with my friends and also because we are on break. How your body reacted happy because I was happy to be with my friends and also because we are going somewhere so that makes me more happy. How you handled it I handled it good because when I am happy I am just happy and also I can be with my friends and I can be be happy and not sad. What you might try next time to understand that emotion better I will make sure that other people are also happy.
The emotion I felt this week was calm because I didn’t do anything to make the teachers or anyone annoyed or mad at me, I did some of my work for me and myself. school and tiredness caused it slowly into the week and day by day, my body reacted by me being sleepy and tired all the time without doing anything in class or for pe and other activity’s through out the days I handled it good bc it made me very calm and not worried about anything like stress and being rushed. I might try next time to understand that emotion better by still doing things even though I don’t wanna like work and other things my teacher gives me.
Emotions that I have felt this week are, nervous, confused, and excited how I felt nervous was I was doing a paper work and I when it was time to look at the answers to see if we got them right and how I felt confused was I had to do something that I didn’t understand at all and I couldn’t get help and when I felt excited is when I got all the answers right.
The emotion I felt most this week is frustrated. I was helping my mom decorate and my dad was telling me I wasn’t even helping as I was putting up our Christmas village. I just kinda rolled my eyes then he started laughing and then said he was joking but I didn’t find it funny. then my mom told him to leave me alone and then I started laughing at him. I wasn’t really frustrated after that though. But next time I might tell him to just go upstairs and not come down while we’re decorating. After a few hours of being ignored though my dad went upstairs saying “you guys are no fun”.
I felt confused and nervous as I worked on my math work. I worried I wouldn’t be able to finish in time because I didn’t fully understand the concept, which left me confused and nervous. I calmed down by stopping and taking a deep breath, and relaxed for a second. I continued working peacefully after that. I will try to rest whenever I feel this way, which will help me better understand this emotion.
The emotion I felt was mostly happy this week. This was caused by all the fun activities I did. My body reacted well and didn’t have any trouble. I handled it great, I made sure I kept that happy feeling. I might try and have better days to understand this emotion. Finally, the emotion I felt was mostly happy this week.
The emotion I mostly felt this week was happiness and frustration the reason why I felt happy about this week is because I can chat and play volleyball and laugh about it. the other reason why I felt frustration is because when I was doing my math and science I felt confused about what to do until I go the hang of it It took longer than I expected but I finished my work.
This week my emotions are a mix of tired and stressed. The way I feel this way is most likely because I can’t keep up with all the work MR.ALEXANDER, and Ms. Shedd is giving us. I also am not getting enough sleep due to my body not cooperating I feel mad tired everyday waking up and it feels like someone is stabbing me in the damn eyes.
The emotion I felt the most this week was bored. I felt bored this week because there was nothing but work to do. My body reacted by being quiet, and I handled this emotion by doing my work and getting through it till school was over. Next time, I will understand this emotion better by doing something else.
This week I feel normal like I was mad at me Alexander for making me not be able to get up. I was also felt nervous because I had to do MAP testing and I want to go up because I do not wanna go down. I also was frustrated because I had lots of work in CK 12 and I didn’t have enough time to finish it.
Emotions that I have felt this week are, nervous, confused, and excited how I felt nervous was I was doing a paper work and I when it was time to look at the answers to see if we got them right and how I felt confused was I had to do something that I didn’t understand at all and I couldn’t get help and when I felt excited is when I got all the answers right.
The emotion I felt this week was overwhelmed. I don’t know what caused this, for it could be many things, like other people’s actions irritating me, or it could just be a feeling that one day popped out of nowhere. I feel like that I have to do a lot of work, yet I don’t think there is a lot to do, even when Mr. Alexander assigns tons of work on CK12, or when Ms. Shedd puts me in a group where I feel like I have to do the majority of the work needed. I still push through it, doing all the work, because I often think back to a quote from Paavo Nurmi, “Mind is everything. Muscle— pieces of rubber,” where I think of muscle as the overwhelming feeling that are just barricades that were made for no apparent reason. I try to understand my emotions better, searching up definitions online and thinking if it matches the scale of my emotions, so that I can really grasp on my true feelings to help handle them better.
The emotions I felt this week was excited, and confused. I felt excited because I checked my grades and they good and I was happy to see that. I was confused because I was working on an assment and I didn’t know what to do on it and it confused me even me on the next question because it was the same thing.
The most emotion I felt this week was exhaustion. I was exhausted this week because school, and school is stressful, plus I had to study for a test we have this week. After school I had to sleep because my body was tired and sore from recces. Instead of sleeping in class I tried to finish my work in time so I could sleep, and if I didn’t finish my work in class I had to do it tonight or that evening. Then after work, I sleep. Next time I might try to get help from a friend or the teacher.
The emotion I felt most this week is frustrated i was trying to get my work done but i keep getting distracted and its hard to do it so i just started to talk I try to put my head down when I feel this emotion which can help understand this emotion
This week I have been feeling okay. I have been feeling nervous this week because of the work that I have not finished this week and also, because I have map testing this week. I’ve also been feeling happy because it’s almost the weekend.
The emotion I felt this week was happy and calm because its been a calm week and I have not been stressed out with work. My body reacted less nervous and more relax I handled it very well I was not in a rush I did not feel stress about work.Ssomething I might try to understand that emotion better is to keep up whtat I am doing like not stressing about work, doing work on time, or starting my workearlier so I don’t have to stress about doing it on the day that its due.
The emotion i felt the most this week is happy and confused.I felt these emotions because I was happy to see my friends and my boyfriend.I felt confused because I didn’t really understand my classwork.When I first came to school and I saw my friends and my boyfriend I was supper happy.When I started to do my classwork I felt confused because I did understand some of my work.
The emotion I have felt the most this week is nothing. I did not do anything particularly important, exciting or important this week. A distant contender is happy, an even more distant contender to that one is excited. Although this sounds bleak this is not a result of anything. The only reason why I feel like this is because there is no time in the week for myself.
The emotion I felt this week was overwhelmed. I don’t know what caused this, for it could be many things, like other people’s actions irritating me, or it could just be a feeling that one day popped out of nowhere. I feel like that I have to do a lot of work, yet I don’t think there is a lot to do, even when Mr. Alexander assigns tons of work on CK12, or when Ms. Shedd puts me in a group where I feel like I have to do the majority of the work needed. I still push through it, doing all the work, because I often think back to a quote from Paavo Nurmi, “Mind is everything. Muscle— pieces of rubber,” where I think of muscle as the overwhelming feeling that are just barricades that were made for no apparent reason. I try to understand my emotions better, searching up definitions online and thinking if it matches the scale of my emotions, so that I can really grasp on my true feelings to help handle them better.
The emotion that I felt this week was stress, because on the MAP TEST READING I didn’t know the answers, and I was stressing out because I didn’t want to get I mad score on the MAP TEST. So I calm myself down and that really helps me alot when I get strees out
And Also Mr. Alexander gives us a lot of assignments on CK12, that also stresses me out too because I cant get them all done because he gaves us 9 assignments to do.
I feel like im stuck in a school that i cant escape and every time i try to i get in troble and go back in the same place.