Arsenal defender Hector Bellerin has explained how he feels that emotion is important when it comes to achieving high performance.

The 26-year-old moved to north London as a teenager a decade ago, and has been through the full range of emotions with the Gunners.

From winning the FA Cup three times to suffering a serious knee injury in 2019 and taking some tough losses along the way, Bellerin's career has had its fair share of ups and downs.

Yet the Spanish international believes that it is important that he embraces his emotions, and has revealed that he likes to accept the way that he is feeling, no matter whether he has just won or lost a game.

Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, Bellerin used Arsenal's Europa League semi-final defeat to Villarreal as a key example of this, revealing that the loss left him feeling "really, really angry" but instead of distracting himself, he decided to let his emotions run their natural course.

He told Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes: "I just let myself enjoy or let myself grieve when I have a bad game or when we lose. And it happens in every single dressing room, you must have seen it?

Now it's like you're going to dressing room and everyone's on their phones, right? To me now it's like 'just put it away' and whatever feeling comes to me. It's like we lost to Villarreal and I was really, really angry, and I was really sad, and I was really upset. And I was like: 'I don't want to not respect this.' I want to feel it. I want to feel sad and I want to feel angry and I want to feel upset and I want to get home and still feel this. 

'Cause if you go on your phone and you speak to your people about... that's these distractions. You're not grieving, but you're not really feeling the feelings that you need to feel. And when I win it's the same, like I want to talk to my teammate: 'yo that thing you did that was so good'".

Bellerin's comments are certainly relatable when it comes to everyday life. After having a difficult day at work, it can be easy to turn to your phone straight away and scroll through social media to shut out how you are truly feeling.

However, arguably a better way to go about things would be to think about why the day panned out that way, which could then act as motivation to make sure that these experiences don't keep happening.

The full-back could easily have gone on his phone after the Villarreal loss, where Arsenal were just one goal away from making it through to the Europa League final. Instead, he wanted to reflect on the game and gave himself time to think about where things went wrong so that he could learn from the situation.

Having won multiple pieces of silverware already, it seems that this approach works well for Bellerin, and his message appears to be clear: setbacks are bound to happen in life, but figuring out the best way to deal with them is crucial if you want to perform at the highest level.

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