Emotional wellness is a key part of being an effective employee, spouse, friend, family member, and active member of society.
The National Center for Emotional Wellness defines emotional wellness as our “awareness, understanding, and acceptance of our feelings and our ability to manage effectively through challenges and change.” Challenges and change are sure to come to all of us, so it’s important to have healthy ways of managing our emotions when those times come.
Many improvements to your overall mental health can also benefit your physical health. Today’s fast-paced digital world dictates speeding through our days and multi-tasking unless we’re intentional about our actions. This speed can easily leave us feeling overwhelmed and with little time to process our emotions.
We all have different needs that help us process our emotions, so we are going to explore some ways that are known to help achieving a sense of balance.
Tip #1 for Emotional Wellness: Build Resilience
Resilience is defined as having the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties: toughness. People who are “emotionally fit” learn to cope when faced with challenging life occurrences. They tend to draw from their past experiences as well as their support system.
A few examples of how to build your resilience (recommended by the National Institutes of Health):
- Develop healthy physical habits
- Take time for yourself each day
- Learn from your mistakes
- Practice gratitude
- Define and explore your purpose
- Tap into your family and social connections
All of these examples will impact your emotional (even physical!) wellness with consistency and time.
For example, Psychology Today shares that “studies show that practicing gratitude curbs the use of words expressing negative emotions and shifts inner attention away from such negative emotions as resentment and envy.” In turn, this commonly results in less pain and stress, healthier relationships, and a boost in mental and physical health.
You may occasionally practice one or a few of these, but they have not become a habit in your life. Choose one from this list and practice it for one week intentionally, score yourself daily on your emotional well-being and see where you land. You may find that you see real results and want to implement another one on the list!
How will you practice building resiliency this week? In what ways are you already excelling at resiliency?
Questions about Wheelhouse CancerAllies? Contact us today.
3 Responses