Improving Emotional Health & Wellness

Emotional health is one aspect of mental health that sometimes gets overlooked. It is the ability to cope with positive and negative emotions, including your awareness of each. People with a good grip on emotional health have a robust set of coping mechanisms for when they experience negativity and know when to reach out to a professional to seek health.
As we can all agree, physical health often affects our mental health, but the inverse is also true. People who experience large amounts of stress and negative emotions sometimes develop other health conditions. Negative feelings do not directly cause these conditions, but the behaviors influenced by those emotions can increase your risk for illness. 

Here are a few tips to help maintain or even improve your mental health:

• Balance. Creating a balance between work and personal life, activity and rest, and practicing moderation in everything. 

• Connection. Finding and keeping a community is essential. Spending time with friends and family members in person can positively impact your emotional wellness. 

• Meditation.  Being mindful of your thoughts and emotions and taking time to sit with and understand them can be a big part of overall emotional wellness. 

• Positive Self Talk. Negative self-talk can be a big downfall, and we can often find ourselves living up to what we say about ourselves. Creating a positive image of yourself using words may soon lead to your thoughts following suit. 

• Sleep. Lack of sleep lessens your ability to sense your emotions and the emotions of others.

• Exercise.  Aim for at least 30 minutes of movement daily to increase physical and mental health. 

• Purpose. Search for something you are passionate about, whether that be work or something in your personal life. Finding what fuels your soul’s fire can positively impact your everyday life and increase that positive energy we all love. 

These tips can help you keep your emotional health in tip-top shape, and realizing when you need to change or seek additional help improves your emotional intelligence. Both emotional intelligence and emotional health go hand in hand, and being able to foster both will significantly benefit you in your everyday life.