Emotional wellness is a critical component of our personal well-being. It’s the ability to be attentive to both positive and negative feelings and how we handle them. It’s what helps us to grow in the face of adversity and make autonomous decisions.
October is Emotional Wellness Month in the U.S. Between the pandemic, racial movements, or the upcoming election, circumstances have been stressful in the U.S. When it comes to the pandemic, the disabled and the elderly bear an enormous brunt of the risk, and to carry that for months is emotionally taxing.
Improve Your Emotional Wellness
There are several ways that you can work to improve your emotional wellness. October is a great time to start, and it may help you to cope with stress from daily events that we often hold little control over. It begins with simply being able to identify and express what you’re feeling in a productive way.
When you’re happy, angry, or upset about something, it’s important to be able to share those feelings in a productive way. That means practicing kindness and compassion and still treating others the way that we would want to be treated.
Below are a few more tips to help improve your emotional wellness:
Manage Stress
Stress not only leads to negative emotions, but it can also lead to expressing them in unproductive ways. When we learn how to manage stress, we often feel more in control of the complete situation. Stress management starts with the basics: a healthy diet, adequate sleep, and exercise.
Journaling, meditation, or yoga may also help you to gain more control over your stress.
Learning Mindfulness
Meditation and yoga can help to teach you mindfulness, but it’s important to take this state of awareness into your everyday life. It simply means paying attention to your present circumstances without judgment. It can happen anywhere at any time.
You can practice mindfulness on your morning walk, as you eat a meal, or even while you read the news. It’s simply acknowledging where you are, what you’re doing, and how you feel.
Find Meaning
Life – and our circumstances – become much easier to cope with when we have purpose. If you’re overwhelmed with stress, it helps to find a purpose for waking up in the morning. That purpose can come from work, spirituality, family, hobbies, or somewhere else entirely. But when you are driven to success, it becomes easier to find emotional wellness.
Connect with Others
This can be hard to accomplish in a pandemic, but the fact remains, humans are social creatures. If you can safely meet with friends or family members, it’s a great time to feel that connection. It’s a great time to pick up the phone and call the people you haven’t spoken with in a while.
Let October Be a Reset Month
Emotional Wellness Month is a great time to develop positive habits that lead to a more positive mindset. If you can change one or more of the above habits in your life, you become a more emotionally healthy, vibrant person, and we could all use a bit more of that in 2020.
