Contributed by Todd Griffin, TG Psychology
Do you recognize the difference between emotional and physical health? Do you know where you stand when it comes to your personal mental health?
Hardly ever considered as important as physical health, most of the people have trouble getting in touch with their emotions and feelings. Emotionally healthy people have certain characteristics that help them cope better with life stressors and the ups and downs of life. Being emotionally healthy is a learned behavior and anyone can learn it for a better and healthier emotional and mental health.
- They are in tune with their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
- They have learned healthy ways to cope with everyday life stressors.
- They have healthy relationships with people around them.
How To Know You Need Help?
Your body responds to your emotions such as your thought patterns and how you act. These all affect your body. A recent adverse event could cause high blood pressure, as a response making you feel stressed. In fact, stress is one of the main causes of high blood pressure.
If you have the following ongoing problems, you should seek help.
- Irritable mood
- Stress & anxiety
- Low mood and Sadness
- Dissatisfaction with life
- Feeling overwhelmed by everyday stressors
How to go on the path to better mental health?
It is important to recognize any mental and emotional baddies and seek professional help for it.
In-Person Counseling And Consultation Services
If anything concerns your mental well-being then you should consult a psychologist and discuss your treatment options. Everything is kept confidential and the psychologist would help you to get better mentally and emotionally. If you sense something wrong, consulting a professional should be on top of the list. A trained psychologist will teach you how to deal with stress, anger, and other emotions.
Helping Yourself: Calm your mind and body
If you don’t want to go to a professional yet, or just want to get rid of the lingering stress in your everyday life which is not caused by a traumatic event, then you can try the following tips which would greatly help your mental and emotional health.
Just like having a stressful mind affects your body, having external stress on the body also affects your mind. Learn to relieve physical stress using these simple tips.
- Meditation
- Music
- Take Care Of Yourself Physically
- Live a balanced life
- Overstressing not only affects us physically but also emotionally and it leads to an unbalanced life, it is important to recognize how much priority something holds. It’s also important to learn to keep your stress level under control for each part of your life.
- Try to keep your negative emotions under control. Too many negative emotions lead to overstressing and cause a plethora of emotional problems which don’t need to exist.
- If you’re unable to forgo the above then do the opposite of it. Learn to show gratitude for the little things in life, you may want to keep a journal for this to track all the good things that happen to you. Having a positive mindset leads to an improved quality of life and gives a health boost.
Meditation allows your mind and body to relax and relieve mental and physical stress. A simple practice that has been going on since ancient times, meditation can help you clear your mind and take stress away from your body.
The advantage of meditating is that you can choose when you do it and for how long, even small sessions prove to be of great help. The breathing techniques in meditation help relax the body to a great degree resulting in a clearer mind and stress-free body.
Listen to your favorite music, music has a calming effect on our mind and body, it relieves us of stress that we accumulate throughout the day. Listen to music that makes you calm and lets your mind wander.
An unfit body wreaks havoc on the mind; good emotional health requires you to have a healthy body. It is important to take care of your body, eat healthy meals, and do some kind of exercise or activity throughout the day to relieve stress.
It is not necessary to completely ban everything, but everything in moderation should keep your body healthy and your emotions happy.
Learn to control the variables in your life. It’s important to know that stress can be a good stimulus in our everyday school or work life, it lets us prioritize stuff, but most people nowadays overstress everything which leads to all the adverse effects we have been talking about so far.
Mental and emotional health is a vital part of your overall wellness and needs the same ongoing attention and care as your physical health. Do you care about your emotional well-being?
Todd Griffin
Todd is the Director and Principal Psychologist at TG Psychology, in Penrith, NSW. He has over 14 years of experience working with adults and young people in both public health and private practice settings. He has treated people from diverse cultural backgrounds, with a variety of emotional health and behavioral issues, including: depression, anxiety, relationship issues, anger, addictions, trauma and grief. He has also facilitated a number of group programs, treating a wide range of issues: from quitting cannabis, to social skills training, self-esteem development and deliberate self-harm behaviors.
