A cancer diagnosis can adversely affect the emotional health of patients, families, and caregivers. Common feelings during this life-changing experience include anxiety, distress, and depression. It is important to keep a check on these changes and get help when needed.
Emotional well-being is an integral part of holistic well-being. It may impact your outlook on life, personality, your relationships, and your physical and mental health.
Emotional health is most important aspect of your life. If you are emotionally healthy, you can deal with all other factors of life. You will find obstacles and problems on several occasions in life, but if you are emotionally integrated you will overcome it. Even it affects your physical health as well.
In this blog, we will share a definition of emotional well-being, it’s necessity and practical rational ways to accomplish it.
What is Emotional Wellness?
Emotional wellness includes psychological care. As per National Center for Emotional Wellness, “Emotional wellness refers to an awareness, understanding, and acceptance of our feelings, and our ability to manage effectively through challenges and change.” This is a part of being emotionally well, including experiencing a range of human emotions, finding a positive outlook, and emotionally overcoming challenges.
People with good emotional wellness deal with happy and unhappy situation with grace. It is not that an emotionally fit person will always feel content and happy, even they also have unpleasant emotions, like stress and frustration on several occasion, but they have the ability to recognize these emotions and tackle them. Emotionally-stabled people can perform his daily activity perfectly despite having negative sentiments.
Emotional well-being is the aptitude to express positive emotions, moods, thoughts, and feelings and adapt when confronted with negative and stressful situations.
One of the foundations of emotional well-being is resilience, which allows you to handle challenging situations.
Emotional well-being allows you to concentrate on the positive and manage the negative emotions and feelings you may have in a particular situation. This can help you make a stronger relationship with those around you.
Why is Understanding Emotional Wellness Important?
Emotional wellness is very important component of our overall health. It is essential for finding happiness and success. We all face hardships and challenges. Those that are emotionally healthy have the ability to deal with these challenges, including stress, relationships, responsibilities, upsetting events, and unanticipated situations.
Your resilience grows when you recognize the emotions that trigger you and express them in a constructive manner to yourself and others.
What is the relationship between emotional well-being and health?
Everything in your life — emotional, social, spiritual, physical, and intellectual — connects in a state of well-being, for example, walking just 10-15 minutes a day gives your brain a boost. That means more energy, awareness, and a healthier outlook on life. Because exercise of any sort balances your dopamine and serotonin levels, it also improves your sleep and reduces stress and anxiety. All of this can make you better equipped to manage your feelings and emotions.
How can we improve emotional health and manage stress?
Simple ways to improve your emotional wellness:
Include exercise in your daily routine
Exercise can boost your mood, concentration and alertness. It can even help give you a positive outlook on life. The link between exercise and mental health is complicated. Inactivity can be both a cause and a consequence of mental illness, for example. But there are lots of ways that exercise can benefit your mental health. The levels of chemicals in the brain, such as serotonin, stress hormones and endorphins, change when you exercise. Exercise can distract you from negative thoughts and provide opportunities to try new experiences.
Incorporate mindfulness to your daily life
A study shows that incorporating mindful habits in your daily life results in being more emotionally stable. Mindfulness can help you learn how to be in the present and manage your emotions. Practice meditation, relaxation methods, and find inner peace – which will help you cope with stress, anxiety, and depression⁵.
Be grateful for what you have
gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships. Write down the positive things in your life. Remembering what we appreciate helps us find joy, reduces stress, and improves mental health. “When we acknowledge the small things in life, we can rewire our brain to deal with the present with more awareness and broader perception,” Francis says. “By reducing stress, gratitude reduces depression and anxiety.
Connect with friends and family
Connecting with friends and family fosters relationships to help you gain the support that you need to handle even the most difficult situations with confidence. Having someone you can talk to, ask for advice, or even vent your stress can certainly help a lot.
Share your feelings with a loved one
Reach out and share your feelings with a loved one. It can alleviate stress and help you feel cared for. And then you can better cope with the problem you’ve been carrying — you might even inspire your confidant to share with you an issue that’s been on their mind. Don’t live with the person you crave to communicate with? Don’t just send them a text message. Use your cell phone to call them.
These days good old-fashioned phone calls are on the rise. It turns out that hearing someone’s voice is more comforting than seeing a message followed by a long line of emojis. And, if your circumstances allow, make plans to meet up for a face-to-face chat.5 Remember: Thinking you can solve all your problems is unfair to yourself. The happiest people have had help — either from loved ones or mental health experts — along the way. Be willing to ask for help and then accept it.2
Create something
For some people, writing about their feelings can be a big stress reliever. Or perhaps expressing your feelings through gardening, painting, or playing a musical instrument is more your thing. Just get started. Also, be observant to what’s positive about your life, your day, or just a moment, and write it down. Being grateful and living in the moment is a big antidote to stress.
And these are, in fact, stressful times. You might think you can better manage how you feel by staying focused, creating to-do lists, and repeating motivational mantras. And these things do help to a point. But it’s also important to practice self-compassion by not judging yourself adversely and by not bottling up your emotions, pretending everything is just fine. Doing so can hinder your ability to cultivate real resilience.9
Accept yourself
Though you might be good enough, you’re not perfect. Everyone has their strengths and their weaknesses — including you. So don’t compare yourself to others.
Self-affirmations are really helpful. You want to retrain the brain so that you’re thinking (and saying) positive — and not negative — things about yourself. Use the words, “I am,” and then fill in the blank.
Conclusion
There are many ways to enhance your emotional wellness and move toward a healthier life overall. Emotional well-being is just as important dimensions of wellness, and it is something you should incorporate into your everyday life.
How can we improve emotional health and manage stress?
Exercise-Exercise can boost your mood, concentration and alertness.
Be grateful- Gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness.
Communicate-Reach out and share your feelings with a loved one.
Accept yourself- Do not compare yourself to others.
