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Mental Health
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Mind
The 5 Pillars Of Emotional Wellness
December 8th, 2021 at 6:38 am
How do you respond to stress and adversity – are you able to carry yourself well and interact with others or do you get overwhelmed by negative thoughts and emotions?
According popular Instagram Holistic Life Coach and Certified Trauma Support Specialist, Amy Fielder, how a person copes, soothes and regulates their emotions during times of adversity can determine one’s emotional health.
Amy explains that; “Someone who is emotionally healthy would witness their thoughts, feel their feelings but then regulate and soothe them and find clarity in an effort to determine if they need to take any action or speak up about something or not. They hold themselves accountable for how they feel”.
What Is Emotional Health?
Emotional health is a person’s ability to identify, process, and act upon feelings in specific circumstances over a course of time. It includes both emotional intelligence and emotional resilience. When the subjective experience of emotions is appropriate over a sustained period, emotional health is thought to be present.
How To Improve Your Emotional Health
Emotional health is built upon five pillars: your psychology, relationships, nutrition, sleep and exercise.
Your psychology – Which is made up of your established patterns and beliefs in how you talk to yourself, your history of trauma, the stories about the fact of life you grow up around that contributes towards your personal development; and your willingness to step out of your comfort zone and discover what patterns have been running your life. This is your ability to create and live the vision of the person you wish to be.
Your relationships – As you’ve heard, we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Because it is so monumentally important, if our relationships with those people turn sour, our emotional health will suffer significantly. Working on your relationships means addressing the pain points with your significant other and those close to you. It means having conversations with your boss and co-workers to create an environment that is most conducive to your emotional intelligence and emotional resilience. It also includes releasing who you should be and embracing who you are, so you can attract the right people into your life.
Your nutrition – If our brain and nerve functions are not operating at a proper capacity, we are not going to feel well. When we do not feel well, our emotional resilience will suffer. What we may not be aware of is that 90% of our neurotransmitters are located in our gut. An estimated 100 trillion bacteria in our gut are responsible for neurotransmitter production and other functions. Diets high in refined sugar, fried fats, processed food, and animal products tend to produce a sub-optimal gut microbiome, but diets that are high in whole plant foods and insoluble fibre are essential for a gut microbiome and can, in return, give us optimum emotional health.
Your sleep – We’ve all sacrificed sleep to get more work done (or watch more Netflix). However, these missed sleep hours can catch up with you later on, causing adrenal fatigue – which can take a toll on your emotional resilience. Sleep is important as the brain uses that time to process our day’s events. We place the day’s events into long-term memory and form connections in our brain, detoxify our bodies and shed waste. Therefore, if you want to improve your emotional health, you need to prioritise getting adequate hours of sleep.
Your exercise – Good emotional health requires good physical health. We should all workout to train our bodies to operate at their highest level. If you want to feel good and perform at your best, move your body. Adapt a healthy workout routine to suit your daily activities.
By working on improving the above five pillars, you will be able to improve your emotional health significantly.
Self-Reflection Questions For Your Emotional Health
You can ask yourself the following questions to help self-reflect and keep your emotional health in check:
- Am I taking responsibility for my words and actions?
- Am I speaking up for myself after I’ve regulated my emotions – to assure that I’m not attacking, projecting or deflecting onto anybody?
- Am I holding myself accountable for soothing my own thoughts and feelings, and once I’ve done so, do I still need more support?
- Am I allowing myself to ask for help from those I trust and confide in?
- Am I matching my words to my actions?
- Am I being honest about how I feel with myself and others in my life?
- Am I engaging in behaviours or thoughts that are unproductive, harmful, or infringing on my peace?
- Am I turning to the coping tools I have learned and know what works for me?
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