When we understand why we feel the way we do, we can better express and manage emotions in our daily lives. This is called emotional wellness – one of the dimensions of wellness.
Here are ways we can achieve emotional wellness:
1. Increase your awareness of your emotions
Do regular self check-ins. Take time throughout the day to ask yourself what you are feeling. Identify your thoughts and actions to see if those are contributing to your emotions.
2. Accept your feelings
Allow yourself to feel both positive and negative emotions. Learn to let yourself feel negative emotions and not just ignore them. All types of emotions are part of the human experience, and it is OK to feel all types of emotions.
3. Practice mindfulness
Practice focusing on what is happening right here and now. Learning to be mindful helps us to be in touch with what we are experiencing in the present moment.
4. Practice optimism and laugh
Learn to not force happiness and try not to dwell on negative emotions. Let yourself experience them, but learn to not hang on to those feelings. While we feel negative emotions, and that is OK, it doesn’t mean that has to be our whole experience. Find the humor in situations or something that makes you laugh to shift the emotions you experience to more positive ones.
5. Increase emotional regulation
Be aware of and experience your emotions and work to not let your feelings control how you act.
Source: University of California Davis
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