Feelings can be hard to figure out and they might appear to be out of your control. Being able to manage your emotions and have healthy relationships with others is vital to your emotional wellness. Keeping these ten tips in mind can help you achieve emotional balance in your daily life.
1. Grow Your Circle of Friends
It’s very important that you have a support group of friends and family, You need people whom you can talk to about your problems people who will listen to you when you need to get things off your chest so that you know you’re not alone in whatever it is.
2. Self-Respect and Self-Love
Practice self-respect and self-love; they reinforce each other. With these feelings, you will treat yourself and others with the highest regard. Find friends that support your growth and your life of healthy habits.
3. Manage your Expectations
This is unlikely to be the writer’s retreat that you have long dreamt of. The suggestion that periods of quarantine might bring unprecedented productivity implies we should raise the bar, rather than lower it. Do not underestimate the cognitive and emotional load that this pandemic brings, or the impact it will have on your productivity, at least in the short term. Difficulty concentrating, low motivation and a state of distraction are to be expected. Adaptation will take time. Go easy on yourself. As we settle into this new rhythm of remote work and isolation, we need to be realistic in the goals we set, both for ourselves and others in our charge.
4. Awareness of Thoughts and Feelings
Sometimes it’s difficult to understand what causes negative emotions to spring up. It might feel like emotions or moods come and go with no rhyme or reason. Taking time to become aware of certain thoughts or environmental triggers that cause these negative emotions will allow you to understand and manage your emotional health better. If emotional awareness and management is an area you feel you need to improve, there are activities you can do to help you understand your emotional-self better. For example, talk therapy with a qualified professional, guided meditation, mindfulness apps on your smart phone, journaling or even spending time alone to really get to know you without any distractions or others interfering.
5. Be compassionate with yourself and with others
There is much that we cannot control right now, but how we talk to ourselves during these challenging times can either provide a powerful buffer to these difficult circumstances or amplify our distress. Moments of feeling overwhelmed often come with big thoughts, such as “I cannot do this,” or “This is too hard.” This pandemic will cause a lot of stress for many of us, and we cannot be our best selves all the time. But we can ask for help or reach out when help is asked of us.
6. Keeping Boundaries
Establishing boundaries with people in your life will contribute to your mental well-being. While it’s best to be nice to others in your life, there will be times when they cross the line and it’s up to you to tell them what is and isn’t acceptable for you. For example, it doesn’t make you a bad person to tell your neighbors that they should give you a call or a text instead of coming over unannounced. Advocating for yourself and your emotional needs will keep you from feeling overwhelmed by other people’s expectations and behaviors.
7. Take care of your Physical Health
Exercise regularly, eat healthy meals, and get enough sleep. Don’t abuse drugs or alcohol. Keep your physical health from affecting your emotional health.
Figure out what’s important to you in life, and focus on that. This could be your work, your family, volunteering, care giving, or something else. Spend your time doing what feels meaningful to you.
8. Manage uncertainty by Staying in the Present
Take each day as it comes and focus on the things you can control. Mindfulness and meditation can be great tools. This will probably be a stressful time for all of us, and will test the mental-health policies and practices of many research institutes, just as it is testing much else in the world. By embracing good mental-health and well-being measures and by relying on others when necessary, we can protect ourselves and those around us.
9. Manage your time by Setting Weekly Goals
If you make a schedule and set goals for yourself for the week, “you’ll be more on top of your days, and when you’re more on top of your days, you’re more on top of your life,” Gardere says. As you cross off the tasks on your to-do list, you will feel a sense of accomplishment which will help reduce stress, he adds.
10. Self-Acceptance
Sometimes the expectations you set for yourself are more than the expectations others have for you. Its okay to give yourself a break and let the self-judgment and self-doubt go. You won’t ever feel at ease in the world or with yourself if you are constantly talking negatively about yourself. If you wouldn’t let a stranger call you “stupid”, “ugly “or “not good enough” then you shouldn’t let yourself say those things. Just like with negative thoughts in general, becoming aware and then learning how to manage negative self talk is key to learning how to accept yourself.