What is it? Emotional health is one aspect of mental health. It is a positive state of wellbeing. It means you can handle the setbacks in life. It is your ability to cope with both positive and negative emotions, which includes your awareness of them and feeling them. Emotionally healthy people have good coping skills for negative emotions, and they also know when to reach out to a friend or to a professional for help.
Signs/Symptoms that you aren’t coping well:
- Isolating yourself from friends, family, or coworkers.
- Lower energy than usual.
- Sleeping too much or too little.
- Eating too much or too little.
- Increased use of substances.
- Racing thoughts- rumination.
- Lower performance at work/school.
- More interpersonal conflicts than usual, trouble with relationships.
- Feelings of irritability, guilt, hopelessness, or worthlessness.
- Neglecting hygiene and personal care.
Ways to Cope:
- Watch unhealthy ways of coping like too much caffeine, sugar, drinking, smoking/vaping, etc.
Ask for help – get the unconditional support you need. - Clarify what you need.
- Nurture your positive relationships – spend time with others.
When you’re feeling distressed, ask yourself, “Do I need to change my situation, or do I need to find a way to better cope with the situation?”
Problem-based coping is helpful when you need to change your situation, perhaps by removing a stressful thing from your life. For example, if you’re in an unhealthy relationship, your anxiety and sadness might be best resolved by ending the relationship (as opposed to soothing your emotions). If you can’t end it, setting up boundaries and limitations.
Emotion-based coping is helpful when you need to take care of your feelings when you either don’t want to change your situation or when circumstances are out of your control. For example, if you are grieving the loss of a loved one, it’d be important to take care of your feelings in a healthy way (since you can’t change the circumstance).
Expressive Writing –Free writing for 15-20 minutes about the issue, exploring your deepest thoughts and feelings about the situation. The goal is to get the thoughts down on paper and see what you can learn about the situation and your feelings. We confront our problems and feelings which can lead to solutions and feeling a sense of control.
Lesson – look at setbacks, mistakes, failures as teachable, learnable moments. How can you do it differently? What changes can you make? Who could you ask for help?
Accept that change is a part of life. Certain goals or ideals may no longer be attainable as a result of adverse situations in your life. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on circumstances that you can alter.
Diane’s Website- About Diane
Diane Lang, a national speaker, educator and certified positive psychology coach, has her Master’s degree in counseling and is an adjunct at Montclair State University in the Undergraduate Psychology Department.