Emotional wellness includes the awareness, understanding, and acceptance of our feelings. It is a key element in maintaining a healthy balance in our lives and our relationships. Here are a couple of habits for developing and maintaining emotional wellness:
Learn to accept the changes in your life
Change is inevitable and provides invaluable opportunities for growth. Resisting change takes a lot of energy and can leave you feeling frustrated and sad.
When you’re feeling down, be grateful
Pride, shame, and guilt activate similar neural circuits in the ‘reward’ centres of the brain. Which is why it can be appealing to feel guilt and shame. Worrying too makes things feel better in the short term, because it calms the limbic system by increasing activity in the medial prefrontal cortex and decreasing activity in the amygdala. But these aren’t long-term solutions. Neuroscientists suggest that, instead, you ask: “What am I grateful for?” Gratitude boosts production of the neurotransmitter dopamine and serotonin. Focussing on the positive aspects of your life increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex and increases activity in social dopamine circuits, making social interactions more enjoyable.
Label negative feelings
Sad? Anxious? Happy? What is it that’s making you feel bad? Using just a few words to very simply describe an emotion activates the prefrontal cortex, reducing arousal in the limbic system and, in turn, reducing the emotion – a technique employed when practicing mindfulness.
Make that decision
Brain science shows that making decisions reduces worry and anxiety – as well as helping you solve problems. The act of making a decision creates intent and sets goals – all part of the same neural circuitry that engages the prefrontal cortex, reducing worry and anxiety. Making decisions also helps overcome striatum activity, which pulls you toward negative impulses. However, deciding can be difficult. The answer is to make a ‘good enough’ decision. It’s doesn’t have to the best decision. Being a perfectionist can be stressful, as it creates too much emotional ventromedial prefrontal activity. ‘Good enough’ activates more dorsolateral prefrontal areas, helping you to feel in control.
Reach out and touch someone
Social exclusion activates the same circuitry as physical pain, stimulating the anterior cingulate and insula, which is why physical relationships and touching are so important to your brain’s feeling of happiness. Oxytocin is even released through small actions such handshakes and pats on the back. Touching someone you love can even reduce pain. In fact, studies found the stronger the marriage, the more powerful the effect. You should have at least five hugs a day to keep your brain happy.
Be your own best friend
It is self-defeating to dwell on your mistakes and imperfections. Be as kind, comforting, understanding, and forgiving with yourself as you would be with the people you love the very most. Befriend yourself and choose to become your own best friend for, if you desert yourself, there’s no one who would stand by you.
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