Taking care of your emotional wellbeing

Feeling well emotionally means we can respond positively to life and cope with whatever life throws at us. It requires a bit of investment, as eating well and exercise does for our physical wellbeing.

When we’re busy and stressed we don’t always remember to look after ourselves emotionally.

We don’t always get warning signs like we do when we’re hungry or tired. Emotional ill-health can creep up on us – suddenly we may start to feel anxious, sad or agitated. We may struggle to make decisions about simple things. 

So how can we invest regularly in our emotional health?

Create a new daily routine

Think of something you used to love doing but have not given much time to recently. Or something you’ve been thinking about doing but haven’t got around to starting yet.

It might be listening to music, reading, baking, playing an instrument, drawing. Challenge yourself to do a bit of it every day. 

It doesn’t have to be for long, the value is in creating a routine. 

Something is anything that isn’t nothing.

My new daily routine is to get up half an hour earlier to write. Mostly it’s a brain dump of all the thoughts circling round my head.

I wouldn’t call it journalling as such, and it’s certainly not very coherent at times!

It helps me focus when I feel overwhelmed about what I need to do.  I find the act of putting pen to paper very therapeutic. 

Remember to breathe

Taking time each day to breathe deeply energises us and helps lower stress in the body. You could use meditation as a tool which I find really helpful.

Start by sitting quietly with your eyes closed. Take a long, slow breath through your nose for a count of 7, hold your breath to the count of 3, then exhale slowly through pursed lips for a count of 11. 

You can start by practising for a few minutes each day and gradually increase the time.

Observe your thoughts

Like breathing, thoughts can be automatic or deliberate. It’s important to remember we are not our thoughts – they exist on their own plane. 

It can be overwhelming if we let thoughts take control. We may wake up with our minds racing, feeling anxious about everything we have to do. Or we catastrophize situations that may be irrelevant to our lives. 

The best way to avoid thoughts taking control is not to stop them, but to observe them. Meditation is a valuable tool in learning how to do this.

Thinking “I really messed that up” or “I should be better than I am” doesn’t make it true. Thoughts are just stories and we can choose not to believe them. 

Trust yourself 

It’s easy to forget sometimes that we have control over our actions. 

We may say ‘yes’ to things because we feel obliged or guilty or we feel the need to conform – when really we mean ‘no way!’  And if we do say ‘no’ we feel obliged to justify it.  

Practice listening to your intuition and acting on it. There’s no such thing as a right or wrong decision – it’s just a decision. 

Trust that you know what to do and trust it’s the right thing in that moment. 

Avoid information overload

It’s hard to not to feel overwhelmed by the volume of information we receive every day. We can control our exposure to it though.

One simple way to do this is to turn off all notifications on your phone and other devices. I did this a year ago and feel so much calmer. 

You can choose to look at messages or social media when you are ready, rather than feeling the need to act immediately to a notification and getting stressed as a result. 

Ask yourself why you are reading something and whether it’s the best use of your time. 

It may be that it’s helping you to relax which is great, but at other times you may realise it’s making you feel anxious or preoccupied.

There are many other practical ways to take care of your emotional wellbeing, these are just some examples I have found personally beneficial.

Homeopathy can help support your emotional health. If you want to have a chat about what’s happening with you and ask questions about how I could help you, you can book a free call below:

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