October is national emotional wellness month. Emotional wellness can be defined as the awareness, understanding, and acceptance of your emotions (Hagan, 2019). Emotional wellness also goes along with the importance of mental health. Mental health is something we need to make a priority in our lives. We hear all about the different ways to prioritize our mental health through social media and other media outlets. Sometimes all the articles and posts get caught in the “clutter” of our lives. Through different blog posts and articles I researched, I wanted to talk a bit more about the importance of emotional wellness in our lives and how we can prioritize this to avoid it all going with the “clutter” of everything.
A topic that gets mentioned under emotional wellness often is stress. As college students, we tend to be under a lot of stress. Finding ways to relieve stress can be extremely difficult, so taking a moment to step back from all of it and take a breath can be extremely beneficial. I know as students everyone has a lot going on right now. With it being the heart of the midterm season, things can start to feel very overwhelming. Everyone has their own ways to relieve stress. This can be through practicing self-care, cleaning, going for walks, meditation, etc. When everything starts to feel overwhelming, the one piece of advice I would give would be to take a step back and take a deep breath. Just this simple tactic can help refocus ourselves and get us back on track. When it comes to practicing your own ways of stress management, finding what works best for you is key. No one can tell you how to relieve your own stress. Recognizing and practicing what works for you is an important first step to take in stress management and recognizing these emotions.
To connect our emotions to a topic of leadership, emotional wellness goes along with our emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is defined as recognizing one’s emotions and understanding how to use your emotions positively to communicate with others. The four components of emotional intelligence are self-management, self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship management. Practicing these skills and implementing them in our lives can help bring about a greater understanding of our own emotions. Without having a connection with our own emotions, we tend to struggle with managing stress, understanding our own behaviors, and appropriately controlling our emotions. We have been told to shut off our emotions when feeling overwhelmed, angry, sad, or stressed; anything consider a “bad” emotion. Recognizing these emotions and trying to work through them brings about healthier ways of managing our emotional wellness while also practicing our emotional intelligence.
We all experience emotions. We all have our own feelings of good and bad moments. We all deal with stress. It is important to recognize these feelings and find ways to prioritize them, rather than push them away. Prioritizing our emotions and finding ways to practice good habits with them brings about a healthier approach to our mental health. During the month of October, find ways to practice emotional wellness in your life. Look for the different ways that help relieve your stress, recognize your own emotions, and make decisions that prioritize your mental health. Make your own emotional well-being a priority in your life.
Sources:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-empowerment-diary/201910/what-is-emotional-wellness
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/emotional-intelligence-toolkit.htm#
https://bioneurix.com/blogs/blog/importance-of-emotional-wellness
