Emotional Hygiene

Human beings expend much more time worrying about their physical fitness, but we sometimes overlook our mental faculty in the process. Psychological and emotional hygiene influence the way we feel about ourselves, and our capacity to handle feelings, manage stress, and cope with threats, frustration, and losses. Also, our feelings and emotions can have negative impact on our physical health. Emotions that are experienced liberally and confessed without judgment or attachment tend to flow springily. On contrary, repressed feelings (usually unacceptable or negative ones) can annihilate mental energy and lead to psychological infirmity. It’s important to identify our dominant emotions and be informed about the impact they have — not only to our behavior but also to our body, and social relationships.

Our mental and physical health are essentially the other side of the same coin. Psychological problems — as well as many physical health problems — turn up when nerve cells fail to tolerate stress. According to American Psychological association there exist different kinds of psychological injury that is equally alarming like physical injuries. Unlike the consequence of sprains, breaks and wrench emotional “injuries” results from psychological traumas caused by rejection, abandonment, and especially chronic isolation. As psychological research explains, isolation and other mental injuries can damage our physical functions; possibly resulting high blood pressure, rising cholesterol, or even disturb in operation of our immune system. Negative thought and frequent inferiority complex can create chronic anxiety, which let down body’s hormonal balance, drains the brain chemicals required for arising pleasure, and mutilates the immune system. Chronic anxiety can actually reduce our life expectancy. Neuron-Science has now detected that enduring anxiety shortens our ‘telomeres’, the “end region of chromosome”, which results early aging.

When emotional suppression become habitual and emotional energy jammed inside, the free flow of vital energy slowly degrades. Think of a free flowing river into which someone regularly throws several large stones. In course of time, the river becomes clogged, likewise the habitual repression of emotion clogs and destroy energy inside. This blockage leads to system failure, with most biological functions and organs (including body/mind/soul) failing to operate at full efficiency.

Conversely, emotional suppression sometimes serves as natural first-aid in healing process, even essential mechanism against any kind of social or moral situation. As when an individual experience ruthless injury, human body naturally goes into the physiological state of shock, paralyzing all sensation and freeze consciousness, so that body stops feeling pain and begins recovery. Some circumstance offers no other choice than repressing feelings such as, need laughing during tension or sexual arousal at the wrong time or with wrong person.

If repression of emotion is both benevolent and malevolent, how can we address these psychological issues? Despite how severe mental injury are, many of us never bother to address it. We pay no heed to emotional impulses that warns us about something wrong inside and try arbitrating it out by diverting ourselves with drugs, alcohols or other self-destructive comportment. Instead, we can build-up emotional intelligence, the ability to recognize all kinds of positive and negative emotions and use them productively. This enable us to manage emotions, control them and regulate our mindset and actions accordingly.

Imagine these problems as physical wounds just like any other, and that they need practice of good hygiene for immediate cure. Whenever you feel emotional injury, be calm and accept the pain and recognize your injury, so you can address it. Prevent “emotional bleeding” by ignoring negative thoughts so you can clean the wound. And when you are not in emotional pain, develop your self-esteem to build-up future protection. Never keep these types of emotional wounds untreated, because they’ll persist to worse, just like physical wounds.

Emotional intelligence has a scientific purpose — to help the body recover from the ill effects of negative emotions. Thus developing emotional intelligence over time can help us become more prepared to face mental injuries. Emotionally intelligent person is like a boomerang — no matter how far a person is carried out by emotions, he/she holds ability to bounce back from hindrance and thrive, despite problems.