Loading...

@

Advertisements
How to Build and Maintain Mental and Emotional Strength
General
2 years ago

Building and maintaining mental and emotional health is something you have to be conscious of. There are so many things that come up as we go on our way in life. Challenges show up every now and then, relationship issues, problems at your place of work, the stress and anxieties that may show up every now and then are enough to affect everyone’s mental and emotional health. The sure thing is, challenges and troubles will always arise. They are common to us all. However, knowing how to build mental and emotional health is necessary to prepare you for what will surely come up in the future. You will be shocked how many aspects of your life can actually become better simply by improving emotional health.

Avoid stress as best you can

Stress is one thing that weakens your mind and emotions, making it difficult to stand the challenges that come. Improving emotional health is a difficult thing to do when you are stressed out. It is also important to keep stress out of your life if you really look forward to being mentally strong. Stress is simply a formidable enemy to mental health and wellbeing. For that reason it is one of the first things you want to deal with as you look forward to being emotionally healthy.

Learn to ignore unnecessary drama

So many things we allow to affect and influence us are really not necessary at all. While you may have to go through some dramatic moments in life, knowing which of them are necessary and which of them are not helps you avoid wasting your time on things that do not really count. For example, there are some relationships we keep with people that only make it difficult to focus on our goals and keep us from building the right mental and emotional attitude. Staying away from relationships and people who bring a lot of needless drama into your life is an important step to being emotionally healthy. The worse part about such relationships is the fact that you do not really have any tangible reason why you are into it. People are usually the source of our dramatic experiences and learning how to put every relationship in perspective help you control who can influence you or control you emotionally and who cannot. Until you can determine and properly assess your relationships, it will be difficult to even know what to call “unnecessary” drama, talk less of effectively handling it. If you keep getting into wrong relationships, improving emotional health will seem like an unattainable wish.

Determining what relationship you have with each person around you is important to building mental and emotional strength. Lets take the situation where someone considers an acquaintance as a friend. Friendship is about having mutual understanding of your relationship with each other on both sides. If you both do not understand the connection or relationship you share in the same way, then it is hardly friendship. So you may find yourself being negatively affected by what someone is doing because you consider him or her as a friend meanwhile that person only knows you as an acquaintance. You end up being hurt emotionally for no good or even obvious reason.

Such connections only hinder mental health and wellbeing. Bottom line is, if he or she does not have the same values for the relationship like you do, being mentally strong and emotionally stable will be difficult. It is safer to know what kind of relationship binds you two together and hold on to responsibilities and expectations of such a relationship. Learn to give every relationship just the place it deserves to avoid mental and emotional confusion or pain.

Develop the right attitude, especially towards negative circumstances

When negative situations come, take advantage of them to develop the right attitude or response. This is one way to ensure mental health and wellbeing. As already stated, we cannot always control what situations or challenges come our way but we can surely learn to respond the right way every time something comes up. That is actually what matters; developing the right attitude towards the issues that come our way. There is a great chance that as you learn to respond right, things will eventually work out right even if they were at their worse.

People are made to respond to positive situations in the right way but it seems that responding right when faced with negative issues is something that has to be learned by practice. Therefore, even these negative situations are not just to be considered as challenges. They are actually opportunities to prepare for even more difficult challenges that may come up in the future. This means as you practice the right response to circumstances and situations, your attitude is developed. But more importantly, because attitudes are closely related to the mind and emotions, your mental and emotional strength is built or developed by taking advantage of negative situations and circumstances to build the right attitude. Being mentally strong or being emotionally healthy is not a function of having no challenges to face, but taking advantage of the challenges to develop the right attitude.

Set goals and make plans to keep things under control

Setting definite attainable goals are a great way to build mental and emotional strength. When there is something you look forwards to achieving, it becomes easier to take control of your mind and emotions so that you can use the power they wield to accomplish those goals. Setting goals and making plans to achieve them will improve on your mental health and wellbeing. These goals and plans could also be related, but not limited to activities that build mind and emotional capacity. You can, for example, decide to practice writing with your left hand if you are naturally right handed. This helps you develop a part of your brain you may never have actually been familiar with. With time, you will experience a difference in the way you respond to or solve certain problems which use to be puzzling or mysterious to you. Your daily goals in this regard could be writing about a page or two with your left hand and looking forward to making it better. Being mentally strong is usually about challenging the mind to do new things and face new challenges.

As far as setting goals for improving emotional health is concerned, you may be wondering how to go about it. One thing you can do is imagine a situation you consider to be terribly hurtful or emotionally challenging. Think of the situation for a while and imagine that it actually happens. The loss of a dear one, a break up or some other issue. Imagine the pain you may have to go through under such circumstances. Ask yourself questions like, how will I react emotionally I were to be in this situation? How deeply will I be hurt. Will my perceived reaction be the right one at the moment or could I actually do something better? These question will help you decide the right response and to react the right way if the situation ever shows up. Most times, the main reason why people are devastated by some problem or tragedy is because they never for once imagined it could actually happen to them. When you don’t ever think of the possibility of something, your emotions are totally out of tune with it. If it happens suddenly, you react poorly because not even the slightest preparation was in place.

You can look at things that happen fairly often in your own life or family and consider how badly such events have effected your mentally and emotionally. Also consider how you reacted to them in the past as well as the result of your reactions. Then determine whether or not there is a better way to react if it happens again. All these prepare you for the inevitably painful moments that sometimes seek to shatter our lives. As you commit to making these considerations and resolving on taking certain actions, it is only going to be a matter of time until you are mentally and emotionally strong enough to handle or deal with the things that use to break you down.

Understand that no one has power over your emotions until you give them

In order to build and keep mental and emotional strength, you must be an absolute custodian of your emotions. But this can only happen when you understand that people and circumstances cannot take hold of your emotions until you let them have the power to. That is the first step you have to take. Learn to keep your emotions under control because it determines the level of mental and emotional strength you can attain or maintain. Being emotionally strong is very much related to your ability to take charge of your emotions.

It also demands that when you go through challenges and circumstances, you learn to accept responsibility and deal with the situation at hand. Blaming others for your pains is one way of giving them the power to affect you mentally and emotionally. A person who knows that his or her actions, thoughts and feelings can and should be controlled despite and in spite of what others do can better build and maintain mental and emotional health because he or she has learned to take off the limitations. The mind is very much involved in practicing emotional control, so while controlling your emotions is important for improving emotional health, it also helps build mental health and wellbeing.

As you develop from one stage to the next, building mental and emotional strength, you come to realize that you cannot keep things from happening but you can determine what effect they have on you mentally and emotionally. That realization alone actually puts you in charge.

Practice taking charge of your thoughts and emotions

Knowing how to take charge of your thoughts and emotions does not mean everything is just going to fall in place when those situations show up. You need to take action. Actions or reactions towards negative situations and circumstances actually help you build and maintain mental and emotional strength and stability. There is nothing like acting. No amount of thoughtful preparation to do the right thing can substitute for actually doing the right thing when the time comes.

Stay away from addictions

For those who drink or take drugs, it is going to be very difficult practicing the tips suggested here, talk less of actually building and maintaining mental and emotional health. First, alcohol and drugs weaken your resolve. They make it difficult for you to either take account of or control your emotions. Being mentally strong is simply out of the question when one is given to drugs and excessive drinking. The effect of drugs and alcohol on the mind are even more dangerous, especially considering the fact that there is a very strong link or connection between the mind and the emotions. People who abuse drugs or alcohol cannot rightly process their thoughts and emotions, therefore it is inevitable that the wrong decisions would be made. Staying away from drugs and alcohol definitely ensures that nothing distorts your right judgment or weakens your resolve to take the right action.

Those who are not into drugs and alcohol must be warned that these things are not a source of mental rest, neither do they offer relief from emotional pain. Your best chance at developing and maintaining mental health and being emotionally strong is staying away from things that impede right thinking and proper procession of emotions.

Practice calmness when under pressure

Like anxiety and depression, pressure could be a great limitation to building and developing mental and emotional health. There are so many things that put pressure on us. Pressure to think, act and react, most often without proper considerations. You cannot become mentally and emotionally strong when you succumb to pressure. What you need to do is take the circumstances that put you under pressure to your advantage and use the opportunity to practice taking control of pressure. So whenever you face a situation that demands immediate reaction or action, you can decide not to speak or act at the moment and only do so when your emotions are totally under control.

Start by understanding that things are not usually as they seem. When issues first come up, especially when they are unpleasant, the mind has a way of aggravating the issue, triggering the wrong thoughts and emotional response. that’s why the best decisions are taken when your mind is calm and your emotions are under control. Someone said “don’t make promises when you are excited and don’t take major decisions when you are angry”. That’s just a nice way of saying only act or react when you have control over your thoughts and emotions at the time.

Take out time to relax. It helps develop brain cells as there is better flow of oxygen to your brain, helping you to think and act better.

Meditate when you can. There are few things that are as effective in building mind power as meditation. It helps you keep calm, putting you under control of the situation and giving you the rare opportunity to process your thoughts and emotions better.

Practice healthy daily activities that help you maintain good health

As far as the strength of your mind and emotions are concerned, your health has a great role to play. You may not have thought of your mental or emotional well being as you decided on the things to eat and your overall daily habits and lifestyle. The following aspects of your life are vital to building and maintaining mental and emotional health.

Feed properly; What you eat and how well you eat on a daily basis determines to a great extent how strong you can get mentally and emotionally. Poor eating habits could negatively affect the brain’s processes and the way you think. Don’t feed on junk and expect to have a healthy mind or strong emotional control. While your brain needs some food and vitamin types, you have to be careful to maintain a balanced diet.

Overweight and obesity are usually the result of poor eating habits. Overweight and obesity on their part are some of the reasons why people have difficulties with their emotions. In a world where looking fit or sexy is a goal most people want to attain and maintain, those who grow too fat have a tendency to feel depressed and rejected by society. Its an issue of the mind that controls the emotions and actions of those that are trapped by it.

Exercise often; Since our thoughts control our emotions, keeping a healthy mind is vital for those who want to build and maintain mental and emotional strength. Exercising helps you process your thoughts better by boosting your health and overall well being.

Have some time for fun; Don’t take life too seriously that you cannot make out time to have fun. Just like the body has to relax after some time of work, the brain and even your emotions have to be stabilized and one way to this is by having moments of fun. Go on vacations, visit amazing places and spend time with interesting people.

Get enough sleep;It may be clear how much you need adequate sleep for building mental strength but must people do not understand how important sleep is to building and maintaining healthy emotions. Inadequate sleep leads to unstable emotions, tiredness and distortion of one’s thought patterns. Sleep is a very important way to rest because even your mind becomes calm and at rest. Adequate sleep helps you process ideas better as well as deal with emotional issues in a more mature way.

Drink enough water; You have probably heard or read about the dangers of dehydration. It causes anxiety, loss of memory and a general feeling of uneasiness. All these things have direct impact on your mental and emotional wellbeing. You may not want to get into water therapy but you should always make sure you stay hydrated at all times. Drink enough water to keep your body functioning properly.

Read widely and often

Reading may not really help you build emotional strength but it will definitely help you build mental strength. It is not about reading things that are difficult to understand. Just take out some time to read things that interest you. It may also not even be about learning something new but to simply engage and exercise the brain. There may be other activities you do on a daily basis that are not really beneficial. For example, you can replace some TV time with reading. There are a wide range of subjects you can read on and materials are readily available these days. All you need to do is have the willingness and take action towards reading.

Don’t cloud your schedule or try accomplishing too many things at the same time

As you go about your daily activities, you need to do one thing at a time and every thing in the right time. Clouding your schedule and trying to accomplish so many things at a time only makes each of those tasks that have to be accomplished more complicated than they really are. As you decide to do one thing at a time, your mind and emotions are focused on succeeding in it. On the other hand, multitasking means you are only giving a part of your abilities to a particular task and it will definitely not yield the results you desire. This in turn could lead to disappointing thoughts and feeling which are not good for strengthening your mind and emotions.

Your life could be so much better, with the ability to accomplish so much more if you diligently apply the following steps to develop and stay mentally and emotionally strong and healthy.