How Healthy Emotions Help You Live Better
What are healthy emotions? Do you know the difference between healthy and unhealthy emotional responses? Why does it seem like we feel more than we think?
Knowing the difference between your thoughts and feelings is very important. We think, therefore we feel. The challenge is learning how to cope with the emotions connected to our thinking in a more proactive rather than reactive way.
If you are struggling with worry, fear, anger, sadness, or emotional overreactions, anxiety therapy in Orange County can help you better understand your thoughts, feelings, and responses.
What are healthy emotions?
Healthy emotions are emotions you can identify, understand, express, and eventually let go of. This does not mean you will never feel sadness, anger, fear, or frustration. These feelings are part of life.
For every emotion, there is a healthy and unhealthy way to express that feeling. There is healthy sadness and unhealthy depression. There is healthy fear and unhealthy fear. There is healthy anger and unhealthy anger.
The first step is awareness. Once we become aware of our problem areas, we can begin to implement change and develop new emotional regulation skills.
Signs of healthy emotions
Healthy emotions often look like this:
- You are able to feel emotions and identify what you are feeling.
- You are able to communicate your emotions in a productive manner.
- Your feelings are appropriate in response to the event or situation.
- Your negative feelings go away after a short period of time.
- You are able to identify the thought associated with your feeling.
For example, you may think, “Living healthy matters to me,” and that thought may make you feel hopeful or motivated.
A healthy emotion is accepted, expressed appropriately, or acted upon effectively.
Signs of unhealthy emotions
Unhealthy emotions often look like this:
- You are unable to identify your feelings.
- You say, “I feel fine,” or “I don’t know how I feel,” even when something is wrong.
- You are unable to communicate your emotions effectively.
- Your feelings are far out of proportion to the situation.
- Your negative feelings do not seem to go away.
- You are unable to identify the thoughts associated with your feelings.
When emotions feel too intense, too confusing, or too hard to manage, it may help to look at the patterns behind them. Behavior modification therapy can help you understand the connection between thoughts, emotions, and actions so you can begin responding differently.
How to express emotions in a healthy way
If I feel happiness toward my mate or child, I may communicate, “I am happy that you came home early,” or “I am happy that you cleaned your room.” I may act upon that happy feeling by giving a hug, a gift, or some gesture of appreciation.
Negative emotions can be handled using the same formula.
If I feel angry toward my mate or my child, I can communicate my dissatisfaction by saying, “I feel angry that I was not informed when the plans changed,” or “I feel upset that I asked that your room be cleaned and I was disobeyed.”
To express the negative emotion healthily takes some of the power out of it. Yelling and screaming when feeling negative emotions is unhealthy for you and your loved ones.
Walk away when angry or upset so you can cool down. Instead of fighting or expressing a negative emotion destructively, calm the emotion by challenging your negative thinking. Once the emotion is de-escalated and you are thinking more clearly, then you can communicate more effectively.
The American Psychological Association shares more about emotions and how they affect our thoughts, bodies, and behavior.
Start noticing your emotional patterns
Having healthy emotions is part of overall mental and physical well-being. Become aware of the way you handle thoughts or situations that trigger a healthy or unhealthy emotional response.
Monitor your emotional responding over the next couple of days. Keep a log. Do you respond effectively by problem-solving, laughing, crying, or communicating clearly? Or do you react by focusing on the problem, acting out, overeating, yelling, or shutting down?
This is valuable information in your pursuit of living healthy and staying healthy.
If you would like support in understanding your emotions and creating healthier responses, please contact Dr. Susan Pazak for a consultation.
