In order to thrive, you need to have emotional wellness in addition to physical health. But throughout decades of healthcare, the focus has been on healing the physical body, and not your mind.
While doctors and others in the healthcare field might be sympathetic toward any emotional issues, they’re often not prepared to help. Some simply don’t understand the connection between emotional health and your physical health, so they’re often unable to give a person relief from any emotional upheaval.
Emotional wellness largely ignored by traditional healthcare systems
Your emotional wellness may not be a priority. In a fast-paced world, the traditional healthcare system often has a time limit on how long they can spend with a patient. In order to be profitable, the more patients who are seen in the healthcare system, the better.
Medications are usually to relieve symptoms instead of providing lasting treatment
But unfortunately, that means many fall through the cracks and their emotional needs are never dealt with. Maybe that sounds like something you’ve experienced. Instead of a lasting treatment option to handle things, you got a prescription to mask the pain.
While medication can sometimes be helpful, it’s slapping a bandage on emotional wounds that need to be cleansed out in order to let the person become whole. You can’t rely on a prescription to find the healing that you need.
What you can do to improve your emotional health and wellness
Just because a doctor or health facility isn’t equipped to help doesn’t mean that there’s nothing that you can do. With a DIY approach, you can heal without the healthcare system that too often fails to have the answers that you need.
1. Take care of your physical needs
You already know the foundation for emotional wellness is to make sure that your physical needs are taken care of. This means eat right, get enough sleep, exercise and make sure that you limit the things that cause you stress and learn how to cope with things in healthy ways.
2. Identify the root cause of your emotional issues
Identify where your emotions are at, then look for the root cause. You might need emotional healing because you never dealt with grief over something. Sometimes, you can feel sad and not realize why until you dig a little deeper and find that connection.
3. Avoid negativity
But once you figure that out, you can heal from it. Accept who you are without blaming or shaming yourself. You have to practice speaking kindly to yourself. Don’t allow negativity to be how you talk to yourself.
4. Take positive actions
For emotional wellness, be sure to establish boundaries with how you’re treated by friends, family and coworkers. It should be kind and loving as well as positive. Know what your triggers are and root out any unhealthy habits you may have developed due to those triggers.
For example, if you turn to food when your emotions are in turmoil, deal with the emotions and you’ll be able to stop comfort eating. Turn the negative into a positive. Look for the glass half full instead of what’s missing or what’s wrong. Practice gratitude and find something to be thankful for every day.
