The behavior that requires development is improving emotional health. As the term implies, emotional health refers to the overall emotional and psychological well-being. This term is never about the mental problems, but rather about perceiving and managing personal emotions and being free from psychological issues such as depression, anxiety, etc. One of the aspects that promote implementing such change can be seen through the increased attention paid to emotions, not only as a state of mood but also as an indicator of such an aspect as emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence can be defined as a term describing an individual’s abilities, capacities, and skills of perceiving, assessing, and managing the personal emotions, emotions of others and even of groups. (Mayer, et. al, 1999) As emotions influence the way we think and perceive the world, emotional health and accordingly higher emotional intelligence, will allow directing the attention toward the important issues and solving the problem more effectively. In that regard, “maintaining a good system of emotional input will enhance one’s ability to think directly towards the matters that are truly important” (“Emotional Intelligence”, 2006).
Additionally, good emotional health might help manage the problems in life, where it cannot be said that being emotionally healthy will protect and prevent from the problems, rather than it will promote recovering from such problems and building resilience. Another factor that outlines the importance of emotional health is its direct connection with physical health, where the body might respond to the way we think, feel and act. In that sense, another goal for this change is being in a healthy condition physically and emotionally.
Implementing this change will take various steps that are mainly concerned with personal management of emotions. Nevertheless, there are other steps through which this change can be achieved, which include but are not limited to the following:
- Maintaining balance in life. This step is concerned with focusing on positive things in life and avoiding negative emotions.
- Maintaining healthy life. This step is related to the connection between emotional and physical health, and thus being in good health will accordingly promote emotional health.
- Expressing feelings appropriately. This step is concerned with referring to friends, relatives, and counselors in regards to overwhelming emotions whether negative or positive.
- Engaging in enjoyable activities. This step is concerned with doing aspects that are not related to a particular result, rather than they are enjoyable to do such as playing music, listening to music, reading, drawing, watching a film, etc.
The most important factor that might influence the change process is time. It is important to devote a specific time to some of the activities outlined in previous steps. In that regard, the lack of time combined with problems occurring at certain points in life might be considered as the factors that the decrease of emotional health in the first place.
In that regard, it should be said that the importance of emotional health is obvious through the daily course of life. Nevertheless, people tend to omit this importance preferring to concentrate their efforts on another aspect, and thus consequently one aspect leads to another. I hope that the acknowledgment and the recognition of the need to change will remain as the driving force to implement it.
References
“Emotional Intelligence” 2006. Web.
Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D., & Salovey, P. (1999). Emotional intelligence meets traditional standards for an intelligence. Intelligence, 27, 267-298.
“Mind/Body Connection: How Your Emotions Affect Your Health” 2009. Web.
“What is emotional health?” 2009. Web.