Over the years, we all have learned certain standards of physical hygiene, hygiene related to our homes, and even fiscal hygiene. What we are not so good at learning, or teaching, is emotional hygiene. Maintaining psychological health is extremely important because we may afford losing a teeth and life could still go on but what if we lose our mind?
Emotional hygiene refers to being mindful of our psychological health and adopting brief daily habits to monitor and address psychological wounds when we sustain them. Psychological injury happens from mental trauma caused by failure, rejection, and especially chronic loneliness. These can in turn harm physical health, causing high blood pressure, cholesterol, or even suppressing function of the immune system.
Do you monitor psychological injuries to ensure your self-esteem recovers and rebounds? Are you aware of the ways negative self-talk impacts your emotional resilience? Do you know how to break out of a cycle of ruminating and brooding about distressing events?
Emotional bleeding occurs when the feelings of a person start affecting his actions and emotional state. When the wound in the mind is deep and fresh, it bleeds profusely if not treated with emotional first aid.
Stop, notice the emotional pain and recognise that you are hurt. End bleeding of emotions by restricting negative thoughts, and enabling yourself to clean up all the accumulated pain, frustration and mess. Reach out to someone dear when the wound is too deep and worse. When not hurt, build the self-esteem to develop some protection for future. Never leave these injuries untreated, because they’ll just keep getting worse.
Pay attention: Psychological pain may affect a person much more than one can imagine. If anything hurts for more than a few days, if you experience rejection, failure, or have a lingering bad mood, don’t ignore. Allow yourself to focus on yourself, your feelings and thoughts.
Accept challenges: Hard-driving over-achievers often function under the false belief that being emotionally down is a sign of defeat! It’s just a part of being human. When there is a setback, an upset or disappointment, own it, process it and find your lesson. Determine a plan of action to handle it efficiently next time, to bring in positivity and scrub it off from your mind.
Take initiative: Chronic loneliness is devastating and increases chances of an early death by 14%. Actions like interaction with family, connecting with friends, finding one from the contact list each day to chat or to make plans can help. Though difficult, that’s essential to break the cycle of disconnection and end the emotional isolation.
Prevent emotional bleeding: Psychological wounds create vicious cycles that get worse with time. Failure can lead to helplessness, causing recurrence of the problem. To break this, it is necessary to gain control of the situation. Human minds are biased, so ignore misleading gut-feelings to give up. Instead focus on the aspects within your control, such as preparation, planning, effort and execution.
Secure self-esteem: Self-esteem is like an emotional immune system — it can increase resilience and protect you from stress and anxiety. Monitor your self-esteem and boost it when it’s low. Avoid negative self-talk despite temptation.
Get rid of excessive guilt: A feeling of guilt helps resolve issues and abstain from repeating a mistake. But excessive guilt is dangerous; it drains your physical, intellectual, emotional energies and prevents you from enjoying life. It is crucial to convince and calm your mind to think reasonably.
Restore self-worth: It’s natural to be self-critical after feeling hurt. An individual would be inclined to term oneself as worthless, list all the faults and shortcomings and blame oneself when feeling down. After getting hurt, treat yourself with utmost compassion. Ensure your inner voice is kind, understanding and supportive.
Fight negativity: When upsetting situations occur, ruminating happens naturally. But replaying the scene over and over in the mind will not grant much insight or closure. The best way to break a brooding cycle is to distract the mind with a task that requires concentration, focus but involves passion.
Be self-equipped: Gaining basic information and becoming well-acquainted about how to treat common emotional wounds and solutions that would work for you, is an essential and beneficial step.
Becoming conscious about psychological health and adopting habits of good emotional hygiene will not only heal psychological injuries but also elevate the entire quality of life.
(The writer is Director, TGL Foundation)