How Can Managing Emotions Improve Our Health?

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Emotions are a powerful navigation system that helps us find direction in our life. They manage our behavior from an unconscious level. People who can manage emotions have better relationships, are socially comfortable and have better health. Managing emotions is a skill that can be learned. It is part of our emotional intelligence. There are many studies that show the importance of emotional intelligence in our life, and how it affects our ability to succeed. Namely, people who are emotionally intelligent can navigate better through the social complexity of their workplace and can successfully manage their emotions when feel stressed or under the pressure. Experts believe that the first step to being better at emotional management is awareness. When we become aware what we feel and how it looks like, we are more rooted in a present moment. In this way, we pull our focus from thought to our bodily sensations and feelings. This first step helps us feel more comfortable when experiencing uncomfortable emotions such as fear, sadness, frustration, anxiety, anger, and so on. When we raise our level of emotional awareness, we become aware of others’ emotions. The more we are aware of others’ emotions, the better will be our reactions toward them. We will feel more compassion and can respond in a better way. To learn more about how can managing emotions improve our health, the article “How Our Emotions Affect Our Health” gives us the following explanation.

Just the way our hearts send our brains the signals of chaos when we feel negative emotions, positive emotions send another kind of signal to our brains that is more regular, more rhythmic,and orderly. In the presence of positive emotions, such as appreciation,gratitude, compassion, and caring, the brain releases a very different kind of chemistry into the body. When we feel a sense of well-being, the level of stress hormones in our bodies decreases, while the life-affirming chemistry of a powerful immune system with anti-aging properties increases. The shift between the stress response and a feeling of well-being can happen quickly.

Studies documented by the Institute of HeartMath (IHM), a pioneering research organization based in Boulder Creek, California,have shown that cortisol levels can decrease as much as 23 percent, and levels of DHEA, a life-affirming precursor to other vital hormones in the body, can increase 100 percent if we spend as little as three minutes using focused techniques designed to produce such responses.2 The reason why I’m describing these phenomena is because the techniques that are found to have such benefits upon our health are the same ones that create the resilience in our hearts. This is the key to personal resilience in life. The quality of our emotions determines the instructions our hearts send to our brains.

As we have seen, managing emotions can significantly improve our health. Not only that we feel better, but it also helps us establish strong personal relationships and build a stable social circle. All of these relations will help us feel supported and more content with our own life. In a wider sense, when our relations work well, we are more able to reach our goals and feel more successful. And that in turn improves our health.