Life

Proven Ways To Help Balance Your Emotions

by Erica Florentine

When you stop and think about emotional well being, of course it seems like something we’d all aspired to have. However, often times it’s easy to forget how important it is to keep our emotions balanced. If you’re on the hunt for some ways to help balance your emotions, look no further. It takes some work, but if you’re willing to make a few subtle changes to how you act and think, you can quickly find your emotions are much more stable than ever before.

Why should we aim for emotional balance? According to ShareCar.com, good emotional balance has the power to amplify happiness and improve our relationships. It can also even help in fighting physical ailments like heart disease and digestive problems. The problem comes when we try to mask our emotions and forget about them altogether. Over time it wears on us and emotions start to bubble up. According to Psychology Today, we become emotionally unbalanced when we’re either not letting ourselves experience feelings by avoiding or suppressing them, or oppositely, by attaching ourselves to the emotions so much that our feelings consume us. The proper way to deal with emotions when they come our way is to face them head on, and deal with them in the moment, as we’ll discuss in this article. That, in addition to some of the other tips I’ll highlight below, will help us all to work towards a more emotionally balanced existence. Here are six proven ways to help balance your emotions.

1. Get By With A Little Help From Your Friends

We’ve all heard it before — having a supportive group of people around us is an excellent way to help manage life's ups and downs. This is especially true when it comes to matters of our emotions. Jeff Gardere, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist in New York City, spoke to Everyday Health and said growing your circle of friends is great way to help us with balancing our emotions. He said, “It's very important that you have a support group of friends and family. You need people whom you can talk to about your problems — people who will listen to you when you need to get things off your chest — so that you know you're not alone in whatever it is.”

2. Remember The Importance Of Self-Love

A lot of times when our emotions are going haywire, it can be really easy to forget the importance of self-love. However, our emotions being out of whack is the time when we really most need to focus on loving ourselves. MindBodyGreen.com suggested making a list of things that make you feel good, and then do at least one of those things a day. By doing something we know makes us feel good, we’re instantly performing an act of self-love, the outlet added, and that will empower us to feel good all the time.

3. Be Aware Of Your Emotions

To balance our emotions, we must come to terms with what those emotions actually are. According to Psychology Today, you should start by becoming consciously aware that you’re having a certain emotion and acknowledge that feeling. Once you’ve realized it, allow yourself to actually experience the emotion, the outlet continued. This can be done by closing your eyes and letting it take over. Then, Psychology Today recommended putting the emotion into words, and saying out loud how you are feeling. By saying the words, it’ll help you to then respond to the emotion(s) intentionally, the outlet added.

4. Manage Your Stress Level

Overwhelming stress can send our emotions into overdrive. Coping with stress and learning to best manage it, therefore, can help regulate our emotions. ShareCare.com spoke to Guy Winch, PhD, a psychologist and author of “Emotional First Aid,” who said, “Another sign of emotional well-being is being able to cope with stressful situations.” The outlet said if you’re not one to control your stress successfully, you might then quickly find your emotions are all over the place. With that in mind, figure out some ways that work for you for relieving stress — where that’s simply taking a long walk with your dog, practicing yoga and/or meditation, heading to the beach for some fresh air, or turning off your email at night to disconnect from work — and practice it often.

5. Turn To The Power Of Sex

Getting into bed with you partner has emotional benefits, according to Everyday Health, as it can make you feel good and boost self-esteem. Gardere suggested, “Figure out a schedule that works for you and your trusted partner — that could be once a week or three times a week or twice a month.”

6. Practice Thankfulness

Huffington Post recommended another great way to help balance emotions — practice being thankful. The outlet suggested stopping yourself at certain points of the day and seeking things you are grateful for (I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with plenty!). Don’t force it, though. Rather, focus on things you are genuinely grateful for. Huffington Post noted only the true feeling of gratitude has the power to change your emotional state. Even if it’s something small, thinking of things that you are thankful for can help bring you to a place of emotional balance.

For those who feel like their emotions are currently all over the place, start trying to implement some of these tactics into your life. You might find sooner than later that you’re feeling more emotionally balanced, and happier to boot.

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