Emotional Health

With more and more evidence bearing out this connection, people are beginning to take their feelings more seriously. Books and guides on emotional health regularly sit atop the best-seller list. Self-help gurus appear almost daily on television talk shows. Yet many people continue to neglect their emotional health, and damage their physical health in the process. Stress caused by unresolved emotional issues remains one of the leading contributors to illness. Fortunately, as you will learn in this section, there are many things you can do to improve your emotional health.

This section provides histories of the study of emotional health and emotional awareness through the ages, and descriptions of the effect of emotions on the body and the effect our lifestyle has on our emotions. It concludes with helpful tools and techniques for becoming emotionally healthier and a list of exercises for maintaining good emotional health.

Emotions and Health

A groggy woman turns in her bed and catches a glimpse of the time on her bedside clock. It is 4:30 a.m. Her teenaged son, who went out last night with friends, should have been home hours ago. Bolting out of bed, she checks her answering machine to see if he may have left any messages. There are none.

Terrified that something may have happened to him, the woman dresses herself and frantically flips through the phonebook. She stops at the number of the police department and begins dialing. Hearing someone gingerly turning the handle of the front door, she hangs up the receiver. Her son has finally returned home.

Overjoyed to see him, she rushes over to hug him. But when she thinks of how thoughtless he has been, and smells booze and cigarette smoke on his clothing, she feels a sudden surge of anger. He starts to apologize, but she interrupts him. He’s grounded for the next six months, she tells him a trembling voice.

Fear, joy, anger: such powerful feelings are what we generally think of when we hear the term “emotion.” Psychologists define emotions as mental responses to events, circumstances, people, or our own thoughts and memories. They course through our conscious and unconscious beings at all times, whether at critical junctures or during seemingly inconsequential moments of our lives.

Biologists tells us that our emotions are rooted in self-preservation, triggering physiological reactions that enable us to find food, escape danger and reproduce. For example, fear increases the flow of blood to the muscles, making it easier to run or take flight, while the love we display to our offspring ultimately helps to ensure the continuation of our genes.

Noting that the word “emotion” stems from the Latin verb for “move,” author Daniel Goleman pointed out in Emotional Intelligence, “All emotions are, in essence, impulses to act, the instant plans for handling life that evolution has instilled in us.” Gripped by terror, the woman plunges into action as soon as she realizes her son has not returned home, despite having woken from a deep sleep only minutes earlier.

In higher social species, like humans, emotions have also evolved into facial expressions and body language so that each member of the group can signal his or her wants and needs to other members. As John D. Mayer, a leading expert in the study of emotions, has remarked: “Emotions convey information … about relationships.” His mother’s body language communicates effectively to her son that she is upset without so much as a word.

Whether in the decisions we make or the way we conduct our relationships, emotions have enormous sway over our lives. They even have the power to make us sick or to cure us.

While people have known for centuries that people suffering from the loss of a loved one face a greater risk of premature death, we have only recently learned why. We now know that emotions are relayed to the immune system through a shared link, the autonomic nervous system. As a result, grief and other painful emotions can cause our immune system to shut down, putting us at risk for a whole host of illnesses. Conversely, a healthy emotional outlook boosts our resistance to disease. These findings have given rise to the new field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), which seeks to map out the connection between psychological processes like emotions and the body’s natural defences. It complements psychosomatic or holistic medicine, which treats bodily disorders that have direct psychological causes.

Mayer has emphasized, “People can reason with emotions in the same way they reason with cognitive information. So you can solve emotional problems just as mathematicians solve math problems.”

But Mayer and other researchers acknowledge that some emotions, like grief and anger, can be harder to reason effectively with than others. And in many situations, identifying the various emotions at play can be extremely difficult. After her initial joy and subsequent anger, the mother may begin to feel grief at the loss of her son’s innocence and her role as his protector without even realizing it.

Emotions are the nucleus of emotional life, giving rise to three broader groupings: moods, which gauge emotions as they persist over an extended period of time; temperaments, a predisposition towards certain emotions; and disorders, such as clinical depression or addictions, which usually call for professional treatment.

The Five Components of
Emotional Health

Emotional health consists of five components:

1. Being aware of your emotions

Emotionally-healthy people are in touch with their emotions and can identify and acknowledge them as experience.

2. Being able to process your emotions

After connecting with their emotions, emotionally-healthy people develop appropriate ways of expressing them.

3. Being sensitive to other people and their emotions and having the ability to empathize

The ability to identify their own emotions enables emotionally-healthy people to identify emotions in others and to have an intuitive sense of what it feels like to experience them.

4. Being self-empowered

Emotionally-healthy people honour their emotions, which empowers them to fulfill their goals.

5. Being in healthy relationships

Using their emotional intelligence and empathy, emotionally-healthy people build and maintain strong, functioning relationships.

The Primary Emotions

Most experts agree on the existence of powerful primary emotions from which all other emotions derive. While a consensus has still not been reached on what those might be, almost every list includes the quartet of fear, joy, grief and anger.

The great French thinker Rene Descartes named six basic emotions – love, hate, astonishment, desire, joy and sorrow – while German philosopher Immanuel Kant proposed five – love, hope, modesty, joy and sorrow. In his 1890 text, Principles of Psychology, William James narrowed the field down to four: love, fear, grief and rage. Every other emotion, he argued, was a variation on those four themes.

Aiming for more scientific and less subjective criteria, researchers in the 1970s and ‘80s tried using sociology and physiology to distill primary emotions from the rest. In his study of how different cultures perceive emotions, Paul Ekman discovered that people everywhere could recognize fear, anger, sadness and enjoyment when they saw it in another person’s facial features or gestures. Other researchers expanded the number of universal expressions to seven, adding the emotions of contempt, disgust and surprise.

Despite these findings, some experts dispute the very concept of distinct emotions. At a landmark conference on emotions that took place in the 1950s, one psychologist claimed he had never seen a pure or undiluted emotion, because all feelings incorporate elements of others. Jealousy stems partly from anger, but also from fear and sadness; shame is a mix of sadness and fear; and relief combines an anticipated fear with happiness (to say nothing of the proverbial thin line between love and hate).

Hundreds of emotions have been catalogued over the centuries. Here is a list of the most common emotions, arranged according to the primary emotions with which each is typically associated:

Fear: anxiety, nervousness, suspicion, prejudice, panic

Joy or Happiness: love, delight, enjoyment, relief, pride

Grief or Sadness: melancholy, despair, humiliation, shame, remorse, embarrassment

Anger: hatred, contempt, resentment, irritability, exasperation, jealousy

Other emotions sometimes classified as primary include disgust, surprise, excitement, loneliness, gratitude and humility.

The Study of Emotional Health

Early civilizations recognized the centrality of emotions in human life. The biblical Book of Proverbs warns of falling prey to anger and jealousy (Prov. 27:4), while Greek and Latin philosophers wrote essays full of prescriptions for achieving worldly success by controlling one’s emotions.

But it was only in the 20th century, after Sigmund Freud’s investigations into the nature of the psyche, that researchers began to grapple with the complex underpinnings of emotions. In 1944, neuroscientist V.H. Mottram became the first to explain how physical differences in human brains contributed to individuals’ unique personalities. This was followed by the discovery that traumatic experiences could fundamentally change a person’s mental and physical functioning, a condition that became known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Another breakthrough came in 1974. Through experiments with laboratory rats, psychologist Robert Ader of the University of Rochester determined that the nervous system and the immune system were in constant interaction via biochemical messengers. Until then, scientists had always believed the two systems operated independently. (For more information, see Section 4, Body Systems).

Ader’s discovery suggested that neurological processes like emotional responses could not be separated from the immunological process of warding off infection and disease. Armed with this new information, researchers began examining the effect of emotions upon lymphocytes, the antibody-producing white blood cells that protect the body from viral and bacterial invasion. One study of men whose wives had terminal breast cancer recorded “a highly significant” drop in their lymphocyte levels once they became widowers and in the months of grieving that followed. Another study, which tracked dental students during a school year, found their secretion of the antibody immunoglobin ‘A’ plummeted during the stress of exam time.

A new wave of researchers then dug deeper into the origins of emotions and their role in our social and physical well-being. Some, like neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, explored how the brain processes emotions. Others, like psychologists
C. R. Cloninger and Barbara Betz, devised classification systems for personality types using emotional tendencies as a barometer. Betz found a correlation between different personality types and life expectancy, with those tending to be loving, optimistic and happy faring much better than those tending to be angry, pessimistic and depressed.

In the mid-1980s, psychologist Reuven Bar-On developed the concept of an “emotional quotient,” a counterpart to the standard intelligence quotient (IQ), based on his insight that people with high IQs often had less success in life than people with superior emotional skills. Building on his work, psychology professors Peter Salovey and John Mayer coined the phrase “emotional intelligence” to describe a set of competencies enabling people to understand their emotions, as well as those of the people around them, and to use that information to guide their thought processes and behaviours.

Five years later, in 1995, New York Times reporter Daniel Goleman turned the concept into a cultural phenomenon with his book
Emotional Intelligence. Arguing that the way people handle their emotions is a more important factor in life than traditional intelligence, it sold more than five million copies worldwide, its thesis applied to everything from education to business. The intense interest generated by Goleman and other popular authors has given new impetus to the study of emotional health at the start of the 21st century.

Emotional Awareness through
the Ages

Attitudes about emotions have changed dramatically in the course of human history. To this day, many cultures differ in how they view the appropriateness of emotions and the ways in which people express them.

The ancient Greeks and Romans saw emotions as potentially dangerous. The philosopher Epicurus advised his followers to avoid intense feelings of sadness or joy since he believed they upset the body’s natural balance. In the Middle Ages, people suffering from depression were thought to be possessed by the devil.

Even as knowledge of science grew, attitudes toward emotions remained mired in myth. The prevailing view of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment was that the superior rational mind – our “reason” – operated separately from the inferior emotional mind – our “passions.” This wariness toward emotions became strongly tied to sexism, with women considered the more “emotional” sex and, therefore, intrinsically weaker than men. Parents continued to teach their male children to avoid expressing emotions throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, reminding them that “big boys don’t cry.”

“I was raised to be a traditional European male,” recalled psychologist Claude Steiner of his boyhood in the 1940s and ’50s. “I ignored not only my own emotions, but the emotions of
others with whom I came into contact. Looking back, I would say that many of the things I
did were insensitive and hurtful to the people in my life.”

The rise of science as the dominant paradigm in Western society may have also hindered emotional awareness by encouraging what Steiner described as “detachment and rationality uncluttered by emotion.” While studying to become a scientist, he recalled, he had to conduct experiments that involved destroying the spinal cords of live frogs with an electric current. “As I performed this grisly task,” he later wrote, “I told myself I had to suppress my feelings of horror if I wanted to be a real scientist.”

A shift occurred in the postwar era. Women challenged sexism and its dismissive attitude toward emotions, while advances in medicine proved the awesome impact emotions have on all aspects of our being. Yet IQ remained the standard benchmark for individual success and achievement throughout the 1960s and ‘70s. Only in the last decade of the 20th century did Western society finally begin to reassess its traditional relegation of emotions as secondary in importance to cognitive thinking.

In many non-Western cultures, emotions are still regarded as private matters of the heart, not to be revealed to others. Some languages even lack words for complex emotions like depression, making it a difficult subject to talk about, much less address.

Emotions and Body Language

Paul Ekman, a psychologist at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco, has devoted his career to studying how emotions register themselves in facial expressions and through body language. According to him, each emotion has its own unique “signature,” which it draws on our features using at least 60 different facial muscles. We can blend these expressions in a multitude of ways to portray our complex mix of emotions, or fake them if we want to convey something that we do not truly feel. Still, masking our feelings poses a challenge to most people: research suggests that only 10 to 20 per cent of us can successfully do it.

The work of Ekman and other researchers suggests that we have a small repertoire of universal expressions, including downcast eyes to denote sadness and a smile to denote happiness, that can be recognized by other human beings, regardless of language differences, ethnicity or culture. So the next time someone protests, “I’m not a mind-reader,” tell them to look a little harder.

When a person experiences surprise: the eyelids open, revealing the whites of the eyes around the iris; the eyebrows rise, causing wrinkles across the brow; the mouth widens; and the jaw opens.

When a person experiences fear: the eyelids partly open, with the whites of the eyes exposed above the iris and the lower lid tensing; the eyebrows raise and come closer together, causing wrinkles in the centre of the forehead; and the lips stretch back, with the upper lip tensing.

When a person experiences disgust: the lower eyelids push up; the eyebrows lower, pushing the upper eyelids down; the upper lip curls, with the lower lip either raised or lowered and protruding; the cheeks are raised; and the nose crinkles.

When a person experiences anger: the eyebrows lower and come closer together, sometimes causing vertical lines to appear between the brows; the eyes become fixed and may appear to bulge as the eyelids tense; the nostrils may flare; and if the person is not speaking, the lips remain pressed together.

When a person experiences happiness: smiling causes dimples to run from their nostrils down to the corners of their mouth; the cheeks are raised; and wrinkles may appear beneath the lower eyelid and around the outer corners of the eye.

When a person experiences sadness: crying causes the eyes to redden; the inner corner of the upper eyelid moves up and the lower eyelid is raised; the inner corners of the eyebrows draw up and come closer together; the mouth is drawn down and the lips may tremble.

Emotions and Physiology

A man has just endured a lousy day at work capped off by a tongue-lashing from his boss. On the drive home, he swears at another driver who cuts him off. He rubs his temples, feeling the onset of a headache. He knows his wife is going to ask him how his day went and he doesn’t want to tell her the truth, which is that he hates his job.

Sure enough, as he steps into the doorway of his house, his wife asks him how his day went. Not great, he answers. She asks him if he wants to talk about it, remarking that it’s sometimes good to sound off. To him, though, it feels like just another interrogation. Snarling that he wants to be left alone, he stalks off into the TV room and mechanically flips through channels with the remote control.

In the human brain, learning, memory and emotions are housed in the limbic system surrounding the brainstem. Within the limbic system, emotional impulses originate in the amygdala, an almond-shaped structure that triggers the physiological reactions associated with emotions. The amygdala is also responsible for imprinting emotions onto memories by releasing some of the same neurochemicals when an event is recalled as when it occurred.

A network of neural pathways connect the amygdala to the neocortex, the “thinking brain,” allowing us to reflect on our feelings and to think before acting. In times of perceived crisis, however, those pathways are bypassed and impulse overrides reason. When the man succumbs to road rage and yells at his wife over an innocent remark, he is experiencing what Goleman dubbed “an emotional hijacking,” in which the amygdala takes over the brain.

As he listlessly surfs through channels, the man comes across a documentary on weddings. The memory of what a joyful occasion his own wedding was hits him with the force of a blow. No matter how bad his job is, he realizes that he is lucky to have a loving spouse, and that he shouldn’t take their marriage for granted.

Sometimes, emotions and their physiological effects can seem indistinguishable. Intuitive “gut feelings,” or somatic markers, develop simultaneously in the limbic system and the body. These steer us toward one course of action or another, whether it be avoiding danger or seizing opportunity. Arising out of fear and love, a somatic marker tells the man he needs to apologize to his wife before the rift between them widens and jeopardizes their marriage. Deciding he needs to say he’s sorry right away, he goes looking for his wife. After sharing a good cry and making up, they both feel much better – physically as well as emotionally.

Each emotion sparks a distinctive physiological reaction, the body’s program for dealing with the different situations that arise in our emotional lives. Happiness cues the brain to suppress worrisome or negative feelings and increases the body’s energy level. Sadness does the opposite, slowing down its metabolism, and manifests itself most visibly in tears. Research has substantiated the age-old theory that crying releases harmful toxins by showing that tears of sadness have a different chemical composition than tears of joy or those caused by irritants. Cardiologists have also found that crying can reduce stress and the harmful physiological reactions associated with it.

Anger floods the brain with catecholamines – hormones that prime the body for action – and stimulates the nervous system, putting it on a general state of alert. This explains why someone who is already in a foul mood will remain edgy and more easily aroused to anger than someone who is not.

Stress and anxiety set off the nervous system’s “flight-or-fight” response, a chain of physiological events in which the blood pressure rises and muscles contract. In chronic cases, they can lead to headaches, cramps and insomnia, as well as to more serious ailments, such as heart disease, colitis and gastrointestinal disorders. According to the American Medical Association, stress contributes to 75 per cent of all cases of illness in the United States.

People can also engage in certain behaviours to induce the release of neurotransmitters, causing them to have the sensation of an emotional experience without having to identify and process their feelings. By isolating himself front of a TV set, the man triggers the release of serotonin, which calms him down.

On the surface, this might seem like a good strategy for dealing with difficult situations. But such behaviours can quickly become addictive and serve as false substitutes for true emotional wellness. Moreover, like most addictions, their potency gradually wears off as the body’s tolerance level increases, forcing the people who resort to them to seek ever-greater levels of
stimulation.

Ultimately, it is less the physiological effects of emotions than how we deal with them that affects our overall health. A decade-long study by Ohio State University researchers tracked both men and women who had been diagnosed with depression, but appeared free from cardiac problems. Over the course of the study, 46 per cent of the men eventually died from heart disease, compared to only 16 per cent of the women. The researchers theorized that the male tendency to bury feelings and avoid examining or expressing them might have led to the difference in mortality rates. So the man’s wife is probably right: it does help to talk.

Mood swings – rapid fluctuation from one emotion to another – can also wreak havoc on the body. A 1999 study conducted at Duke University Medical Center found that people prone to moodiness were four times more likely to develop ischemia, a condition that reduces the flow of blood to the heart, than those whose emotional highs and lows tended to stay stable.

Neurotransmitters

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that send messages within the brain to regulate our mental and bodily functions. Emotions or emotional behaviour can trigger their release. Among the most important neurotransmitters are:

Acetylcholine (ACTH): Important for memory. It also lowers blood pressure and reduces cholesterol. Stress reduces the enzyme that converts choline to acetylcholine.

Vitamin B5 is needed to convert choline to acetylcholine. Lecithin is also used to make choline. Food sources include soybeans, fish, seaweed, oatmeal, brown rice, peas, lentils, cabbage and kale. Mothers’ milk is high in acetylcholine.

Dopamine: Gives us our sense of pleasure and motivation by regulating the release of endorphins. It improves mood, sex drive and memory. People with low levels of dopamine often try to compensate through caffeine, sugary foods, cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs, which also induce the release of endorphins, or activities like gambling, work or exercise.

Without Vitamin B6 the body may not produce dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin, norepinephrine.

Endorphins: Natural pain killers released by exercise. Several studies have shown that they can also be released when we listen to music with a strong beat.

GABA: Needed for sleep and relaxation, as well as enabling us to withstand craving. People with low levels of GABA, including alcoholics and other addicts, can be tense, anxious and aroused to anger with little provocation.

Glutamate: Facilitates long-term learning and retention. It also plays a role in our tolerance for pain. GABA balances glutatamate’s effects in
the brain.

Norepinephrine: A hormone that acts like a neurotransmitter and is released in response to low blood pressure. It enhances our memory, makes us more alert and gives us a sense of power and control. Noradrenaline is the commercial form of norepinephrine.

Serotonin: The body’s natural tranquilizer, it relaxes us, regulates body temperature and appetite, sets our internal clock for sleep, and makes us feel peaceful and contented. It also acts as a natural counterbalance to dopamine. People with low levels of serotonin tend to act rashly and aggressively and to become easily depressed.

Emotions and Lifestyle

If emotions have such a direct impact on our physical well-being and lifestyle, is the reverse also true? Does the way we live our lives – the foods we eat, the physical activities we engage in, even how we worship – influence our emotional health? The evidence says yes.

Nutrition

Our intake of vitamins and minerals stimulates the production of the neurotransmitters that regulate our physical and mental functions, including the way we process emotions. The minerals iron, magnesium and potassium serve as fuel for the brain, ensuring that it operates as it should. Particularly essential are B complex vitamins, such as Thiamine, Pyridoxine, Folic Acid and Vitamin B12. Even minor deficiencies of these nutrients can lead to depression and irritability, as well as hamper our ability to concentrate and stay motivated. (For more information, see Section 6, Nutritional Supplements.)

Unhealthy foods can adversely affect our emotional health. (For more information on nutrition, see Section 5, Optimal Nutrition for Optimal Health). People who drink excessive amounts of caffeine demonstrate many of the same physiological and psychological symptoms as people suffering from anxiety: increased blood pressure, a faster heart rate, muscle contractions mood swings and irritability. A diet with too much sugar has been linked to depression, aggression and impaired judgment. In a famous experiment, a juvenile detention centre in Virginia cut back on sugary foods served to inmates. Candies, cookies and other sugar-rich desserts were replaced by wholesome snacks such as peanuts, cheese, carrots and popcorn, and instead of drinking soft drinks, the inmates started to drink fruit juice. After introducing the new diet, the detention centre saw a 77 per cent drop in thefts and an 82 per cent drop in assaults.

Exercise

Exercise is another lifestyle factor that contributes significantly to emotional health. Numerous studies have shown that even short bouts of physical activity, ranging from eight to 10 minutes, can alleviate mild depression, calm aggression and reduce stress in people of all ages. By releasing endorphins in the brain, exercise causes our mood to elevate and gives us a natural high. A byproduct is that it makes us look better, helping us to feel better about ourselves. (For more information on exercise, see Section 10, External Healing Methods.)

Sleep

Getting a good night’s sleep refreshes and revives both body and mind, allowing us to think and understand our feelings more clearly. The hours of sleep an individual needs can vary, with some people requiring as little as five to six hours’ rest and others requiring as many as nine or 10. Sleep-deprived people tend to become easily angered and have less perspective on their emotions than people who are well rested and maintain regular sleeping patterns.

Surroundings

Our surroundings also have a tangible effect on our emotions. Noise caused by increased urbanization has helped push people’s stress levels to an all-time high, and poor air quality is another proven trigger for anxiety and aggression.

Cloudy, cold and rainy weather has been shown to make people feel gloomy, while sun and clear skies literally lead to sunnier dispositions. Many people find themselves depressed during the winter due to the lack of sunlight, a condition known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

Spirituality

More and more experts have begun to acknowledge the role of spirituality in emotional health and, by extension, overall health. A 1995 study of elderly people who had undergone open-heart surgery found that those who received spiritual and social support from a faith community had three times the survival rate of those who did not. In a later series of studies, researchers at Duke University determined that people who followed a religion tended to have stronger immune systems than non-followers and were less prone to depression and high blood pressure. They surmised that the faith of religious adherents gave them an enhanced sense of well-being and helped to reduce their levels of stress.

Emotions and Behaviour

Our emotional health relies on our ability to identify and process feelings. A repressed or suppressed emotion skews our entire emotional equilibrium, since when we repress one emotion, we repress them all. This, in turn, has dramatic repercussions on our overall health.

Buried emotions never really disappear. Instead, they appear in the guise of emotional behaviours, which often create vicious cycles or become self-fulfilling prophecies. For example, a person who refuses to acknowledge his feelings of sadness will probably avoid relationships, making him even more depressed, while emotional eaters usually become angrier with themselves after bingeing.

Below is a partial list of emotional behaviours and some of the conditions associated with them. Bear in mind that every case is unique, that any behaviour can be used to repress or suppress any emotion and that the key to deciding whether or not a behaviour is unhealthy is if it starts to take over your life.

Fear

Fear is our first signal that we are not safe. It has many different faces. We may fear being inadequate or we may fear success. We may fear abandonment or we may fear being tied down in a relationship.

Most fears revolve around issues of control and play themselves out in behaviours that either assert power or relinquish it. These include:

Controlling

Demanding

People pleasing

Phobias

Suspiciousness

Prejudice

Competitiveness

Procrastination

Anxiousness

Relationship avoiding

Obsessing

Getting into debt

Aggression

Panic

Lying

Betrayal

Among the conditions associated with fear-related behaviours are:

Heart palpitation

Hypertension (see Blood Pressure, High)

Teeth grinding

Anger

Anger is our emotional security system. When someone or something invades our emotional, physical or spiritual boundaries, we become angry. But few people know how to deal with their anger in a healthy way.

More often than not, it emerges through:

Self-pity

Martyrdom

Teasing

Aggressive behaviour

Abruptness

Rudeness

Irritability

Temper tantrums

Raging

Chronic activity

Sarcasm

Whining

Complaining

Avoiding

Busyness

Pacing

Poor self-care

Blaming

These do little to address the root causes of our anger and may in fact perpetuate them.

Among the conditions associated with anger-related behaviours are:

Cramps

Headaches

Heart disease

Hypertension (see Blood Pressure, High)

Stomach pain

Teeth grinding

Ulcers, Stomach and Intestinal

Loneliness

Loneliness combines a sense of loss with a feeling of sadness and disconnection. Feeling lonely alerts us to our need to connect with others. If this basic and primal need remains unmet, it can do physical and psychological harm.

Behaviours that arise out of loneliness include:

Isolating

Fantasy

Partying

Sexual promiscuity

Relationship hoping

Avoiding relationships

Emotional eating

TV watching or other numbing behaviours

Moping

Negative self-talk (i.e., “Why doesn’t anyone like me?”)

Among the conditions associated with loneliness-related behaviours are:

Addictions and alcoholism

Eating disorders

Obesity

Sexually transmitted diseases

Sadness

Sadness stems from a sense of loss. Not all losses are actual or quantifiable: sadness can be a sense of loss for what may have been or what we believe to have been ours by right.

Because the grieving process is so gruelling and can make others feel uncomfortable, sadness may be one of the most suppressed emotions. It materializes through behaviours such as:

Lack of motivation

Lack of energy

Isolation

Chronic weepiness

Chronic fatigue

Poor self-care

Poor eating

Sleep disturbances

Memory problems

Among the conditions associated with sadness-related behaviours are:

Addictions and alcoholism

Eating disorders

Fatigue

Insomnia

Sexual dysfunctions

Skin problems

Weakened immune system (see Immune
System, Weak)

Anxiety

Anxiety is a sense of pending and unspecified dread. Often, it will serve as a cesspool of all the other emotions that we repress or suppress.

Behaviours that arise out of anxiety include:

Agitation

Restlessness

Poor sleep

Worry

Fretting

Obsessing

Disturbed/Distorted eating

Overachieving

Memory problems

Among the conditions associated with anxiety-related behaviours are:

Asthma attacks (see Asthma)

Colitis

Eating disorders

Headaches

Insomnia

Obesity

Sexual dysfunctions

Shingles

Stomach pain

Teeth grinding

Ulcers, Stomach and Intestinal

Joy

Joy is the emotion we all want to feel, but it may be repressed or suppressed by people who grew up in environments where expressions of emotion were not allowed.

People unable to deal with joy in an emotionally healthy way will often indulge in self-sabotaging behaviour, including:

Overactivity

Hyperactivity

Unanimated, “flat” energy

Inappropriate joking

Childishness

Behaviours associated with all emotions:

Adrenaline seeking

Emotional eating

High-risk behaviours (e.g., gambling, extreme sports)

Procrastination

Workaholism

Poor self-care

Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is when a person eats for emotional reasons, such as boredom, excitement, loneliness or frustration, rather than to satisfy physical hunger. In trying to fill emotional needs with food, emotional eaters find themselves feeding a bottomless pit. Their behaviour only ceases with acknowledging their emotional needs and addressing the real issues that lie beneath them. To learn more about this subject, read the book on emotional eating by Michelle Biton, available in the fall of 2002 from the Alive Books Library at www.
alivepublishing.com

Tools and Techniques for Achieving Emotional Health

Emotional health is a state of wellness that comes from understanding and acknowledging your own emotions and finding appropriate ways to express them. Many tools and techniques exist for helping us improve our
emotional health. Some of the most common are given below, with real-life case histories illustrating their use. If a mood or feeling persists over a length of time, seek out a qualified
professional.

Coaching/Counselling

One of the hallmarks of emotional health is the willingness to ask for help when we need it. Professional help, in the form of coaching and counselling, can provide an external source of strength and insight for working out emotionally-based problems.

Self-help Groups

Self-help groups are designed to aid people in emotional situations in which they feel alone. Their purpose is twofold: to allow people to safely feel and express their emotions; and to help break their isolation and reintegrate them into society with the support of a peer group.

Wendy is a 21-year-old woman struggling to cope after becoming the victim of a date rape. She finds herself caught in a vortex of emotions: disgust, shame and tremendous anger – directed both at the man who raped her and at herself for inviting him into her apartment in the first place. She also fears that she is now “damaged goods” and no longer has ownership of her own sexuality.

A crisis counsellor introduces Wendy to a group of women who have all shared a similar traumatic experience. They meet to support one another and to talk about their progress on the path towards emotional healing. Here, she learns that she is not alone in her rage at the perpetrator or in blaming herself for what happened.

Journalling

Journalling has become one of the most popular tools for identifying and processing emotions. People record their emotions in writing as they experience them, in whatever form they wish. They do not have to share their journal with anyone else. By helping them to gain greater clarity, journalling can help people to make more emotionally informed decisions.

At 44, Calvin is undergoing a midlife crisis. He recently divorced his wife and started seeing a much younger woman, whom his teenage children resent. Financially, he finds himself struggling to balance between payments on his flashy new car and alimony and child support. Even his job, in which he used to find solace, now seems meaningless and boring.

Seeking to discover the source of his emotional problems, he begins journalling. It shows him how much he fears his emotions and how often he berates himself or tries to talk himself out of feeling them, especially his grief over the loss of his family. As Calvin slowly opens the lid on his own feelings, he begins to develop a better understanding of what his family must be going through. He apologizes to his ex-wife for his part in the breakup of their marriage and he and his children enter family therapy.

Letter writing

Letter writing enables people to identify and process the emotions they feel in relation to others. The letter does not have to be sent or its contents shared: it simply provides a place for the expression of feelings. Psychologists sometimes employ a similar tool known as psychodrama, in which people express their emotions to an individual with whom they have an unresolved relationship through the use of a stand-in.

An 18-year-old “army brat,” Brent has always done well at school, academically and athletically. But in his last year of high school, something seems to have happened to him. He has lost all interest in school, becoming moody and withdrawn.

Brent describes to his guidance counsellor all the times he had to move when he was growing up. Each move wrenched him from his friends and forced him to play the role of the “new kid on the block.” With his impending graduation will come yet another change in his life. Even though it should be a time of excitement, the prospect of leaving his friends yet again fills him with dread. The counsellor suggests that Brent write letters to the friends he has missed over the years telling them how he felt. Finally, he has a chance to say a proper goodbye.

Friendships/Support Systems

Friendships allow people to feel supported in their emotional journeys. At the same time, they give them an opportunity to develop their empathetic skills.

A 36-year-old mother of three, Sarah wants to be a good wife, a good mother, and a success at her job. One day, drained after a long day at work, she shouted at her rambunctious children and threatened to hit her youngest son. Her behaviour horrified her. To make matters worse, she believes she is a failure at her job as well as at motherhood. She watches with jealousy as younger co-workers advance much more rapidly up the corporate ladder despite having less experience than she has.

On the advice of a counsellor, she decides to take time out for herself and take a course for amateur painters. It doesn’t take long before she strikes up a friendship with a single mom in the class. She once led a life very similar to Sarah’s before managing to achieve a better balance between work and family. Her new friend becomes a much-needed sounding board for Sarah and offers her perspectives on her life that she hadn’t considered before.

In closing…

Alive Publishing has integrated emotional health, along with physical activity and nutrition, into its mandate of helping people achieve overall wellness. It is an exciting and relatively new area of study, about which many different schools of thought exist.

Alive is constantly seeking new information as it continues to research this important facet of overall wellness. We invite any feedback that you may have on this section of The Encyclopedia of Natural Healing.