Exercise is healthy for your body. Everywhere you look, people are talking about getting healthier by exercising, eating right and making changes in their lives. Building a healthy body is important to a happy life. But what you don’t always hear people talk about is exercising their emotions.
Emotions play a part in every aspect of our lives. In essence, our emotions guide our actions, reactions, or even inaction. So, it is just as important to strengthen your emotional muscles. But while there is plenty of information on how to build up your body, people may be at a loss as to how to build up their emotional muscles. So, how do you go about strengthening them? Here are some healthy emotional exercises to help you build up those muscles.
Identifying Emotions
It is sometimes hard to understand what we are feeling. Often times we mask our emotions with other emotions. Learning what we are really feeling can help us build up the emotions we want to feel. Try stopping several times a day and identify what you are feeling at that moment. Rate that emotion on a scale from 1 to 5. Take note of what you are doing at that time. You may see a pattern emerge.
Learning Your “Go-To” Emotion
Emotions, like many things, can be learned. Finding out what your go-to emotion is can be a simple as examining your reactions. When you in a situation of stress, how do you react? Do you get angry? Do you cry? Do you shut down emotionally? Your go-to emotion is your first response to a situation. Recognizing it can help you develop the emotional muscle to change your emotional reaction to situations.
Separating Your Emotions
Reacting to others and their emotions is very common. It is hard to separate your emotions from those around you. When you are in a situation with someone who is stressed or angry, it is common to feel that way yourself, without even knowing it. Recognizing what is yours and what isn’t can help you take a step back and adjust your own emotional response to a situation.
Building up emotional muscle can be difficult sometimes. But identifying your emotions and learning how to change and control them can give you the mental muscle you need to improve your life. It is an important part of taking control of your life instead of letting it be ruled by your emotions.
