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| Sometimes our emotions are misunderstood... |
Health
can sometimes be trial by fire. Often times we only know how good
our health is, by experiencing points of poor health or injury. However,
we'll discuss a segment of health that rivals social and most all other aspects
of health. This being our emotions,
most often referred to as our inner selves. This enigma stems from so many
factors; for instances or experiences, likes, dislikes, fears, beliefs, hopes
and our background. To venture effectively down this once taboo road, we
need to really stress how important our emotions are. Our emotions drive
so many aspects of our life and tend to cloud better judgement if we aren't
careful. I liken our emotions to a sword, there are multiple uses,
yet the purpose of it is clear. Our emotions serve so many purposes, they
protect us, guide us, inspire us, and comfort us, all the while they are all
small parts of the complete us.
How
are our emotions related to health? Well, that would be easy for most of
us, but let's think of this in a more constructive fashion. With the
epidemic of obesity looming on several corners, signs and commercials, we have
very little doubt that this is a serious issue. Can our emotions be a
culprit, or can our emotions be the identifying factor why we have this issue
in the first place? Though, some could draw basic conclusions to eating
disorders as a clue to how emotions affect obesity and health, we however,
cannot rely on general knowledge or surface thoughts to measure emotion's role
in our health struggles. We need a more challenging and full spectrum approach
to even glean slight understandings to what's really happening in our society.
We
will discuss, as legitimate factors, stress, suppression, optimism and
change. These effect our emotions everyday and have the greatest impact on
our emotional well-being, thus our health as well. The first of these,
stress, is a serious issue. I define stress as such, "Stress is not
the presence of a problem, but the absence of an answer." When we
have no answers for our problems, we can find ourselves stressed.
Sometimes we may have the answer, but cannot come to terms with it. Either
way stress is related to many health conditions including hypertension,
heart-attack and stroke. We would do well to take time to diligently search
for solutions, or if there isn't one, come to terms with the circumstance with
a resilient resolve to manage it effectively.
Suppression,
is our ability to feel as if we have to keep our emotions from ourselves.
As odd as that may sound, it is rather common and quite dangerous. Giving
place to our emotions is healthy, we are our own worst critics sometimes,
however, we need to express ourselves freely. Though tact and positivity
be our guide, we need to understand that what we've experienced, saw, or felt
was real and affected us. By giving space to such thoughts we give
ourselves the opportunity to live and heal from less than pleasant
experiences. In regards to optimism, this one is rather disheartening,
and from my vantage point, it isn't us to blame. I find that our ever
pressing and unstable society crams our thoughts and optimism with unceasing
intensity. Job security, crime, vanishing IRA's, unyielding debt, rising costs of living, and many other distresses causes one to have a unhealthy
dose of doubt and uncertainty. This coupled with our own personal
matters, makes it easy to see how, being optimistic is more a word than a way
of thinking.
Lastly,
change, this one, I believe is beautiful and scary at times. Change, and
being comfortable with change are skills that we need to hone and
embrace. In our ever changing world we need to know things will NOT stay
the same. The good old days, are mere moments and the moments we experience
have changed so fast we often forget them. If we look positively for the
change to come with a "Could be good, could be bad, it's too soon to tell"
attitude we will fair well.
Coping
with emotions can be difficult, sometime we can struggle on how to identify
with them, or even how to share our feelings effectively. Though this was
a surface discussion, that if given the time, could be a novel or dense public
discussion on many levels, we can see that our emotions play a vital part in
our personal assimilation and growth. Our emotions are misunderstood,
even by us, having a positive view takes effort and rightfully so.
What we
know, how we learn and what we apply can affect how we think, thus, in turn,
shape our emotions. I believe Bertrand Russell said, "The degree of
one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts."
Being cognitively fit means knowing who we are and settling with the idea that
we will never stop growing.
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