Even though emotions can be helpful in everyday life, when they get out of hand, they can hurt your mental health and relationships with other people. Emotional stress can be especially painful and hard to handle.
It can be harder on you than a lot of other kinds of stress. Part of the reason is that it’s easy for problem-solving behaviors like thinking about a solution or talking about solutions with a good friend to turn into less helpful behaviors like rumination.
Ways to handle emotions when stressed
Even though you can’t always fix these problems right away, you can reduce the emotional stress you feel and the physical toll it takes on you.
1. Try MeditationÂ
Meditation is a great way to deal with many kinds of stress, including emotional stress. It lets you stop fixating by actively changing your thoughts. It also gives you practice choosing your thoughts, which can help reduce emotional stress in the long run.
One of the best things about meditation is that it can help you feel less stressed. The body’s stress response causes it to react in ways that get you ready to fight or run. In some very dangerous situations, this is a good way for your body to react.
Learning to refocus your thoughts can also help you change your thinking when you get stuck in a negative loop, which can help you feel less stressed. Meditation is a simple activity that can help with more than one problem.
Read more about: How to Meditate Mindfully to Relieve Stress
2. Speak to a friend
We can also keep our emotions in check by talking to a trusted friend or family member. This is why you usually feel better after letting off steam to a friend. Getting together with other people can help calm your mind and even help you control how your body reacts to your emotions. Even though we can’t see people as often in person right now, you don’t want to stop talking to people you used to be close with.
People find better ways to deal with stress when they spend time with family and friends. Carnegie Mellon University did a study on how people deal with stress and found that they talk to their family and friends about their problems instead of drinking, smoking, or doing drugs.
Your mental health is improved by the emotional support you get from your friends and family.
When people talked about hard times in their lives with a friend, their heart rate and blood pressure went down.
Read more about: 8 ways to Exercise Mindfulness When Venting to a friend
3. Have a self care day
Taking care of yourself will help you keep your physical, emotional, and mental reserves so you can avoid and deal with stress. This includes getting enough sleep, exercising, taking time off, and eating well. It’s not being selfish or a once-in-a-while splurge. Consistent activities help prevent stress, burnout, and anxiety.
Self-care includes everything that has to do with health, including physical activity, creative activities, and socializing with other people. It also includes getting medical help when needed.
Some people love doing yoga or spending an hour doing a crossword puzzle. Some people do not.
Also, remember that when you’re going through a very stressful time in your life, your needs, wants, and expectations for yourself and your family often change. It’s normal for these to keep changing. Consider checking in with yourself every so often to find out what self-care activities would make you feel the best.
Read more about: 6 Self-Care tips for Your Mental Health and Well-Being
4. Acknowledge your emotions
Getting your feelings out is important for a healthy life. It gets rid of the bad feelings we have. It stops the state of “fight or flight,” which can cause so many health problems. And by talking about how we feel, we can take back control of our minds from the stress that can sometimes take over.
Here’s a quick way to get rid of unpleasant feelings:
- Figure out what you are feeling. Is it sadness, fear, disgust, or anger?
- Focus on how you feel rather than why you feel that way. This will be hard because we usually try to figure out why we are feeling a certain way or try to push it down.
- Pay attention to where this feeling is in your body and how it feels. Give it a shape or color and concentrate on that. If you start to think about why you’re feeling it, stop and just focus on the feeling itself.
- Take deep breaths, and as you let the air out of your lungs, picture the feeling melting away.
- Keep doing this until you start to feel better. If you leave out the story, you should feel better in five minutes or less.
When we take charge of our stress, we can calm our minds and put our attention on more important things that make us happy. Here are some more ways to get your feelings out and help you deal with stress.
Read more about: How Journaling Can Be used For Inner Healing
What caused emotional stress?
Stressed emotions are feelings that are unpleasant and bothersome. Sadness, fear, anger, or jealousy are all examples of emotions that are caused by stress. Not only are these feelings unpleasant, but they also make it hard to go about your normal daily life and keep you from reaching your goals.
Relationships aren’t the only thing that can make you feel stressed out, though. Emotional stress can be caused by financial problems, a bad work environment, or a number of other things. When we want to escape the pain, we may be tempted to act in unhealthy ways. Ways to handle the stress.