Emotional Health

via here

I've talked about the detrimental effects of stress on your health before, and with Mr. Ox and I up and leaving our jobs, home and friends to move overseas, I feel like I have had my fair share of physical, chemical and emotional stress this year. Now while I keep the physical in check by being adjusted once a week (the perks of marrying a Chiropractor!) and taking care of the chemical by diet, I have always had trouble with the emotional stress, and I think that this is the case with many of us. We just take emotional stress and it's effect on us as a part of life, until one day we burst into tears for no reason. So I thought I would share some things that I found help to deal with emotional stress:

• Reading
  There are so many inspirational books out there, and I think we all need to find the ones that work for us. Personally I always though these inspirational self-help books were a bit of a waste of time, but I happy to be proven wrong. Books I've enjoyed include
  
  • Eat, Pray Love - Elizabeth Gilbert (good book, but I think it would make a shocking movie)
  • It's not how good you are, its how good you want to be - Paul Arden (good one to start with)
  • The Monk who sold his Ferrari - Robin S Sharma
  • The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho (my all time favourite)
• Taking some time out
  I usually cannot relax, or stop thinking (hence the blog) and I realised that it's because I feel guilty about wasting time. Once we come to terms with the fact that we have PLENTY of time and the world will not collapse if the bed is un-made it gives us one less thing to stress about.
• Keep a journal/note book with you
  I never thought I would do this but it's really helpful. You can write down how you feel at any point, your thoughts, what you want to be and how you want to feel or you can just write to-do lists so that they're out of you head.
• Positive affirmations
  Every morning look yourself in the mirror and say what you want to be as an "I am" statement. ie. "I am happy, relaxed and calm". Again something I was skeptical about but I gave this to a patient and one day she said to me "You know those affirmations? Well today was the first day in my life that I looked in the mirror and didn't hate what I saw"
• Practising positive present time thinking
  This one is the hardest, but the most important. When you're in a stressful situation it is easy to freak out. But take a moment, breath and focus on where you are, your heart beat, the fact that you are alive and healthy, find something to be thankful of and feel you anxiety disappear.

We are powerful beings but none of us believe it. We are not slaves to our emotions and no one (not even ourselves) has the power over us to make us feel sad, anxious, angry or inferior. The mind is a powerful thing, harness yours for good, not evil.