We take care of our diet, we are attentive to our health, we play sports and yet most people neglect a fundamental and priority aspect: emotional hygiene.
Taking care of our psychological injuries, those that we can suffer daily, as well as knowing how to prevent them, protect ourselves from certain things, will allow us to develop a true quality of life.
- The term mental hygiene was coined by the Dalai Lama in 2016 at a conference in India and.
- According to the religious leader.
- The absence of this dimension leads humans to unrest and inappropriate behaviors.
Thus, beyond simply learning a standard of physical and even economic hygiene, it is necessary to develop habits based on trust, love and respect.
The Dalai Lama emphasized the idea of taking on emotional challenges, promoting understanding and maintaining qualities as important as empathy, however, after this speech, psychologists around the world became interested in this term from a more clinical point of view.
For example, personalities such as psychologist Guy Winch, a member of the American Association of Psychology (APA), have recorded more comprehensive information and documentation on the subject.
In fact, emotional hygiene is now understood as part of mental hygiene itself, they are measures to prevent diseases that we should all take.
Change your attention and you will change your emotions. Change your emotion and your attention will change. -Frederick Dodson-
One of the current challenges of health psychology is prevention, we have been implementing a care strategy for many years, but not preventive, that is, a person seeks professional help when he realizes that he cannot manage his daily life with the same force. as before.
Today, however, we do not yet have the right mechanisms to prevent such important dimensions as depression, anxiety disorders, stress and even suicide.
Therefore, we need to approach the population in different ways to facilitate strategies to better manage problems, challenges, disadvantages, etc.
Martin Seligman himself also tried it in his day. This celebrated psychologist, known mainly for his studies on depression and for introducing the term helplessness learned, decided at one point to change his professional career.
He decided to lay the foundations for positive psychology with the aim of offering the population skills to invest in well-being and happiness.
Emotional hygiene would then come from this same perspective: providing the right measures to teach us psychological health, prevention and responsible exercise of emotional well-being. Let’s look at four strategies.
Biologically, if we feel pain is for some reason, our body alerts us to any changes, imbalances, infections or injuries that we have to face.
Many times, our own body sends us signals, showing that our immune system is not doing the job. In other cases, we need medical help.
The same goes for emotional pain. There’s no point in postponing the concern we have today for tomorrow. There is no need to hide, make up, deny, take medication to alleviate this suffering.
Emotional problems require active responses, need courageous measures and strategies to repair daily damage.
What is mental bleeding? An example is enough to understand the symbolism of this expression, let’s say we have a friendship or even a partner who lies to us.
We are aware of your disaffection, of your lack of reciprocity on a day-to-day basis, but we refuse to accept it because we are afraid to drop this significant figure.
However, not taking this step means bleeding. This enlarges the wound every day and every moment. We bleed, but we try to stop the bleeding with “It’s Temporary,” “It’s going to change soon. “
Emotional hygiene requires preventive measures and the sooner we do them, the sooner we can heal the wounds, so if we are aware that there is damage and that we are injured it is better to react.
The self-esteem muscle is the organ that pumps everything. This is what gives us courage when what surrounds us is defied and takes away our calm. It’s the impulse that reminds us of what we deserve and alerts us to what we need.
At the same time, according to some studies, such as the one published by dr. Kristin D. Neff in the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass, self-esteem and “know how to treat each other with respect?”are essential to ensure well-being.
One way to gain in emotional hygiene is by taking care of this psychological tendon that is the source of much of the daily balance. Neglecting it can lead to troubled states.
Our thoughts may seem like our worst enemies. Entering these exhausting cycles inhabited by obsession, negativity, anguish and fear completely vetates our happiness. In addition, it often leaves us adrift towards many psychological disorders.
Therefore, taking care of the quality of thought means investing in quality of life, knowing how to use a more flexible, relaxed, positive but realistic approach at all times can allow us to act more appropriately.
At the same time, we must be aware that it is not easy to change the meaning of these thoughts that usually always go in the same direction.
In most cases, we’ll need help. Psychological and specialized support for a more appropriate course will be a priority.
Therefore, emotional hygiene must be part of all our daily scenarios, we need it in our work and in our personal relationships, as children need it at school.
It is a form of prevention, it is a daily cleansing with which we avoid germs of suffering and infections caused by misfortune.