HEALTHAre You In An Emotional Balancing Act

Are You In An Emotional Balancing Act

Mental Health, Fire Fighters, CRACKYL MAGAZINE

By: Jess Campbell

Can sadness make your body sick? Can happiness cure your ailments? Understanding how your emotions affect your body can be the difference between sickness and health.

Sadness is one of the most recognized and relatable emotions that humans can experience. No matter whether there’s a specific event that puts the rest of your day into the basement or you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed, sadness is a familiar feeling to us all. 

While feeling sad every so often is part of being human, feeling sad all of the time isn’t good. In the kind of society we live in and with everything going on in the world right now, it feels increasingly difficult to manage the balancing act between positive and negative emotions. But that balancing act is exactly what is necessary to achieve so that you can not only keep your mind in a healthy state — but also your body. As it turns out, the state of your overall health depends on it.

It is all connected

Say you’re feeling sad for whatever reason. Even reading those words now, you can understand how sadness feels psychological. Maybe you have a little less patience than you normally do, you’re having trouble focusing or even having trouble sleeping because your mind just won’t stop whirring around your sadness. But have you ever noticed how your body feels when you’re sad? 

Maybe you feel heavy and sluggish, like you have less energy than usual. Perhaps you’re craving certain foods that bring you comfort. Or, you might even get a cold or the flu. Sometimes, you may think this is just coincidence — but it’s actually the result of the feedback loop between our brain and our body.

Physiological reactions are par for the course when we’re talking about our mental status. Our bodies continuously release hormones and other powerful chemicals based on the information our brain emits — information that’s based on our emotional state in any given moment and that absolutely affects our physical health.

Getting positive feedback

While it’s clear negative emotions like sadness can have a negative effect on our health, the opposite is also true: positive emotion can create positive physical wellness. For example, if you’re feeling sad, odds are you may feel a strong urge to cry. Even though we live in a society that views crying as a sign of weakness (especially in men; it’s not true, by the way), shedding some tears is actually incredibly beneficial for your mind and your body. It allows you to release that negative emotion, as opposed to keeping it bottled up inside your body and allowing it to fester. As well, feeling grateful and cultivating gratitude in your life can actually help you to sleep better, increase oxygen levels in your tissues, speed healing and boost your immune system.

We will never live in a utopian society where everything is sunshine and rainbows all the time. We cannot and will not live completely without negative emotions. But what we can do is put in the work to make sure we are balancing our negative emotions with positive ones. So, the next time you’re feeling sad and want to cry – let it out. The health of your mind and your body will thank you for it.

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