Deep-Breathing Exercises & Mental Performance

Deep-Breathing Exercises & Mental Performance

            Everyone has difficulty concentrating during times of physical or mental stress. Staying focused and relaxed when you experience mental fatigue or physical strain isn't always easy. 

Photo Credit

Specific deep-breathing exercises can provide a number of benefits for your mental and physical well-being and help improve your mental performance in a variety of settings.

Benefits:

            Although everyone is capable of deep, abdominal breathing, most people only take short, shallow breaths that stem from the chest and rib cage.

Photo Credit

Breathing in this manner can make you feel anxious and decrease your mental performance, because it prevents oxygenated air from reaching the lowest portion of your lungs. Learning the proper way to breathe through performing deep-breathing exercises may help to reduce stress, slow your heart rate, lower your blood pressure and help you feel more calm and focused.

Types:

            A variety of deep-breathing exercises can be used to promote health, improve mental performance and enhance feelings of well-being. Conscious abdominal breathing is one of the simplest deep breathing exercises to learn, as it only requires that you pay attention to breathing from your belly. Pranayama is a yogic breathing technique that focuses on breath control to increase mental focus and soothe feelings of fatigue.

Source Link:

Read More

Improve Mental And Emotional Health By Taking Care Of Yourself

Improve Mental And Emotional Health By Taking Care Of Yourself

            In order to maintain and strengthen your mental and emotional health, it’s important to pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Don’t let stress and negative emotions build up. Try to maintain a balance between your daily responsibilities and the things you enjoy. If you take care of yourself, you’ll be better prepared to deal with challenges if and when they arise.

Photo Credit

Taking care of yourself includes pursuing activities that naturally release endorphin and contribute to feeling good. In addition to physical exercise, endorphin are also naturally released when we:

1) Do things that positively impact others. Being useful to others and being valued for what you do can help build self-esteem.

2) Practice self-discipline. Self-control naturally leads to a sense of hopefulness and can help you overcome despair, helplessness, and other negative thoughts.

3) Learn or discover new things. Think of it as “intellectual candy”. Try taking an adult education class, join a book club, visit a museum, learn a new language, or simply travel somewhere new.

4) Enjoy the beauty of nature or art. Studies show that simply walking through a garden can lower blood pressure and reduce stress. The same goes for strolling through a park or an art gallery, hiking, admiring architecture, or sitting on a beach.

5) Manage your stress levels. 

Photo Credit

Stress takes a heavy toll on mental and emotional health, so it’s important to keep it under control. While not all stressors can be avoided, stress management strategies can help you bring things back into balance.

6) Limit unhealthy mental habits like worrying. Try to avoid becoming absorbed by repetitive mental habits – negative thoughts about yourself and the world that suck up time, drain your energy, and trigger feelings of anxiety, fear, and depression.

Source Link:

Read More

Mental & Emotional & Physical Health

Physical Health Is Connected To Mental And Emotional Health

            Taking care of your body is a powerful first step towards mental and emotional health. The mind and the body are linked. When you improve your physical health, you’ll automatically experience greater mental and emotional well-being. For example, exercise not only strengthens our heart and lungs, but also releases endorphin, powerful chemicals that energize us and lift our mood.

Photo Credit

The activities you engage in and the daily choices you make affect the way you feel physically and emotionally.

1) Get enough rest. To have good mental and emotional health, it’s important to take care of your body. That includes getting enough sleep. Most people need seven to eight hours of sleep each night in order to function optimally.

2) Learn about good nutrition and practice it. The subject of nutrition is complicated and not always easy to put into practice. But the more you learn about what you eat and how it affects your energy and mood, the better you can feel.

3) Exercise to relieve stress and lift your mood. Exercise is a powerful antidote to stress, anxiety, and depression. Look for small ways to add activity to your day, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator or going on a short walk. To get the most mental health benefits, aim for 30 minutes or more of exercise per day.

4) Get a dose of sunlight every day. Sunlight lifts your mood, so try to get at least 10 to 15 minutes of sun per day. This can be done while exercising, gardening, or socializing.

5) Limit alcohol and avoid cigarettes and other drugs. These are stimulants that may unnaturally make you feel good in the short term, but have long-term negative consequences for mood and emotional health.

Source Link:

Read More

Emotional Well-Being And Mental Health

What Is Mental Health Or Emotional Health?

            Mental or emotional health refers to your overall psychological well-being. It includes the way you feel about yourself, the quality of your relationships, and your ability to manage your feelings and deal with difficulties.

             Emotional well-being and mental health concerns are major health issues in their own right. But they can also greatly affect physical health. Stress, depression, and anxiety can contribute to a host of physical ailments including digestive disorders, sleep disturbances, and lack of energy. The challenge can be two-pronged: treat the mental and emotional health issues while also caring for the related physical ailments.

Photo Credit

Good mental health isn't just the absence of mental health problems. Being mentally or emotionally healthy is much more than being free of depression, anxiety, or other psychological issues. Rather than the absence of mental illness, mental and emotional health refers to the presence of positive characteristics. Similarly, not feeling bad is not the same as feeling good. While some people may not have negative feelings, they still need to do things that make them feel positive in order to achieve mental and emotional health.

Source Link:

Read More

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

Emotional Intelligence: What Is Emotional  Intelligence?

             Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict. Emotional intelligence impacts many different aspects of your daily life, such as the way you behave and the way you interact with others.

Inspiring Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence

If you have high emotional intelligence you are able to recognize your own emotional state and the emotional states of others, and engage with people in a way that draws them to you. You can use this understanding of emotions to relate better to other people, form healthier relationships, achieve greater success at work, and lead a more fulfilling life.

Emotional Intelligence - Two Aspects

         This is the essential premise of EQ: to be successful requires the effective awareness, control and management of one's own emotions, and those of other people. EQ embraces two aspects of intelligence:

1) Understanding yourself, your goals, intentions, responses, behavior and all.

2) Understanding others, and their feelings.

Emotional Intelligence Consists Of Four Attributes:

1) Self-awareness – You recognize your own emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior, know your strengths and weaknesses, and have self-confidence.

2) Self-management – You’re able to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.

3) Social awareness – You can understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization.

4) Relationship management – You know how to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and manage conflict.

SOURCE LINK:

Read More

Emotional Health

Emotional Health: What Is Good In Emotional Health?

          Emotional health is defined by the degree to which you feel emotionally secure and relaxed in everyday life. An emotionally healthy person has a relaxed body, an open mind and an open heart. Looking after your emotional health is just as important as caring for your physical health. People who are emotionally healthy are in control of their emotions and behavior. They're able to handle life's inevitable challenges, build strong relationships, and lead productive, fulfilling lives.

Your Emotional Health Impacts Your Relationship

The more emotional health you have, the more self esteem you have. This means you do not frequently react with knee jerk responses, anxiety or panic to the events that occur in your life. Instead, you are usually calm and patient with yourself and others. You are an emotionally safe person to be around because you feel emotionally secure. Emotionally safe people do not judge or criticize others. This is because they have learned not to judge and criticize themselves. Emotionally healthy people feel safe and secure with their own emotions and feelings.  They feel their feelings and emotions instead of avoiding them or trying to control them. 

To be emotionally healthy you must express your emotions in healthy, assertive ways. If you inhibit your emotions and feelings you cannot achieve emotional health.

SOURCE LINK:

Read More

How much physical activity should adults do?

Exercise Guidelines for Children, Adults, and Older Adults

Children And Young People (aged 5-18 years):

          Among children and adolescents, physical activity can: improve bone health, muscular fitness and decrease levels of body fat.

Photo Credit

1) Moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity for at least 60 minutes and up to several hours every day.

2) Vigorous intensity activities, including those that strengthen muscle and bone, should be incorporated at least three days a week.

Adults (aged 16-64 years):

            In adults aged 18–64, physical activity includes leisure time physical activity (for example: walking, dancing, gardening, hiking, swimming), transportation (e.g. walking or cycling).

Photo Credit

1) Adults aged should do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity throughout the week or do at least 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity throughout the week.

2) Aerobic activity should be performed in bouts of at least 10 minutes duration.

3) For additional health benefits, adults should increase their moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity to 300 minutes per week, or engage in 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity per week.

4) Muscle-strengthening activities should be done involving major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week.

Older adults (aged 65 years and older):

            Weight-bearing physical activity reduces the rate of bone loss associated with osteoporosis. Regular physical activity maintains strength and flexibility, balance and coordination, and can help reduce the risk of falls.

Photo Credit

1) Older adults who participate in any amount of physical activity gain some health benefits. Some physical activity is better than none, and more physical activity provides greater health benefits.

2) Older adults should aim to be active daily and, if possible, aim for the same amount of physical activity as younger adults.

Read More