What is National Emotional Wellness Month, and How Do I Make the Most of It?

Mental health advocates around the United States observe October as Emotional Wellness Month. While it’s not a federally designated event, it’s a chance for everyone to acknowledge how vital mental and emotional health is and to invest in their own.

Anyone can and should partake in Emotional Wellness Month. There are many ways to participate, from social involvement to self-care at home. This article will review why emotional wellness matters and how you can honor it during October.

What is Emotional Wellness?

Emotional wellness refers to your ability to identify and process your emotions while living a healthy and well-adjusted life. It involves self-reflection, understanding why you feel the way you feel, and acting on your feelings in a positive way.

The components that make up emotional wellness include:

• Making healthy choices
• Conducting meaningful relationships
• Positive coping mechanisms
• Stress management
• Pursuing and achieving goals

Emotional wellness is essential because it supports you in leading a functional, healthy, and fulfilling life. It’s the foundation on which you build the rest of your life. 

If you don’t tend to your emotional wellness, you’ll be unable to take care of yourself properly, engage in relationships, and pursue the goals you desire. 

What Affects Emotional Wellness?

Everything you experience in life impacts your emotional state, whether you realize it or not. Part of emotional wellness involves tuning into your emotions and recognizing what triggers certain conditions in you.

External events can have a powerful effect on your emotional wellness. Stressful situations at work, strife in relationships, and trauma all threaten to throw you off balance. Learning how to process these events in a healthy way supports your emotional wellness. It allows you to feel your emotions while still moving forward.

Your physical health can also affect your emotional health and vice versa. If you’re struggling with negative moods, depression, or anxiety, eating a healthy diet and getting some exercise can work wonders. 

Every part of you is connected, which makes your emotional wellness intrinsically tied to everything that happens to you and everything that you do. National Emotional Wellness Month reminds us to take a holistic view of our health and spend time nurturing it.

How to Celebrate National Emotional Wellness Month

National Emotional Wellness Month invites us to slow down and take stock of our emotional and mental well-being. In our busy society, it’s easy to prioritize other things, such as work and caring for others. 

The truth is that spending time improving your emotional wellness will allow you to perform better in all other aspects of your life. You’ll be more stable, calmer, and able to be there for others in a fuller way.

The best way to celebrate National Emotional Wellness Month is to invest in your own emotional wellness. Here are a few ways you can do that:

1. Treat Yourself to Quality Self-Care

Self-care looks different for everyone. For you, it might be a day of true relaxation, perhaps with a massage or a bath. It might be going to the gym or getting outside. It might be curling up on the couch with a good book all afternoon. 

Whatever you need to recharge, dedicate as much time as possible to self-care this October. 

2. Consider Therapy

Mental health counseling can be an excellent way to maintain your emotional wellness. You don’t have to have a serious issue to see a therapist. Anyone can benefit from counseling. It helps you unpack your past, understand your emotions, and break through unhealthy patterns in your life.

If you haven’t tried therapy before, consider giving it a go during National Emotional Wellness Month. You might be surprised at how helpful it can be.

3. Start a Healthy Habit

October is a great chance to start incorporating a healthy habit that improves your emotional wellness into your routine. It could be regular exercise, eating more home-cooked meals, or journaling before bed.

Is there something you’ve always wanted to try? Maybe you’ve been meaning to get into meditation or go to a yoga class. There’s no time like the present to start something new!

4. Check In With a Friend

As humans, we need social connections to be happy. If you’ve fallen out of touch with someone who means a lot to you, use this as an opportunity to reconnect. Even if you talk with them regularly, try to spend time together and catch up on how you’ve both been feeling.

5. Give Back to the Community

Nothing feels quite as good as getting involved in a good cause. Donate some of your time this month to a local organization as a volunteer. 

As a bonus, you can look into organizations that deal with mental health. Most communities have programs where you can volunteer to support people in recovery, veterans, or others in need just with your presence and kind words.

6. Learn More About Your Emotions

One of the most powerful tools you can arm yourself with is knowledge. The better you understand how your emotions work, the easier it will be for you to maintain balance and process life events.

This could mean self-reflection through journaling or therapeutic exercises. It could mean reading a self-improvement book. It could mean taking a class on how the brain works. As long as you’re learning, you can’t go wrong!

Tending to Your Emotional Well-Being

The true purpose of National Emotional Wellness Month is to remind us just how crucial it is to take care of our emotional and mental health and physical health. If you’re struggling with issues that feel impossible to carry alone, you should seek help.

You deserve to live a healthy life in touch with your emotions. If you’re having difficulty regulating or understanding your emotions, mental health professionals can help. 

Jackson House Addiction Treatment and Recovery Centers offer many different treatment programs if you need further treatment for an underlying issue such as substance use disorder. We understand the importance of emotional wellness in the constellation of your health. Explore our programs today and reach out with your questions!