By Rakesh Kiran Tejomurthula

In much the same way that dental hygiene involves brushing our teeth and flossing every day, and personal hygiene involves cleaning ourselves and taking care of physical injuries when we sustain them, emotional hygiene refers to being mindful of our psychological health and adopting brief daily habits to monitor and address psychological wounds when we sustain them. Currently, our general neglect of our emotional hygiene is profound. How is it we spend more time each day taking care of our teeth than our minds? We brush and floss but what daily activity do we do to maintain our psychological health?

Clean Your Emotions. Just like you clean your teeth, you need to cleanse your emotions. Emotional hygiene refers to being mindful of our stresses, emotional traumas, suffering and pain. Adopt daily monitors to deal with psychological pain and wounds when you sustain them. Emotional hygiene, just like daily brushing of teeth, requires daily focus, time & energy. The Dalai Lama urges people to get rid of disturbing emotions like anger, frustration, anxiety.

Pay Attention To Emotional Pain. If you are hurt or heartbroken, it will take you time to heal – just like a physical pain. If your emotional pain continues for too long, seek help. Psychologist and motivational speaker Guy Winch in his Tedtalk, ‘How to Practice Emotional Hygiene’, asked people to get that first aid emotional box out after failure or rejection. It takes patience to work on emotional wounds, he says, but “once you get better control over your emotions, you don’t lose it easily”.

Stop Emotional Bleeding. Don’t keep poking your emotional wounds, and psychologically hurting yourself on a day-to-day basis. If you can’t control an outside situation, withdraw from it, with time. It’s important to keep a check on our negative cycles. The idea is not to poke our emotional wounds- regrets, rejections. Just as in the case of physical injury, we need to apply emotional Band-Aids on emotional pain.

Protect Your Emotions. We all have emotional immune systems, and we must make sure we keep it health and intact. Work on building your emotional strength and resilience. Don’t talk or think negatively about any life event. Keep increasing your emotional immune system, thereby raising your self-esteem and confidence. Battle out negative thinking from your mind consciously. Do not belittle yourself or indulge in guilt trips and self blame. It can be lethal for your health in the long run.

“Practices such as meditation, Yoga, and prayer can have a dramatic and positive impact on emotional hygiene.” Audra Labert, RYT200 Yoga Teacher.

Practice Compassion. One way to heal damaged self-esteem is to practice self-compassion. Quickly get over emotional drawbacks in life; emotional recovering takes patience, time and self-love. Self-love will raise your resilience and help you get through turbulence with ease. If you treat yourself kindly, you will feel stronger and get emotionally healed. 

Source: Time of India, Make Today Ridiculously Amazing