Habits are those things that we do so often, that they become our routine and way of being.
Yet we can so easily fall into habits that don’t actually help us, or are unhealthy for us, if we are not actively conscious of what we do.
I was asked to contribute to Hippo in September 2015 about what I believed to be some poor habits in terms of our emotional and mental well being, and shared, along with some of my colleagues, some ideas to keep in mind to help you create healthier habits for a longer, healthier life.
Have a look at the article (they have archived the article now), and get some tips from morning routines, to food and diet, to negative thinking patterns and sleeping.
(image courtesy of hippo)
My contribution to their article was:
Suppressing emotions
Contributed by Telana Simpson at Inner Coaching
“The habit of avoiding and suppressing our emotions has been found to be bad for our health. Yet we push them aside, ignore them, and distract ourselves thinking that the emotions will go away. That only makes them stronger.
Develop a relationship with your emotions. See them as signals that help you evaluate what you are experiencing. They give useful information about what is really going on, which guides you to take the appropriate action to manage the situation or adjust your thoughts and emotional responses.”
Learned helplessness
“When bad things happen to us, we make the event personal, pervasive and permanent, which make us feel pessimistic and helpless. To change this, cultivate the habit of applying learned optimism, and direct your thinking to explain the event as not about you but about that one experience or thing, not letting it bleed into all aspects of your life but contain it to the here and now, noting that it will pass.
This robustness in thinking can be practiced and developed, leaving you feeling you have power over what you can control, an effective and uplifting state of mind and being.”
