Mood and emotion, How it affects your Health.

Today I would like to talk about MOOD and Emotion

Mood is defined as a long lasting emotion. So it isn't something that fleets by like a bout of laughter you get from seeing someone fall. Or the 2-3 tear you shed when you watch a touching youtube clip.

We all know emotion. Happy, sad, irritated, angry, jealous, and much more.

Mood can be seen as a baseline emotion. something less intense, less pronounced than an emotion, but a state to which we revert to once the excitement or stimulus has faded.

If you baseline is an upbeat mood, you have nothing to worry about. I dont know of anyone that suffered through happiness, or even died for that matter.

Remember the concept of harmony and balance. anything tipping the scale on either side will cause some consequences on your health. tipping towards extreme happy would basically mean you are in a manic phase. that isnt healthy either. tipping towards the gloomy grey of depression will most definitely alter your health.

Mood is a subjective matter. you cannot measure someone's mood. but you can infer their mood from their actions, behaviour, speech and others. usually we speak about being in a good mood, or a bad mood.

So now lets look of what happens  when you are in a bad mood. The longer you linger in this mood, the worse affects it has on your health. a prolonged low mood, can be described as depression. How mood can affect health is still under study. but studies does show that there is definitely a link,

It is known that a low(bad) mood can 

• suppress the immune system.
• Make you letarghic (tired)
• disturb sleep (too much or too little)
• predispose you to weight gain
• alters eating habits and appetite

How about different emotional states and how they affects your mood.

For a complete list : How Mood affects your Health

Most important of all is STRESS!!

I will elaborate on stress and how it changes your physical health, the state of your organs, and the body homoeostasis in another article.

But I'm sure you know that chronic stress leads to:

• heart rhythm problems
• elevated cholesterol
• hypertension
• trigger autoimmune response
• trigger flare to conditions like SLE, psoriasis, 
• worsen acne
• worsen arthritis
• trigger allergies (hives, sinusitis, asthma)

and much much more

How to achieve balance emotionally?

This isn't rocket science, and I guess what I am doing is merely reminding you to practice these steps

• Exercise -  it conditions the body, making you release endorphins. keeps the weight in check. keeps your heart muscles fit, and Side effect would be a great looking body
• Hot drinks - tea, hot cocoa, hot ginger, whatever you fancy. take a little time for yourself, sit back, read, watch tv or chat with your loved ones over a nice hot cup of your fav drink.
• walks -  be it walking the dog or just strolling along the park, walks get your blood circulating and clears the mind.
• share with a friend - a burden shared is a burdened halved! make sure you have somebody you can talk to. if you dont, no worries, just stroll the net for chatmates and let out your pent up emotions. talking helps you not only to unload but can also help you see the problem from another angle.
• meditate - this doesnt mean sitting in the lotus position for hours and achieving the concentrations of monks. you can do meditation in whatever manner and time that suits you. take a deep breath, close your eyes, count to ten and clear your mind. there u have just meditated. yoga is good, fishing (yes, i consider fishing meditative :P), just laying and concentrating on your breathing... these are all helpfull to negate the constant attack of adrenaline. advice from a monk 
• pray - everyone has their own belief. may it be you pray to a diety, to a god, to a rock or to the universe, the act of praying gives hope. even if you dont believe in a god because you are too cool and know lots of science and science says mayb there is no god, you should still pray. hey, just in case you know. kidding. on the serious note, praying is an act that you let go of the uncertainty and put it in the hands of a higher being. this takes away alot of anxiety. especially anxiety related to death.
• Eat or take foods that promote relaxation, and positive upbeat moods. you know that the things around us gives many different effects. like citrus gives us a fresh feeling. certain teas like ginger and peppermint helps us relax. chocolate or cocoa can make us happy. some other examples are Food that affect mood
• and much much more! (too many to list out)

My story:

Everyone has a story to tell when in comes to stress. It is undeniable that everyone gets stressed.

so this is my humble story :

I deal with a lot of stress. I guess age and time has made me wiser in handling stress.

I work 8-5 everyday at the clinic and deal with,anywhere between 15-40 patients a day.

They come in all shapes and sizes (I mean that they differ in attitude) and some can be more irritating than others.

I am very passionate in my practice. I want only the best for the health of my patients. But sometimes, they themselves have no drive and concern over their own health and this can really drive me over the edge. remember, health is our most valueble asset.

So, in short, I have to deal with stress on a daily basis and i remember a time back when I was still an intern and it got to me. I got sick often, getting out of bed was the hardest thing to do, i stress eat, I had constipation. my hair was brittled, skin was bad, acne everywhere, period irregular and much much more.

Thankfully, I realised that in life, its your reaction that matters and not what happens to you.

so now, i keep my stress in check.

i meditate before bed,

i pray whenever i can

eat right

hit the gym at least twice a week

I keep ducks for fun (pets are excellent too if you like em)

and most importantly,