Warning: Your Emotions Can Affect Your Health

Emotions are identified with the overall process whereby low level cognitive appraisals, in particular the processing of relevance, trigger bodily reactions, behaviors and feelings.

Emotions of wanting include: greed, hope, envy, desire, and love. Emotions of not wanting include: fear, shame, repulsion, and contentment. Emotions of having include: happiness, pride, guilt, and jealousy. Emotions of not having include: anger, sadness, and distress. Other emotions: surprise. Emotions have the power to override even the most rational decisions.

Health

People with good emotional health are aware of their thoughts, feelings and behaviors. They have learned healthy ways to cope with the stress and problems that are a normal part of life. They feel good about themselves and have healthy relationships. However, many things that happen in your life can disrupt your emotional health and lead to strong feelings of sadness, stress or anxiety.

Experience

Emotions affect your moods. It is clear however, that without the preferences reflected by positive and negative affect, our experiences would be a neutral gray. Most people have had the experience of feeling overwhelmed by a strong emotion. We also expect that what is stored about present experience will also be differentially regulated.

Like adults, children can experience mixed emotions. Exploring the full range of emotions will reassure a child that it is normal to experience conflicting feelings.

Problems

The following may be physical signs that your emotional health is out of balance: back pain, change in appetite, chest pain, constipation, diarrhea, dry mouth extreme tiredness, general aches and pains, headaches, high blood pressure, insomnia (trouble sleeping), palpitations (the feeling that your heart is racing), sexual problems, shortness of breath, stiff neck, sweating, upset stomach, and weight gain or loss. Poor emotional health can weaken your body's immune system, making you more likely to get colds and other infections during emotionally difficult times.

You may not be used to talking to your doctor about your feelings or problems in your personal life. First, he or she will need to make sure that other health problems aren't causing your physical symptoms. If your symptoms aren't caused by other health problems, you and your doctor can address the emotional causes of your symptoms.

Conclusion

Our emotions and our feelings let us know when we are unhappy and when something is missing or needed. If you find yourself dwelling on one of these emotions, or spending an inordinate amount of time "denying" the emotion, it is important to work on a more realistic understanding of the situation.

Emotions Anonymous is a twelve-step organization, similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. Emotions Anonymous is supported and maintained by member contributions and each member and group is encouraged to share in the financial support of Emotions Anonymous. The better we can identify our emotions, the easier it will be to determine what is needed to be happy.