Emotions and Mental Health

“Control your Emotions or they will control you!”

We always compare our life’s with others and become depressed thinking about the things we do not have. That is Human’s Nature. But you need to understand that this leads to depression. When we are in a difficult situation and when we are not able to cope up with it, we usually think “ I should have been a kid and enjoyed life”.

Now think as a kid. Imagine you are going to play a soccer game at lunch time. But when the bell rings you can’t find your shoes. Finally you find your shoes and get out to the fields to play .But you could see that the teams have been picked up and you are left out, because you were late. You get so mad and this small problem became a big problem in an instant. When we lose control of our emotions like this it would seem correct at that moment. Then a little while later after you have cooled down ,you might even feel sad and realize that you gave a big reaction for a small problem and could have hurt someone’s feelings. Now we know this happens to everyone. Everyone around us flips one time or the other and lose control of their emotions.

Have you ever wondered why we have such a hard time keeping our emotions under control? There is just so much going on everyday . There are so many situation that we encounter everyday that can cause our emotions to bubble up . Maybe you felt upset or frustrated while working on a problem or any activity and just can’t seem to get it right. Maybe somethings unexpected or embarrassing happened in front of your friends. Maybe you had something important to say but did not get a chance to say it. These and many more can cause both kids and adults to flip.

Why does this Happen?

It has to do with the way how are amazing brains work to keep us safe. The brain controls controls everything you do. The brain is a pretty complicated organ so let me explain in simpler terms. Let’s think of upstairs and downstairs . The upstairs of the brain does the logical thinking and the downstairs of the brain deals with emotions.

Your Brain is set up in a way that the upstairs and downstairs can communicate with itself, it sends messages all the time about what are bodies feel and need. The middle part of this communication comes the logical thinking. It springs into action when there is a problem to solve and usually does a great job of doing it. But sometimes it can have a hard time solving the problem if the emotional and thinking brain can’t communicate well. This can happen when your emotions get too overwhelming and your downside brain thinks that the situation might be dangerous even if isn’t really and we all know what happens when our downstairs brain think we are in danger it triggers — Fight, Flight or Freeze Reflexes. Our emotions start to bubble up and suddenly everything boils over and flip. This might be a scary or angry reaction,or even crying and running away. When we flip, our upstairs and downstairs brain can’t talk to each other, our emotions have become too strong and we can’t think clearly and can’t solve the problem in a peaceful way.

So now how can we control our emotions?

Do you remember the soccer game we talked about. How we felt upset, frustrated, disappointed and angry. These strong feelings stop us from thinking ,so its better to walk away , take deep breaths, or probably talk to someone to calm you down. You may not get a solution but you will calm down and start to think clearly.All these are life lessons and gives you and opportunity to learn from it.

Start talking with someone you trust, as you keep building up your emotions you are likely to burst someday or get into a depressed state. You need to take your time in understanding yourself.

Start building up a positive mindset so that even if you get depressed you will be able to move on. Read about -How to maintain a Positive mindset here.