Many people think that mental and emotional health are the same. Good mental health depends on social, psychological, and emotional wellness. Several factors can determine a person’s mental health, including life experiences and genetics. Emotional wellness is more about being in sync with emotions. It is the ability to recognize and handle emotions one experiences as they happen. So even though emotional and mental health is not the same, they are connected.
Knowing how to maintain your emotions can help your mental health too.

Activities to improve emotional wellness

Discover a sense of purpose
Find meaning or purpose in everything – your role as a parent, partner, friend, caregiver, job, or in the minutest things you do daily. When you add meaning to what you do or what happens around you, you start making sense out of chaos, and things fall into perspective. One of the best activities to help with this is listing three things essential to you and describing how they inspire you.

Organize and declutter
Do you ever feel frustrated and irritated when things are messy and scattered? If yes, know you are not alone. When you see everything out of place, it harms your emotional health. So, decluttering and systematizing the spaces can help manage time, stress, and priorities. Hence, one of the fool-proof activities you can try anytime you feel low is organizing a little better. It helps you calm your mind and makes you feel centered.

Make sleep a priority too
Sleep is a crucial aspect of taking care of yourself. It helps determine the status of your mental and emotional wellness. When you do not get adequate rest, you find it difficult to manage the challenges life throws at you. Consequently, it gets difficult to function as well as you would like. You may feel sad, demotivated, tired, and irritable. You may also not have the patience and constantly struggle to keep up with stressful situations. So, as a full-grown adult, try to get at least seven to nine hours of sleep every night. During this time, brain activity is high as the mind recharges itself and eliminates all the waste. Studies show that rapid-eye-movement sleep significantly impacts your mental and emotional reactivity. So, when you do not sleep enough, you cannot tackle the daily struggles and constantly feel sluggish.

Hone your humor
It is invigorating. Hence, being able to laugh prevents you from feeling heavy and keeps stress at bay. Of course, that does not mean you start telling jokes or burst out laughing when something unfortunate happens. However, when you have a sense of humor, you appreciate the lighter side of life, which is imperative for your emotional wellness. Watch comedy shows or movies, some funny videos online, attend a comic show, check corny joke books, listen to audiobooks, tell a dumb joke to your friend, or spend time with your partner to cherish the lighter things in life.

Emotional wellness coaches and platforms

Headspace
It is an Android and iOS app with themed meditation sessions, making it one of the best wellness coaches to help you improve your focus and distress, get to sleep, or reduce anxiety. It has quicker guides that help you through daily meditation for 10 minutes. Headspace is one of the most popular platforms and aims to be your mindfulness coach by helping you form a daily meditation practice. Apart from a free trial, you also get some free elementary content.

Calm
What keeps you up all night? Lack of focus? Anxiety? Stress? Regardless of what it may be, Calm can be one of the most beneficial platforms. It has guided meditations that help you sleep better and feel more relaxed. The app also has several meditations to help reduce stress, self-compassion, and mindfulness. Calm Body, a 10-minute guided video session, can be an excellent at-home coach to help you unwind with gentle stretching. Its most loved feature is Sleep Stories, which has bedtime stories in soothing celebrity voices.

Ten Percent happier
The basic version is free, but the premium version is a goldmine with over 500 guided meditation videos meant for different moments or scenarios in the day. Premium users can access the teachings from the coaches on the mindfulness benefits and how to employ them in life.

Where can I take the emotional wellness test?
You can find several tests to assess your emotional wellness. Here are some options:

• Psychology Today
• Mind Diagnostics
• Healthline

These tests help you streamline your emotional well-being. If you are unsure and need clarification about the process, consult a psychologist.