The Mind-Body Connection: Why Emotional Healing Practices Reduce Stress and Improve Productivity
It’s a hyper-connected, super-paced society in which we are constantly torn between distractions, juggling multiple responsibilities and competing priorities - not surprisingly making us question our productivity. Stress is a ‘normal’ part of life, with everyone handling it in different ways and to different extents. As a meditation coach many of my clients arrive with overwhelm and high levels of stress, caught up in cycles of deadlines, meetings, to-do lists, the home-life work-life personas, demands of others, inner conflict. As a coping mechanism they split themselves into fragments in a bid to address the many demands.
However the optimal functioning human is whole, not fragmented. Nurturing physical, mental, and emotional well-being creates the whole from a holistic wellness standpoint. Being whole means embracing all aspects the self - mind, body, and spirit. It's about finding harmony and balance within. It involves self-compassion, self-identification, self-reflection, self-acceptance, self-love, self-care, self-commitment, self-respect, self-actioning, self-accountability, self-worth, self-esteem..…… Could I highlight the ‘self’ anymore? And did you notice I’m not talking about the ‘self’ on your social media or the one in the boardroom. It’s the inner nature of all these practices - the unseen elements of existence that I’m drawing your attention to.
Being whole doesn't mean being perfect, especially not in the eyes of others, and this is a major issue in today’s competitive, perfectionistic, materialistic world. It’s about creating healthy boundaries for your unified and authentic self to live life in the flow. A life of personal alignment.
Alignment happens when we step into a life of truth; true to ourselves. Alignment becomes very clear when you get real on your priorities and swop the juggle for balance. Learning to recognise the signs of emotional drainage or overload is paramount to this balancing. Taking care of our emotional well-being frees up energy that is otherwise being drained, and gives us greater productivity, motivation and power to do what we really came here to do - raise humanity by raising ourselves.
The main aspect of emotional wellbeing that is often overlooked is the importance of healing through emotional processing. Society unfortunately, especially in the UK, historical encouraged repressing or suppressing emotions by ‘just getting over it’ and ‘carrying on’, and this old-world legacy pops up in my mediation clients. Presenting me with insight into their many unhealthy coping mechanisms, from anger to addiction, despair to avoidance; the list goes on until they stop running from the feelings and begin integrating the experience.
‘Emotional healing comes from feeling’ is my most used phase in meditation sessions. Most people do not know yet how to process an emotion and transmute it into learning and healing. People love to use being busy, or burning the candle at both ends, as a distraction tactic for their unaddressed emotional issues. However running in the opposite direction of it doesn’t stop it! You have to go into the problem to address the cycle, learning to sit with it, to be it, to allow yourself to feeeelllll it. By not heeding the warning signs of emotional triggers like anxiety, addictions or anger, enforced rest will inevitably be put upon us in the form of anxiety or other stress-related illness, burnout, or in more extreme cases a mental health breakdown.
Identifying emotional triggers and behaviours is a proactive approach to self-care that has profound benefits for both our personal and professional lives. It’s important to spend time recognising whats off-balance or unhealthy. Within modern society in general stress levels are high, and therefore people’s perceived tolerance level to their own stress rises higher as they accept it as part and parcel of life. Using emotional crutches and temporary fixes that act as sticking plasters in the short term. However life is not meant to be lived in stress, in anger, with addictions, overload and so forth. That’s not actually ‘normal’.
What is ‘normal’ is our human ability to manage stress and process it in a way that we observe the emotion but do not become it. What’s also normal - a regulated nervous system and a creative, joyful spirit. The issue is that unfortunately as a global society we remove ourselves further and further from these optimum levels of health and wellness through our day to day actions and choices. Often getting sucked into the chaos and away from our wholeness.
A lesser known fact amongst my meditation clients is that anger and frustration issues are often the pre-curser to anxiety. Anxiety left untreated can be a stepping stone to depression. By taking steps to address seemingly everyday issues through emotional processing practices, we can improve overall well-being, happiness and performance, and stop a decline in mental wellness.
Emotional healing therefore has a direct impact on productivity in several ways. Here are some very easy yet overlooked practical, question based examples which will set you on your way to the emotional freedom of personal alignment. By this I mean that emotional freedom is not freedom from emotions, but rather the ability to manage and process emotions with greater ease and confidence.
What activity do you do everyday to reduce your stress levels? How much so you understand your stressors?
Stress is a common productivity killer, not to mention the host of other areas of life it corrodes, relationships being number 1. Chronic stress can lead to burnout and mental health breakdowns.
Engaging in energy healing practices such as mindfulness meditation, yoga, reiki, or even simply breathing exercises and stretches can help reduce stress levels by processing blocked emotions and releasing healing chemicals, leading to increased focus and productivity as your body learns to be in a more relaxed state.
Taking a proactive approach to healing your stress levels builds resilience and develops the skills necessary to thrive in the face of future challenges. Once you gain confidence in managing your stress, your ability to be calm and balanced will grow.
What are your go-to energy boosters? Other than coffee?! :
Fatigue is often a symptom, not a condition, that is worsened by poor mental health, significantly impacting our ability to work effectively. By addressing emotional issues through energetic healing practices such as meditation or types of yoga such as kundalini, or through EMDR therapy and other types of emotional processing techniques, we regain energetic balance, we can improve our energy levels and ability to focus clearly on our life in healthy ways.
Practiced regularly, meditation and yoga act on your energetic body in the same way a commitment to a healthy personalised nutrition program acts on your physical body - by keeping you stable and consistent without having to reach for a quick fix pick-me-up.
How is your mental clarity? Let’s start with : do you know what mental clarity means to you?
What is mental clarity? Mental clarity is a state in which your mind is fully active and engaged. We need mental clarity in order to work through problems and stay productive throughout the day. Sharp memory recall, quick thinking, and unclouded judgment are all part of mental clarity
Mental health issues such as anxiety or depression cloud our ability to think clearly and make decisions. Cognitive healing practices such as cognitive-behavioural therapy, or journaling or art therapy, can help us work through these issues and improve our perspective and clear the mental clutter/ baggage. Leading to a healthier perspective, increased clarity, well-being, and meaning-based productivity.
Learning to switch off the busy, controlling mind in mediation is a pathway to improving mental clarity that becomes easier and faster the more you practice. By creating healthy neural pathways we can rewire our brains and release ourselves from negative, foggy-mind-inducing patterns.
How resilient are you in the face of emotional triggers and stress? Tell me about your coping skills and techniques?
Leaning to handle and release the everyday tides of emotions opposed to burying difficult feelings with eg alcohol, anger, or another emotional crutch or distraction tactic, is key to building resilience.
Through healing practices, especially those that identify, process and release emotional blocks to open up our authentic self , we can build resilience and develop coping skills to handle stress and adversity. By strengthening our emotional and mental well-being and stepping into the confidence of our true identity and sense of self worth, we are better equipped to handle the demands of life and bounce back from setbacks.
Self-worth and self-assurance sit at the heart of wellness. Self-worth is a more global and stable form of self-esteem that comes from knowing and believing in your worth as a unique authentic individual. In doing so we able able to defend or stand up for ourself in healthy ways and set personal boundaries.
What are the most important practices in your life that improve your overall well-being?
When we prioritise our own healing and well-being, we feel better overall, leading to increased motivation and a greater sense of purpose in our healthy habits, which translates to increased productivity and satisfaction.
Understanding your values and beliefs, and aligning them with your everyday actions is part of the pathway to overall wellbing. Therefore, incorporating daily practices that mirror your values and beliefs is really important.
Tell me about your ego? If your ego was a see-saw with two different versions of you on either end, bring this image to life for me.
When individuals prioritise their own emotional healing, they are more likely to bring the ego into balance and show up as their best selves with a stronger self of healthy self-worth. It is the self-worth factor that really drives the change, because society as a whole is currently suffering a self-worth and identity crisis driven by striving to look good, impress and even just to ‘fit-in’.
Individuals with high self-worth and a balanced ego create positive and supportive environments for themselves and others, and are really great at creating healthy boundaries - the pathway to productivity and success through emotional balance.
Incorporating emotional healing practices into our lives doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming, but it does require discipline. It can be as simple as committing to taking regular breaks throughout the day to stretch or focus on the breath, prioritising regular health appointments or healing/ therapy/ support sessions, or seeking out new hobby or community groups - finding a new set of like-minded people. Mastering creating healthy habits is key.
By prioritising our own healing, we can improve our overall well-being and performance, leading to greater success and fulfilment in our lives as a whole.
As you’re likely twigging on by now - mediation is a one-stop shop to most mental wellness issues, so get on board if you’re not already consistently practising! Find a type of meditation that works for you - there are soooo many.
