Mental Health Foundation, as described on RutlandWellbeing.org defines emotional wellbeing as:
“A positive sense of wellbeing which enables an individual to be able to function in society and meet the demands of everyday life; people in good mental health have the ability to recover effectively from illness, change or misfortune.’“
When it comes to emotional wellbeing, many people would associate it with de-stressing, away from busy life, indulging in a luxurious treatment at an expensive spa treatment centre.
We can improve emotional wellbeing without a costly spa treatment.
Below are 6 cheap ways to look after your emotional wellbeing effectively:
1. Meditation
Meditation is the cheapest yet most effective way to retreat, to destress from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. You don’t need any fancy room or equipment to start meditation.
While there are various methods of meditation, the most basic one is just as simple as:
- sit up straight, make sure your head and neck are in line with your spine
- close your eyes
- Focus on your breathing by telling yourself ‘in’ when you breathe in, and ‘out’ when you breathe out
Here are great tips for meditation positions.
If you’ve never meditated before, try the above method for five minutes, then increase it to 10, 15, and 20 minutes. Ideally, a 20-minute meditation every day is enough to destress and you can see the shift (to better wellbeing) within two weeks of meditation.
2. Walking
While it relates tightly to physical wellbeing, walking is also beneficial for emotional wellbeing.
As suggested Walking For Health, walking improves self-perception and self-esteem, mood and sleep quality, and it reduces stress, anxiety and fatigue.
If you have a healthy weight (here is how to calculate your ideal weight range), a 30-45 minute walk a day is enough to maintain your health.
Experts say ideally it takes 10,000 steps a day to maintain your health. A pedometer helps count how many steps you walk and it costs no more than AU$16 here.
3. Reading
There are plenty of books and articles about how to improve emotional wellbeing. Here are 5 best books for improving your emotional wellbeing:
- How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body by David R Hamilton – you can buy it here.
- The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health by Emeran Mayer – you can buy it here.
- Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway: How to Turn Your Fear and Indecision into Confidence and Action by Susan Jeffers – you can buy it here.
- Good Days Start With Gratitude: A 52 Week Guide To Cultivate An Attitude Of Gratitude: Gratitude Journal by Pretty Simple Press – you can buy it here.
- Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behaviour by Mark Goulston, Philip Goldberg – you can buy it here.
4. Writing
Setting aside time to write down your emotions is a healthy way to maintain and even improve your emotional wellbeing.
You can have two journals, one for gratitude, i.e. what you’re thankful for, and the other one for negative emotions, i.e. what irritates you, what makes you sad, frustrated, etc.
If you’re not comfortable with people reading your journals, get a journal with password code lock like this one.
In other words, you don’t just focus on the positive, but also embrace the negative emotions. This, not only to make you whole as a human, but also help you to be aware of all emotions so that you don’t repress or suppress your negative emotions. Repressing or suppressing negative emotions for too long may result in these emotions leaking in a horrible way.
5. Indulging in Instant Pleasure
Physical pleasure is likely to improve emotional wellbeing. So indulge.
Don’t deny your cravings for indulgent but at the same time, be aware that your indulgent may be a way for you to escape something from your life.
While many people indulge in high sugar, high fat food, which is not a good choice, many others indulge in manicure-pedicure treatment, which is a better choice.
Here are 5 things you can do at home to indulge yourself to feel comfortable:
Foot spa
Don’t go to expensive salons to treat your foot. Do it yourself at home with less than $100 equipment that lasts for years. This foot spa bath just costs AU$ 69.
Facial
Why spend hundreds of dollars when you can massage your face with this roller pin at home for under AU$7? It enhances blood circulation, increases skin elasticity, and removes wrinkles.
Massage
Who doesn’t want a good massage? If you want a human touch, you can ask your partner to do it. If you don’t have a partner, you can get a massage shawl that gives Shiatsu vibration massage with infrared heating for neck and shoulder. All these for under AU$32 here.
Relaxing in Hammocks
If you have a backyard (or front yard), hang a hammock and enjoy relaxing in it, doing nothing, or reading your favourite novels.
Aromatherapy Diffuser
It’s easy to match the aromatherapy in most spa centres: buy yourself an aromatherapy diffuser and turn it on at the comfort of your own home, or bedroom, at your own time, with just under AU$30.
6. Embracing Sadness
This may sound absurd because everyone wants to go away from sadness and all things they perceive as negative.
But here is the truth: sad is a feeling that is part of you. No matter how happy you claim your life is, there’s always something that makes you sad. Anything.
And if there’s nothing that makes you sad, you’ll unconsciously crave to see something sad and want to shed some tears anyway. It’s human to feel sad. It’s human to shed tears. So shed some tears if you feel like it. Set aside time to watch some sad movies. Just indulge and enjoy your sad time.
If you’re inclined to be productive with your sadness, go on reading something sad about the world: racial injustice, gender discrimination, LGBTQ issues, poverty, and much more.
Then don’t just stop at reading about them, start writing about them from your point of view, like how it can be improved. Even better if you set up a proper blog that can potentially be another source of income.
Those all won’t cost much as you end up staying at home, watching, researching and writing everything at your fingertip with the help of internet connection and a decent computer.
