Being emotionally and mentally healthy doesn’t mean never going through bad times or experiencing emotional problems. We all go through disappointments, loss, and change. And while these are normal parts of life, they can still cause sadness, anxiety, and stress.

The difference is that people with good emotional health have an ability to bounce back from adversity, trauma, and stress. This ability is called resilience. People who are emotionally and mentally healthy have the tools for coping with difficult situations and maintaining a positive outlook. They remain focused, flexible, and creative in bad times as well as good.

One of the key factors in resilience is the ability to balance stress and your emotions. The capacity to recognize your emotions and express them appropriately helps you avoid getting stuck in depression, anxiety, or other negative mood states. Another key factor is having a strong support network. Having trusted people you can turn to for encouragement and support will boost your resilience in tough times.

Taking care of your body is a powerful first step towards mental and emotional health. The mind and the body are linked. When you improve your physical health, you’ll automatically experience greater mental and emotional well-being. For example, exercise not only strengthens our heart and lungs, but also releases endorphins, powerful chemicals that energize us and lift our mood.

The activities you engage in and the daily choices you make affect the way you feel physically and emotionally.

• Get enough rest. To have good mental and emotional health, it’s important to take care of your body. That includes getting enough sleep. Most people need seven to eight hours of sleep each night in order to function optimally.
• Learn about good nutrition and practice it. The subject of nutrition is complicated and not always easy to put into practice. But the more you learn about what you eat and how it affects your energy and mood, the better you can feel.
• Exercise to relieve stress and lift your mood. Exercise is a powerful antidote to stress, anxiety, and depression. Look for small ways to add activity to your day, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator or going on a short walk. To get the most mental health benefits, aim for 30 minutes or more of exercise per day.
• Get a dose of sunlight every day. Sunlight lifts your mood, so try to get at least 10 to 15 minutes of sun per day. This can be done while exercising, gardening, or socializing.
• Limit alcohol and avoid cigarettes and other drugs. These are stimulants that may unnaturally make you feel good in the short term, but have long-term negative consequences for mood and emotional health.

In order to maintain and strengthen your mental and emotional health, it’s important to pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Don’t let stress and negative emotions build up. Try to maintain a balance between your daily responsibilities and the things you enjoy. If you take care of yourself, you’ll be better prepared to deal with challenges if and when they arise.

Taking care of yourself includes pursuing activities that naturally release endorphins and contribute to feeling good. In addition to physical exercise, endorphins are also naturally released when we:

• Do things that positively impact others. Being useful to others and being valued for what you do can help build self-esteem.
• Practice self-discipline. Self-control naturally leads to a sense of hopefulness and can help you overcome despair, helplessness, and other negative thoughts.
• Learn or discover new things. Think of it as “intellectual candy.” Try taking an adult education class, join a book club, visit a museum, learn a new language, or simply travel somewhere new.
• Enjoy the beauty of nature or art. Studies show that simply walking through a garden can lower blood pressure and reduce stress. The same goes for strolling through a park or an art gallery, hiking, admiring architecture, or sitting on a beach.
• Manage your stress levels. Stress takes a heavy toll on mental and emotional health, so it’s important to keep it under control. While not all stressors can be avoided, stress management strategies can help you bring things back into balance.
• Limit unhealthy mental habits like worrying. Try to avoid becoming absorbed by repetitive mental habits—negative thoughts about yourself and the world that suck up time, drain your energy, and trigger feelings of anxiety, fear, and depression.

More tips and strategies for taking care of yourself:

• Appeal to your senses. Stay calm and energized by appealing to the five senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. Listen to music that lifts your mood, place flowers where you will see and smell them, massage your hands and feet, or sip a warm drink.
• Engage in meaningful, creative work. Do things that challenge your creativity and make you feel productive, whether or not you get paid for it—things like gardening, drawing, writing, playing an instrument, or building something in your workshop.
• Get a pet. Yes, pets are a responsibility, but caring for one makes you feel needed and loved. There is no love quite as unconditional as the love a pet can give. Animals can also get you out of the house for exercise and expose you to new people and places.
• Make leisure time a priority. Do things for no other reason than that it feels good to do them. Go to a funny movie, take a walk on the beach, listen to music, read a good book, or talk to a friend. Doing things just because they are fun is no indulgence. Play is an emotional and mental health necessity.
• Make time for contemplation and appreciation. Think about the things you’re grateful for. Mediate, pray, enjoy the sunset, or simply take a moment to pay attention to what is good, positive, and beautiful as you go about your day.

Everyone is different; not all things will be equally beneficial to all people. Some people feel better relaxing and slowing down while others need more activity and more excitement or stimulation to feel better. The important thing is to find activities that you enjoy and that give you a boost.

No matter how much time you devote to improving your mental and emotional health, you will still need the company of others to feel and be your best. Humans are social creatures with an emotional need for relationships and positive connections to others. We’re not meant to survive, let alone thrive, in isolation. Our social brains crave companionship—even when experience has made us shy and distrustful of others.

Social interaction—specifically talking to someone else about your problems—can also help to reduce stress. The key is to find a supportive relationship with someone who is a “good listener”—someone you can talk to regularly, preferably face-to-face, who will listen to you without a pre-existing agenda for how you should think or feel. A good listener will listen to the feelings behind your words, and won’t interrupt or judge or criticize you. The best way to find a good listener? Be a good listener yourself. Develop a friendship with someone you can talk to regularly, and then listen and support each other.

Tips and strategies for connecting to others:

• Get out from behind your TV or computer screen. Screens have their place but they will never have the same effect as an expression of interest or a reassuring touch. Communication is a largely nonverbal experience that requires you to be in direct contact with other people, so don’t neglect your real-world relationships in favor of virtual interaction.
• Spend time daily, face-to-face, with people you like. Make spending time with people you enjoy a priority. Choose friends, neighbors, colleagues, and family members who are upbeat, positive, and interested in you. Take time to inquire about people you meet during the day that you like.
• Volunteer. Doing something that helps others has a beneficial effect on how you feel about yourself. The meaning and purpose you find in helping others will enrich and expand your life. There is no limit to the individual and group volunteer opportunities you can explore. Schools, churches, nonprofits, and charitable organization of all sorts depend on volunteers for their survival.
• Be a joiner. Join networking, social action, conservation, and special interest groups that meet on a regular basis. These groups offer wonderful opportunities for finding people with common interests—people you like being with who are potential friends.

Sometimes you may have made consistent efforts to improve your mental and emotional health and you still don’t feel good—then it’s time to seek professional help. Because we are so socially attuned, input from a knowledgeable, caring professional can motivate us to do things for ourselves that we were not able to do on our own.

Red flag feelings and behaviors that may require immediate attention

• Inability to sleep
• Feeling down, hopeless, or helpless most of the time
• Concentration problems that are interfering with your work or home life
• Using nicotine, food, drugs, or alcohol to cope with difficult emotions
• Negative or self-destructive thoughts or fears that you can’t control
• Thoughts of death or suicide

Contact us at (609) 510-4007 if you are interested in getting help for an emotional issue.

It’s been said that the Sonny Hill League has done more to battle the perils of gangs and drugs and promote life skills than any other program in the city.

They shouldn’t be boring – and they don’t have to be solitary.

By Jen A. Miller

Runners often have a love/hate relationship with the long run. We love the sense of accomplishment we feel when it’s over; we hate the anticipation of actually getting out there.

Yet it must be done: The long run is the keystone of any training program—5-K to marathon.”The long run builds endurance and strength and teaches you how to deal with fatigue,” says Maria Simone, a USA Triathlon—certified coach and owner of No Limits Endurance Coaching in Absecon, New Jersey.Indeed, extending the distance you normally cover triggers several lasting changes in your body, says 2:24 marathoner and running coach Kevin Beck. Capillaries in your muscle fibers increase in number, which enables more energizing oxygen to reach your muscles. Your mitochondria, the aerobic powerhouses of your cells, also grow in number and size, which helps you sustain energy. Your muscles also learn to store more glycogen (carbs), which wards off fatigue over long distances. There are psychological benefits, too: Long runs build mental toughness to help you manage discomfort. They also serve as a dress rehearsal, giving you an opportunity to test gear and fueling options so when race day comes, you know what works best.

Long runs aren’t easy, but they don’t have to be death marches, either. There are a number of ways to make going the distance comfortable—enjoyable, even.

TUNE OUT
PROS Running with music can stop your brain from getting overwhelmed with anxiety about the distance you have to cover. “It’s a dissociative strategy; it keeps your focus off what’s ahead,” Simone says. It can also distract you from tired, achy legs. Research from Costas Karageorghis, Ph.D., a leading authority on music and exercise, shows that music can reduce perception of exertion and increase endurance by 10 to 15 percent.
CONS Music can make you oblivious to important things, like that oncoming car, or your body’s signals (Too fast, you’re going too fast!). You can also become dependent on it—not a good thing if your device’s battery goes dead midrun or if you plan to race without it.
DO IT RIGHT Karageorghis’s research says fast-tempo songs that exceed 120 beats per minute (BPM) are ideal during high-intensity exercise when you’re working at 75 percent of your maximum heart rate, and slower speeds are best for less-intense efforts. Because songs that push you through an interval session might be too frantic for a slow, steady effort, craft separate playlists for your workouts. Or try an app like PaceDJ, which configures a playlist based on your specific running pace. Podcasts and audiobooks are also a good option—they won’t inspire you to sprint. For safety purposes, keep the volume low enough so you can hear yourself talking over what’s coming out of your earbuds. You can also try headphones that are designed to let you still hear your surroundings, like AfterShokz. And be sure to do some long runs sans tunes if you plan to race without them.

PAIR UP
PROS Running with a training partner can turn a long run into a social hour (or two or three), says Colleen Tindall, a USATF-certified running coach in Moorestown, New Jersey. “It’s more fun, it’s safer, and it makes you accountable,” she says. “You’re less likely to cut a run short if you’re with someone else.” Planning long runs with one person gives you more scheduling flexibility than you’d have with a club that might only meet at, say, 8 a.m. Saturday mornings. Also, beginners who might find a large training group intimidating can benefit from hooking up with an experienced running friend who can provide one-on-one support.
CONS If you rely totally on one person, what happens when she gets injured or goes out of town? More critically, if your partner’s pace is incompatible, your training could suffer. “If you’re running too hard on your long runs, you can risk injury and lose confidence,” Tindall says. “It works the other way, too. If you’re with someone not running fast enough, you might not be reaching your potential.”
DO IT RIGHT Know your schedule and your pace goals, then look for a suitable partner. There are several online sites that can help you connect with a local runner, like buddyup.com (which even asks runner compatibility questions), meetup.com, and the Runner’s World forums. Your local running club could help you connect with another member who also has a quirky schedule and needs to go long on Fridays, for instance. And consider this: Your buddy doesn’t need to be a runner—got a spouse, friend, or kid who likes to bike? They can keep you company (and carry your water).

BE A GROUPIE
PROS Signing up to train with a large club or training organization (like Team in Training or Joints in Motion) gives you a real sense of commitment—you’re less likely to skip your runs if you’re paying membership dues or pledging to fund-raise. Many large groups break off into smaller subsets, so you’ll find runners that match your pace. They may offer coaching—helpful if you need pacing, fueling, or stretching advice. Plus, organized long runs often follow premeasured routes with water and sports drinks provided—all you have to do is show up and run!
CONS You’re locked into the group’s schedule, so if you have to miss a group run, you’re on your own. You can also become dependent on the group for pacing or distraction, which can hurt you if you’ll be racing solo. “It’s important for runners at all levels to learn how to manage the fatigue and discomfort on their own,” Simone says.
DO IT RIGHT Mix group runs with solo ones so you have the best of both worlds. Stick with the gang when you’re going really long and need the support and companionship. But on a week when you’re stepping back in distance, go it alone so you get practice pacing yourself and developing your own mental coping strategies.

RUN IN CIRCLES
PROS Breaking a long run into several smaller loops makes a daunting distance more manageable. Instead of focusing on running 15 miles, for instance, you can just take it one five-mile segment at a time. Looping also allows you to create your own aid station. “You can stash water and fuel at a set location you know you’ll be hitting several times,” Simone says. Loops from your house are especially helpful if the weather changes or you need a pit stop. It’s comforting to know that an extra layer and bathroom are never too far away.
CONS Looping again and again…and again with no variety in scenery can be boring. Very boring.
DO IT RIGHT Simone suggests alternating the direction you run on each loop—it’s a small change that can be surprisingly refreshing. And recruit a friend looking to do a shorter run to join you for a loop.

http://www.runnersworld.com/running-tips/four-ways-to-enjoy-long-runs?adbid=10152782348081987&adbpl=fb&adbpr=9815486986&cid=socTP_20150517_45856486&short_code=30b7a