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Bolstering strong emotional health is a daily effort.

Here are nine practical strategies to keep the elements of emotional health covered in The keys to a good life (Emotional Health Pt. 1) together and strong all day long.

Physical Movement

Exercise is critical to emotional health.

I’m a different person on days when I don’t exercise compared to the days I do.

Even on your rest days, try to work in some form of restorative movement like walking or yoga.

Your emotional health requires movement to thrive.

If you don’t enjoy traditional exercise, that’s okay. Any form of physical activity will do.

Whether that be YouTube dance workouts, cycling to work, rucking outside, or lifting weights in the gym is up to you.

Rule: Do NOT go on your phone while exercising or in between sets. 

The majority of phone activities worsen emotional health (scrolling Instagram, checking email, reading news, etc.).

Instead, stay in the moment, daydream, or let your subconscious work through problems in your life.

Cold Exposure

Splashing cold water on your face or taking a cold shower or ice bath shocks your senses and can help you cope with mounting emotional distress.

Alternatively, breathe slowly and deeply.

Four-second inhale, six-second exhale, repeat.

Both of these practices stimulate the vagus nerve which causes our heart rate and breathing rate to slow, shifting off our fight-or-flight (sympathetic nervous system) and activating our calming parasympathetic mode.

Nutrition

Overeating and consuming overly refined, sugar heavy, and other unhealthy foods not only worsens our physical health but also dampens our emotional state.

The worse we eat, the more our emotional health tends to slip. 

To eat with emotional health in mind, try splitting your day into quarters: morning, afternoon, evening, and night.

If you slip up in the morning, for example, don’t use it as an excuse to eat poorly the rest of the day.

Simply reset next quarter and carry on.

Sleep

Sleep is important for everything.

That includes emotional health.

We’ve covered strategies for better sleep here:

• Lever #1: Sleep

• 13 Guidelines for Superior Sleep

• 12 Simple Rules to Optimize Your Sleep

Quality Social Time

Call a friend, chat with your roommates or partner, or go sit in a coffee shop to get a feeling of community and socialization around you.

Humans are social creatures.

When we strip ourselves of quality social time, we pay the toll in poor emotional health.

Meditation

Download Insight Timer, set a timer for anywhere between 2-10 minutes, then sit or lie down and simply breathe and let your mind relax.

Slowing down to calm your mind can serve as the reboot you need to finish the day strong.

Tip: Meditate in the afternoon.

Meditation teachers often recommend morning meditation. I followed this advice for years.

But recently, I’ve been meditating after work around 4 p.m. and have found it extraordinarily more effective.

I don’t need to calm my mind immediately after jumping out of bed.

I need to downshift after a busy day of work when my mind is racing with future deadlines, meetings, and events.

Get Outside

Spending time outside, ideally in nature, is often a cure-all for negative emotions.

Forest bathing has been proven to deliver a host of benefits, significantly improving physical health and emotional well-being. 

For example, fractal geometric patterns in nature (from leaf veins and tree branches to ice and snow) can reduce stress.

Bonus points for combining your outside time with exercise such as walking, rucking, running, or yoga.

Get Busy

Spending time doing something pleasurable that is aligned with your values is a superb way to boost your state of mind.

Alternatively, busying yourself with eulogy-strengthening activities — although slightly morbid to think about — is sure to result in you feeling better about yourself and the world around you.

As we studied with Kobe Bryant, people will remember your eulogy virtues, not your resume accomplishments. 

And if you don’t feel like doing, place your focus on just being.

Being present in the once-in-an-infinity moment you are in.

Behaviour Before Mood

Rule of thumb: you must change your behaviour to change your mood.

Waiting until your mood improves to change how you’re spending your time is a poor strategy likely to result in more time spent feeling off than necessary. 

Alternatively, forcing yourself to change your behaviour can almost instantly transform your mood.

If you feel like doing something destructive or negative, force yourself to do the opposite.

By doing so, you empower yourself to change the underlying emotions. 

I’ll leave you with a quote from Brazilian lyricist Paulo Coelho that nicely wraps up our two-part series (Pt. 1) on emotional health:

"Maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about unbecoming everything that isn't really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”

Much love to you and yours,

Jack Dixon