Dealing with tough emotions is no fun. It's super common to run into emotional disturbance due to stress, disappointment, tough events, loss, grief, and toxic relationships. Any bad experience or extreme emotional pain can mess with your mind and body, especially if you don’t address it. Ignored emotional pain can sneak back up on you and mess with your physical and mental health.
Emotional disturbance can stem from life’s ups and downs. In some cases, normal circumstances or other people’s actions can cause one's emotional disturbance. On the other hand, it may be due to ongoing ADHD, excessive anxiety, depression, OCD, or other clinical conditions.
In many cases, a general pervasive mood of sadness may indicate underlying issues such as depression or chronic stress. If there is a specific mental disorder involved and if teens develop physical symptoms, it is best to seek professional advice.
Your thoughts can also trigger these emotions. Whether it is a runaway, looping thought, or negative thinking pattern, one's mental processes directly influence emotions.
Signs of emotional disturbance
You may be suffering from emotional disturbances without realizing it because emotions can creep in and affect your brain and cause abnormal thinking, mood swings distorted thinking, behavior signals and body without making the connection to a prior event. Most serious emotional disturbances has specific mental disorder or psychotic disorders involved. The following symptoms may indicate that you're dealing with this issue:
- Exhaustion
- Dramatic mood swings
- Temper tantrums
- Spending less time with friends and family
- Irritability
- Eating disorders
- Behavioral disorders
- Unmotivated
- Helplessness and hopelessness
- Negative thinking
- Painful feelings of guilt
- Sleep problems
But it won't matter what caused the pain, as emotional disturbances will affect every aspect of your life to some degree. Some people are more functional in their daily life, but emotional disturbance always impacts you on the inside.
So learning how to deal with it healthily is crucial. Never resort to using unhealthy coping mechanisms to overcome emotional disturbances. Healing takes time, so be patient with yourself. In time and with self-care, you can address the upset.
To maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships is also important. This can mean spending time with friends, classmates and parents too.
Chemical Imbalance and Emotional Disturbance
Emotional disturbances are often linked to chemical imbalances in the brain. Neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, play a crucial role in regulating mood, emotions, and overall mental health. When the levels of these chemicals are disrupted, it can lead to emotional disturbances, extreme distress, and mental disorders.
The Impact of Emotional Disturbance Disorder
Experiencing emotional disturbance can profoundly affect various aspects of your life, often in ways you might not immediately recognize. The strain of unprocessed emotions doesn't just weigh on your mind but can also ripple through your physical health and behavior, disrupting your overall well-being. Understanding these impacts and learning effective self-regulation strategies is essential for maintaining balance and health in the face of emotional challenges.
How Emotional Disturbance Affects Mental Health
- Anxiety: Suppressed emotional pain can increase anxiety levels, making you feel constantly on edge or worried.
- Depression: Unresolved emotions can lead to prolonged periods of sadness and hopelessness, affecting your daily functioning.
- Other Mental Health Issues: Over time, unaddressed emotional disturbances can contribute to the development of other mental health conditions, such as PTSD or OCD.
Emotional Disturbance and Physical Health Factors
- Headaches: Emotional distress often results in tension headaches or migraines due to constant mental strain.
- Digestive Issues: Stress and emotional turmoil can disrupt your digestive system, leading to stomach aches, irritable bowel syndrome, or gastrointestinal problems.
- Chronic Illnesses: Long-term emotional disturbance can weaken the immune system, making you more susceptible to chronic conditions like heart disease or autoimmune disorders.
Behavioral Changes
- Irritability: Unresolved emotions can make you more irritable, leading to frequent arguments or conflicts with others.
- Withdrawal: Emotional pain may cause you to withdraw from social activities and isolate yourself from friends and family.
- Outbursts: Pent-up emotions can lead to sudden and intense outbursts of anger or frustration, often over minor issues.
10 Ways to Deal with Emotional Disabilities
Here are some helpful ways to counter pervasive mood of unhappiness, abnormal mood swings, irrational fear and emotional disturbance. You can replace them with positive emotions and healthy thinking instead. There are many ways to improve your own mood swings and mindset, requiring micro steps integrated into your lifestyle to get started. This guide can help you put a break to your emotional reactions and give you a sense of emotional balance in your life.
#1 Practice mindfulness
Focusing on the present moment reduces your reliance on the past. You'll have more freedom to choose how to respond to emotional disturbance when you practice being present instead of being ruled by your past hurts.
Children can quickly learn mindful breathing. Practicing mindfulness breathing involves focusing on your breathing from inhalation to exhalation. The purpose of mindful breathing is to observe how you breathe rather than to control or change it. Being mindful of how you breathe encourages the body to breathe more gently and slowly.
Focusing on your breath forces the mind to stay in the present moment. You can feel the results of mindful breathing immediately as the physiological changes in your body take place. It resets the nervous system and slows a person's heart rate and breathing.
Children will start to feel calm and relaxed and realize they can control their strong emotions. Focusing on one's breathing can help children ground themselves and focus on their bodies. It is a great way to teach them how to calm themselves down amidst excessive fear, anxiety or a difficult situation.
#2 Exercise
You may not even want to get up when experiencing psychological pain. Doing this can lead to greater depression and feelings of desolation. It's better to move your body and engage in any physical exercise. Walk around the block. Get up and stretch. Even the simplest body movements can help.
You can release emotional disturbances from your body by doing any physical activity. Moving can lift your spirit and boost your energy when you're down. Additionally, it can help you mobilize your nervous system. Aerobic exercises such as jogging, cycling, swimming, walking, dancing, and gardening can help reduce depression and anxiety disorders (Guszkowska, 2004).
#3 Turn to a hobby or volunteer
If you want to overcome your behavioral and emotional problems and emotional disturbances, try to do something future-oriented and productive. Do something you enjoy, start a new hobby, or focus on social endeavors. Positive distractions can help you relax and connect with yourself or others For example, you can try weight training or rock climbing to counter negative memories.
People with behavioral or emotional problems can benefit from volunteering. It can give you a sense of purpose and boosts your self-confidence. It can also be used to cope with emotional disturbances or specific mental disorder due to manic depressive illness or mental disorder by getting you to focus on the needs of others. By volunteering, you will learn new skills, strengthen community ties, gain experiences, and meet more people. So, engage in more social activities that you enjoy.
Giving can also boost your own mental health, physical, and emotional well-being. Volunteering has its benefits and only requires a short-term commitment or a little of your time. The benefits of volunteering go beyond helping others in need.
#4 Start a journal
If something happens to you, put it in a journal. Add a comment about how you felt about it. You will be surprised at how this can help in times when there's a pervasive mood of unhappiness. Writing gives you the freedom to express your emotions. You can write anything you want without anyone interrupting or criticizing you.
Emotions are a part of who you are. Writing about your emotions will help you reflect, analyze, and change them, which will help you overcome emotional disturbance. It's like talking to yourself to help reinforce your convictions. It also keeps you from ruminating because it is a mindfulness-based stress reduction activity that helps take you out of your looping thoughts.
#5 Engage in self-care
In times of emotional disturbances, it feels like nothing but hurt all around us. With self-care, you set boundaries, say no, do what makes you happy, choose to be comfortable, and prioritize your needs. The mere act of enjoying a funny movie can be a form of self-care.
Taking care of yourself every day will empower you in the long run. As a result, your pain won't feel as overwhelming. In addition to cognitive behavior therapy, research has identified the emotional and behavioral support for cognitive skills and behavioral support for self-care as a crucial component of symptom management (Sebastian et al., 2022).
#6 Make lifestyle changes
Lifestyle changes refer to shifting your life's core habits to improve physical and psychological health. It's a concept generally consisting of practices encouraging balanced eating, active living, weight management, and emotional regulation.
Some activities that can initiate lifestyle changes include yoga, meditation, dancing, aromatherapy, aerobics, and more. Work closely with experts in each field, such as behavioral therapists, dieticians, and fitness coaches, for guidance.
Even a change in diet can help. It is common to see eating disorders in
emotionally disturbed people. Eating the right foods can play a crucial role in managing emotional disturbance and improving your overall mood. Incorporate omega-3 rich foods, antioxidant-rich foods, and those high in tryptophan into your diet. Include complex carbohydrates, probiotic foods, and magnesium-rich foods to help stabilize emotions. This balanced approach to nutrition can contribute to a more positive and stable mood and can help prevent eating disorders.
#7 Practice gratitude
Make a list of everything positive and good. Take note of everything and reflect on it. Gratitude can help you gain a different perspective. Your intention here is not to ignore negative emotions because it is necessary to feel or experience them too. The idea is to recognize the good things you have at the moment.
And children are never too young to start an attitude of gratitude. Modeling gratitude language at home is how to start. It helps children to understand that even when things feel “icky” in our personal or school problems or life, being grateful can reset us and lead us to solutions instead of being stuck.
People with excessive anxiety tend to focus on what's wrong around them and miss everything right. Write one thing you're grateful for in a notebook or journal and return to it every time you feel emotional disturbance. It will help you look past your sorrow and has been clinically proven to combat both anxiety disorder and depression.
#8 Get support from family and friends
A healthy way to deal with emotional disturbance is to get support from people who love you. Neither life nor your hurts should be handled alone, so a support group would greatly help. The support of your old friends and family member can limit isolation and force us to remember the good things around us.
Good relationships with family members lead to healthier behaviors, improved self-esteem, and better coping with stress (Thomas et al., 2017). Socializing and being part of a community makes us feel accepted and heard and leads to an increase in feel-good neurotransmitters.
#9 Forgive
Allow yourself to forgive yourself or others when you feel upset or stuck. Waiting for an apology from the other person may significantly delay letting go of issues holding you back. Forgiveness is the first step to healing. Let go of guilt, anger, shame, and sadness. To recover from hurt and pain, you must initiate the healing process, which may mean accepting the person who hurt you won't apologize.
#10 Laugh
A general pervasive mood of anxiety can significantly impact an individual's overall well-being and daily functioning. Humor reduces emotional disturbance by shifting how we feel, think, and create bonds with others. Humor can reduce one's emotional distress. Laughter expresses exhilaration and serves other functions related to relationships and self-regulation. Laughing is frequently used to counter painful emotions. It can reduce stress and social anxiety disorder. (Bänninger-Huber & Salvenauer, 2022). A little humor can relieve you of excessive fear, pain, or a specific mental disorder.
Laughing is not an indication of disrespect for your pain or the cause of it. Instead, look at it as a soul-soothing medication. Humor increases a person's ability to tolerate emotional and physical pain. It also helps reduce anxiety and prevent negative thoughts.
Seek Professional Help
Getting mental health support and talking to a professional may help you let go of a painful experience. If it feels challenging to handle emotional disturbance on your own, seek psychological or counseling services under the guidance of an experienced professional. In addition, it could be necessary to get therapy if you are experiencing severe mental disorders, a psychiatric illness or serious mental illness, or emotional health issue that interferes with your daily life.
One helpful therapeutic approach to brain disorder is cognitive behavioral therapy. This therapy relieves generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, emotional disorders and other mental illnesses. In addition, it has cognitive skills that can help people with emotional disturbance confront dysfunctional beliefs and develop healthier ways of thinking.
Psychotherapy is another option. It involves talk therapy to improve one's mental wellness and abnormal mood swings. In addition, psychotherapy can promote positive changes in the brain and body. Joining group therapies and guided mindfulness interventions with an experienced family therapist after traumatic experiences may also help.
Can emotional disturbance lead to anxiety disorders?
Yes, emotional disturbance can lead to anxiety disorders. When emotional pain and distress are left unaddressed, they can build up over time, leading to chronic stress, anxiety and mental illnesses. Persistent emotional disturbances, such as those caused by traumatic events, prolonged stress, or toxic relationships, can overwhelm the mind and body, disrupting normal functioning and triggering anxiety and different mental disorders. Managing and addressing emotional disturbances promptly is crucial for preventing the development of anxiety and other mental illnesses.
Can you medicate emotional disturbances?
Medicating emotional disturbance can provide only temporary relief by alleviating symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and stress. However, it's important to understand that medication addresses the symptoms of bipolar disorder, not the underlying causes. For long-term well-being, it is crucial to combine medication with therapy, lifestyle changes, and coping strategies to effectively manage and resolve emotional disturbances.
Who can help people with emotional issues?
People dealing with emotional issues can seek help from a variety of professionals and support systems. Therapists and counselors offer talk therapy like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to help manage emotions. Primary care physicians provide initial assessments and referrals to mental health specialists. Support groups provide peer support and shared coping strategies, while social workers offer counseling and connect individuals with necessary resources and services. Life coaches assist in setting goals and developing effective coping mechanisms. Seeking support from other mental health professionals and resources can provide crucial assistance in addressing and managing emotional challenges effectively.
Each state in the United States has its own system of mental health services, which can include public mental health clinics, private practitioners, community mental health centers, and hospital-based psychiatric services that can help with positive behavioral interventions and help improve poor coping skills.
Is psychosocial treatment necessary?
In some cases, psychosocial treatment is often necessary and highly beneficial for addressing a wide range of temper tantrums, deep emotional pain, and other mental health issues. It is necessary special if there are signs self injurious behavior.
Self-injurious behavior (SIB), also known as self-harm or self-mutilation, refers to deliberate actions that cause harm to oneself without suicidal intent.
Treatment and therapy focus on the interplay between psychological factors and social environments, aiming to improve emotional well-being, poor coping skills and overall functioning. Psychosocial treatments can include various forms of therapy, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), interpersonal therapy (IPT), and supportive therapy.
References
Bänninger-Huber, E., & Salvenauer, S. (2022). Different types of laughter and their function for emotion regulation in dyadic interactions. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03485-1
Guszkowska, M. (2004, July 1). Effects of Exercise on Anxiety, Depression and Mood. Psychiatria Polska. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15518309/
Sebastian, A. T., Rajkumar, E., John, R., Daniel, M., George, A. J., Greeshma, R., & James, T. (2022). Emotional Self-Care: Exploring the Influencing Factors Among Individuals With Cancer. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.898345
Thomas, P. A., Liu, H., & Umberson, D. (2017). Family Relationships and Well-Being. Innovation in Aging, 1(3), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igx025
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to give health advice and it is recommended to consult with a physician before beginning any new wellness regime. *The effectiveness of diagnosis and treatment vary by patient and condition. Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge, LLC does not guarantee certain results.
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to give health advice and it is recommended to consult with a physician before beginning any new wellness regime. *The effectiveness of diagnosis and treatment vary by patient and condition. Dr. Roseann Capanna-Hodge, LLC does not guarantee certain results.
