mental health | ELM Mental Wellness

How to use Emotions to your advantage.

emotion, health, mental health, positive thinking, stress, therapy, wellness

Do you feel like you can handle whatever life throws at you?

The emotional dimension of wellness recognizes awareness and acceptance of one’s feelings. Emotional wellness includes the range we feel positive and enthusiastic about our self and our life. It includes the capacity to manage feelings and related behaviors including knowing our limits, development of independence, and ability to cope effectively with stress.

Emotions are a part of who we are and how we are perceived by others. Your mood can affect your thoughts and behaviors. Your emotions are affected by certain events like thinking about friends and family and past and future events. Good emotions can motivate and excite us to look forward to new things and activities. When we feel unpleasant emotions, it can be a sign that we don’t want a certain activity or event to occur or continue.

There are good types of stress that make you feel energized, and there are bad types of stress that can have a negative impact on us – not only emotionally but physically as well.

How to deal with situations that cause bad stress: The FOUR A’s

Accept situations that you can not change.
Avoid things and people who cause you stress.
Alter the situations you can change by communicating more effectively,
Adapt to the situation with an open mind and focus on the positive.

(Ideas from http//:www.helpguide.org)

For many of us, it’s not a great disaster that weakens our health but instead how we handle the more frequent everyday stresses of life. So like a rock in a stream, if we do not cope well with daily life our health is slowly worn away until it is time for a significant health effect like a heart attack. P. Granello from Wellness Counseling, 2013.

On the ELM Mental Wellness path, you’ll be able to express feelings freely and manage feelings effectively. You’ll be able to form relationships with others based upon a foundation of mutual commitment, trust, and respect. You’ll take on challenges, take risks, and recognize conflict as being potentially healthy. Managing your life in personally rewarding ways, and taking responsibility for your actions, will help you see life as an exciting, hopeful adventure.

It is better to be aware of and accept our feelings than to deny them. It is better to be optimistic in our approach to life than pessimistic.

Be Well,

Kelle Greeson, LPCC CWC

Owner, ELM Mental Wellness

What Physical Wellness Can Teach You about Quality and Longevity of Life

Exercise, health, mental health, therapy, weight, wellness

Have you tried all the diets, does activity sound and feel like work, do you know your health risks?

The physical dimension of wellness recognizes the need for physical development. Improvement includes learning about diet and nutrition, incorporating regular physical activity, discouraging the use of addictive substances, and medical self care.

The most important contributor to a person’s wellness is nutrition. Nutrition is responsible for fueling all of life’s processes. The atoms, molecules, and cells of your body continually move and change, even though the arrangement of your tissues and organs seems to remain constant. All of the energy you need and all of the pieces of your body come from the nutrients you derive from foods (Whitney & Rolfes, 1993).

Eat meals regularly and include a variety of healthful foods for a balanced diet. Drink plenty of fluids, preferably water. Drink alcohol in moderation.

We all know the benefits of regular physical activity: disease risk reduction, helps control weight, maintains bones, muscles, and joints, and reduces feelings of anxiety and depression. Theory and research tell us the amount of pleasure or displeasure one experiences during exercise may influence the likelihood that he or she subsequently adopts or maintains regular participation. So the most important thing is to exercise often and have fun doing activities you enjoy. Someone asked me “How long do I have to exercise?” I replied, “How long do you want the benefits?”

I have 20+ years experience successfully maintaining a healthy weight through continually evolving and changing my nutrition and my activity. I limit my alcohol, and try to adhere to health assessment according to age markers. I do things to take care of my body. I am mindful of my body’s health, and how it responds to stress and setbacks. I’ve learned planning, setting small goals, and making it fun determine my success.

Kelle Greeson, Owner ELM Mental Wellness.

By traveling the ELM Mental Wellness path, you’ll be able to plan, set reasonable goals, and measure your success and obstacles. You’ll understand and appreciate the relationship between sound nutrition and how your body performs. The physical benefits of looking good and feeling terrific most often lead to the psychological benefits of enhanced self-esteem, self-control, determination and a sense of direction.

Our Physical Body is the home we will live in forever. Take Good Care.

Click to download Physical Wellness Prescription

What Wellness Can Teach You about Quality and Longevity of Life

health, mental health, therapy, Uncategorized, wellness

Have you thought about how long you will live, how you want to live, and how healthy and spirited your life will be while living it?

Initiating a Wellness Lifestyle can be challenging, but finding the right information, the right support and resource can help you get there.

I’m Kelle Greeson, Psychotherapist, Certified Wellness Counselor, and member of the National Wellness Institute. Over the next 6 months I will introduce you to the Interdependent Model of Wellness (referred to as the 6 Dimensions of Wellness). Each month will include one dimension to highlight: The definition and description, what are some setbacks or factors that get in the way, suggestions to apply for improvement including a checklist to print, and local resource (s).

A person is more than one’s body. Wellness is an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward, a more successful existence. My hope is to help you begin to recognize and address yourself as whole person.

ELM Mental Wellness provides in depth assessment, goal setting and treatment plan, intervention application, encouragement and support to achieve and complete plan. We all need help managing the ups and downs of life every once in a while. Being aware and taking care of your mental and physical health needs can help you better understand yourself (and others!) and feel your best.