How to improve emotional intelligence, it is definitely doable

How to improve emotional intelligence, it is definitely doable

Learn How to Identify and Express your Feelings:

It has always been known that feelings are a crucial aspect of our lives, but many of us have been taught to ignore our feelings. Childhood training has played a prominent role in shaping this frame of mind.

We feel embarrassed if we show an outward display of shame, guilt, anger, passion, sadness and irritation.

People in general feel it is a bad social move to cause emotional pain from being honestly critical about how they really feel inside.

The result of clamming up is often the root cause of frustration, irrational fears, anxiety, fixation on false ideas, depression and insecurity.

People become progressively negative and get an unknowingly bleak outlook on life. Feelings are often multilayered and it is difficult to be aware of them or define what they are.

Sometimes, even if we recognize them, it becomes impossible to even express them.

How to improve emotional intelligence begins by first learning to identify your feelings and then bringing them out in the open to eliminate the dangers of developing anxiety disorders and phobias.

Before we learn how to identify feelings it is important to understand some facts about feelings:
Feelings involve a complete physical sensation. The autonomic nervous and limbic system are biological regulators for emotional expression.

When intense circumstances arise this may cause stress leading to one experiencing bodily sensations such as a faster heart beat, heavy breathing, anxiety, sweating, shivering and tunnel vision(fear causing narrow visual awareness).

If your caught up in a full blown panic, then several or all of these symptoms may occur.

The way you interpret events depending on your mindset can give rise to certain emotions. For example if you see a rope in a dark room and it appears to be a snake this will initialize a fight or flight response in you.

Once a light is put on and you realize its not a snake these feelings will disappear.

Until people develop sufficient emotional intelligence these stressor happen a lot and over a prolonged period this will lead to chronic stress and illness.

What is stress:

If you instinctively assess that your in danger from sensory input(seeing and hearing) and past memories of similar events the amygdala area of the brain that helps process emotions, is interpreting the visual and audio information as a threat.

The amygdala will immediately send an alarm signal to the hypothalamus, a small area of the base part of the brain next to the master gland(pituitary gland).

The hypothalamus is something like a central control unit that sends messages to the nervous system, which manipulates unconscious systems such as heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, small air ways in the lungs, constriction and dilation of certain blood vessels.

The involuntary nervous system is a dual system, the sympathetic nervous system that emits a boost of energy to help in a crisis and the parasympathetic nervous system that calms down the body when the crisis past.

How the body processes stress:

When the amygdala sends a warning alarm, the hypothalamus triggers the sympathetic nervous system by sending signals to the adrenal glands.

The adrenal glands will pump hormone epinephrine(adrenaline) into the blood. As adrenaline moves through the whole body it speeds up the heart, pulse rate rises, blood pressures elevates, and quicker breathing occurs.

The lung’s bronchiole small airways open up allowing the person to get a lot more air with each breath.

As the brain becomes more oxygenated awareness is enhanced, sight, sound and the senses become intensified.

Adrenaline also activates the release of blood sugar(glucose) and fats stored in various parts of body. Glucose and fats flow through the circulatory system via blood way bringing energy to the whole body.

What it means to have quick instincts:

The stress response happens so fast the person barely has a chance to register the crisis, for example almost being run over by a speeding car.

The autonomous functionality of the hypothalamus and amygdala is the reason why a person gets out of the way of a speeding car and may not even think or remember what transpired.

The second phase of stress response system:

As the first adrenaline pumping begins to subside, the hypothalamus triggers another element of the stress response system. This involves the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands.

This hormonal system keeps the sympathetic nervous system active in order to allow the hypothalamus to send a hormone to the pituitary gland triggering the release of another hormone to the adrenal glands.

The adrenal glands will release cortisol(steroid stress hormone) to constantly keep the body charge up if the danger is persistent.

Stress response system shutdown:

Once the danger is gone the cortisol level will fall and parasympathetic nervous system will slow down your heart rate, breath, pulse rate will decline, and relaxing the whole body in general.    

Mismanaged feelings can lead to tons of stress:

If you are doing a job that you consider to be distasteful, then this may lead to stress. Stress can take many different forms and varies with each person in how it might manifest:

1. Fatigue from stress:

When you are unhappy about your job, this creates stress related toxins in your system making it impossible to ever get a good night sleep.

Being constantly tired will make the work harder and even more unpleasant.

As you decline from lack of rest you will be at risk from lack of proper awareness, especially in situations that require adequate attention to details for your safety.

2. Chronic stress syndrome:

The more time that is spent in a depressive job or other bad situation, the more likely you may get chronic stress. Your biological configuration is design to become alarmed when in stress.

The physical reaction to stress allows you to be able to handle predators and other antagonist, but nowadays most people don’t have to deal with predators.

Social pressure, taking care of  family, trying to make a decent wage, staying healthy, and looking for happiness in life has made life so complex until this is a modern day psychological type of “predator” that signals the body to react to these problems as a threat.

It is as though you are being hunted by some unknown enemy the body may persistently go in war mode trying to stay alive, thus creating chronic stress.

3. Constant stress can rattle the nerves causing anxiety:

Fear can be a constructive positive element that makes you strive to work harder, like trying to get top grades. Constant fear, insecurity, or anxiety attacks that happen to frequently can cause debilitating effects on ones health.

Overbreathing or hyperventilation is the result of the body trying to get more air to function at a higher level when in danger.

chronic stress may make a person have regular anxiety attacks, which will alter biochemistry by making carbon dioxide lower in your blood.

If carbon dioxide lowers to much, then blood flow to the brain will be lessen.

When the brain gets less blood physical problems like weakness, fainting, dizziness, depersonalization(feeling disconnected from your body), derealization(disturbing feeling that reality is not real), hallucinations, and so on can occur.

4. A possibility of a weaken immune system from prolonged stress:

The stress hormones release in the body cause by stressors in life, can be a benefit when trying to escape a bad position in life.

Over production of stress hormones like cortisol may interfere with the immune system.

The immune system is designed to generate an army(white blood cells) to eliminate intruders in the body or inflame damage cell, tissue, or organ to contain threat to a limited area in the body.

The body abnormally in a constant state of stress arousal will either cause the immune system to attack its own body cells even when there is no infection in the body or fail to neutralize pathogens(foreign disease causing agents) because it may suppress antibodies in order to conserve energy to rev up the persons awareness to handle serious problems in their immediate environment.

5. High blood pressure from to much stress:

Hypertension or high blood pressure can slowly wreck your body over a long period of time, before you even become aware of it.

As hypertension dangerously increases the blood flow in your arteries this may lead to some deadly symptoms.

Aneurysm:
High blood pressure may damage the arteries’ wall lining making it possible for diet fats to get stuck in those areas. eventually the artery walls become less elastic making it hard to move blood through your circulatory system properly.

In time a weaken artery may develop a bulge which may burst causing fatal internal bleeding. This can happen anywhere in your body.

Heart failure:
Your heart pumps blood through the whole body. Hypertension can do some serious damage to the heart,
High blood pressure can overwork the heart making it weaker.

The longer this keeps happening the more likely the overworked heart will break and stop working.

Heart Attack:
Arteries that pump blood to the heart muscle may become to narrow from high blood pressure to flow freely to the heart. This will lead to intense chest pain from getting a heart attack.

stroke:
The brain needs nourishment from blood just as the heart does or it will die.

When the brain can’t get enough oxygen and nutrition within several minutes brain cells start dying. Chronic stress can lead to prolonged high blood pressure.

In time this may lead to blood clots or damage to the artery that supplies blood to the brain. This can lead to a temporary pain or permanent paralysis depending on where it occurs in the brain.

Some people can recover overtime, but the majority will suffer a disability for the rest of their lives.

6. Is there a link between stress and depression:

Without adequate emotional training in terms of observing how you feel, studying your thought patterns, and reprogramming your thought and emotional configuration there is a very good chance that a mild or major form of depression can set in.

Since we are creatures of habit our ingrained thought process gets laced with certain emotions.

A specific line of reasoning on a given issue is like a uniquely designed house and how you decorate it with certain styles of furniture and specific colors that represents a type of emotional state.

The humans thought process is like a construction of a whole city. This “city”(mental configuration) that everyone has built(psychological development) is either a good design(happy person) or a poor one(sad person).

If we didn’t have environmental stressors our inner state would more likely be very positive.

But, we are constantly bombarded with so many issues such as who we can vote on to fix urban crime, how to get a good job that pays well and is enjoyable, where can one find decent companions, is there a perfect soulmate, do I have enough emergency money for possible accidents, where can I find happiness, and even if I solve all the problems just mentioned can I be successful with finding solutions for a million other problems, and how long will this success last?

These problems afflict everyone and depending on their level of stress tolerance it will deteriorate most peoples mood and perfomance more or less.

That is why we tend to be in a negative state of mind even if it is unconscious which can easily lead to depression.

Feeling sad or “blue” for more than several days:

If your unhappy for a long time or easily sadden over minor problems it is a strong possibility that you have emotional sickness(depression).

Although intense sadness is viewed as purely an emotional problem, experts say depression is also related to physical factors like genetics, brain chemistry and serotonin deficit from prolonged stress.

Let us examine how stress may indirectly cause one to be in a perpetual state of misery.

In some cases if stress hormones activated in the body for emergency situations become maladaptive and stays activated this can create mood disorders.

Serotonin the bodies happy chemical:

Excessive stress can interfere with the production and activity of certain chemicals like serotonin mostly found in the digestive system which transmit data between each nerve.

Serotonin effects your whole body from how you feel to physical coordination. A very important element in maintaining a balance in your biochemistry system:

getting proper rest

helps in keeping a persons mood up

regulates nervousness

makes consuming food more enjoyable, therefore it aids in the eating process

helps reduce constipation

If the production of the “happy chemical” serotonin is impaired then depression may hit a persons system so hard causing all sorts of problems.

How it impacts each person is not the same.

Some of the symptoms may include strong anxiety, a lack of desire to eat,  gluttonous appetite for food, persistent lack of energy, constipation, suicidal thoughts, over sleeping, or insomnia.

One who does not learn to monitor their emotional state at all times may in time develop chronic stress and this will definitely wear on your peace of mind, eventually leaving you feeling like life is a bleak prison that may not be worth living. Some victims will attempt suicide trying to escape this internal hellish state.

Music is a good tool for emotional training:

Because society strives to make people conform to rules and regulations in order to limit primitive behavior as much as possible, this has lead to the other extreme emotional repression.

Societal laws on how to become civilized and educated has consume so much of mans expressive outlet that in some ways he is more in touch with his head(intellect) than his heart(feelings).

A condition that creates a lot of people who are out of touch with what they really want in life.

A perfect recipe for a miserable or disconnected individual is one that is so emotional shackled that they continue to keep falling in life. This decline can go on forever leading to ever new more dangerous psychological problems.

The only way to put a stop to this tragic existence is to take courage and fight stress, anxiety, sadness, confusion and so on.

Proper practical tools for combating emotional maladies is the best way to go about solving this problem. Since music can be a great aid in first becoming aware of how you feel and eventually improving your overall mood.

Dopamine is mostly involve in the brain’s reward system and is mostly related to sex, tasty food, drugs, pleasing social gatherings, money, exciting sport activities, and daily workouts.

Scientist have also found that music affects more areas of the brain than any other activity.

Researchers have discovered that listening to music activates the brain’s neurotransmitter dopamine which stimulates the whole body with pleasure.

The more one enjoys the music they are hearing, the more intense the pleasure is in the body.

When you listen to music especially one that resonates with you, it becomes easier to become aware of your feelings.

Practicing tuning into how you feel on a daily basis by listening to the right type of music can help you become more aware of your inner state.

One has to patiently search for the right songs even if it takes awhile to find only a few songs that kindle one’s heart, otherwise it will be hard to pinpoint your exact emotional state.

This musical training in time will help you be more aware of how you feel and perhaps even give you greater control of your mood.

Social success is inevitable if you master your feelings:

As one becomes skilled at reading ones own thought feeling mindset, in time this can extend to reading other people’s moods.

It can be a great asset to have a high level of EI(emotional
intelligence) in a work place, because you can bring great harmony and
improve the work ethic of others.

Others will be affected by your masterly control over how you feel
and cheery disposition no matter how much or how difficult work is.

Not only will you boost others morale, but through perceptiveness from heighten emotional awareness you can help receptive coworkers to reach a higher level of connection with other employees.

If you have any questions or would like to give me some insight on this post please leave a comment below.