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CARING FOR OUR EMOTIONAL HYGIENE

Ugochukwu Ugwoke Written by Ugochukwu Ugwoke · 2 min read >

The human being is a composite of material and immaterial, corporeal and incorporeal. The body is the material and corporeal part of the human person while the soul is the immaterial and incorporeal part. The part of the human person which theology calls soul, psychology refers to as the mind. The human mind is an important part of a human person. It is the seat of thought, feelings, judgment, desire, affectivity, behavior and action. If the mind is affected for instance, the whole human person will be impaired. The mind is like the engine box. Just like an engine box, if anything happens to the mind, the whole person stops functioning properly.

Still, we hardly pay attention to it. We tend to care more about our body than our mind. We often hear about physical hygiene but hardly do we hear about emotional or psychological hygiene. People are more concerned about their physical health than their mental health. This paper invites us to take care of physical health as well as our mental health. We should not neglect our mental and psychological health. Just as the parts of the body sustain injury from time to time, so also does our mind sustain injury. The only difference is that while the injury on the body is physical, the one inflicted on the mind is mental. The fact that it is not physical makes it unable for us to ascertain the level of damage. As such, the mind must always be guided from injury.

There are several ways in which injury can be afflicted on the mind. One of the ways is through rejection. Rejection is the refusal to accept someone or the feeling of unwanted. The person that is rejected feels unwanted and unloved. Rejection causes an emotional trauma and if not handled properly, it leaves a lasting wound on the soul. Another one is loneliness. Loneliness is a feeling of social and emotional disconnection from those around us. This kind of feeling injures our mind and distorts our perception of reality. If left untreated, chronic loneliness can kill. Failure is another thing that can cause injury on the human mind. We must learn how to react and accept failure so that we do not see ourselves as a failure. The mind is so powerful that once it is convinced about something, then changing becomes difficult. One single experience of failure can affect our whole life.

Put differently, we suffer from these emotional injuries from time to time yet, we do not see the need to go for an emotional or psychological checkup in order to ascertain the level of damage that these experiences must have inflicted on our mind. Since the mind is the seat of judgment, feeling, desire, emotion, behavior and action, once the mind begins to malfunction, all the above aspects of life will also be affected. Our judgment and reasoning will be impaired and so with other functions which the mind performs. We must therefore learn to take care of our mental and psychological health.

Lastly, as we have the habit of going to see the doctor from time to time, we must also develop the attitude of visiting a psychologist or psychiatrist for a psychological or emotional examination. A sound mind they say is a sound health. If our mind is affected, the whole human system will also be affected because everything in us is connected to the mind.

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