Happy 'Emotional Intelligence / Emotional Wellness' Month!

I've recently discovered a list of all the daily, weekly, and monthly observances that are floating around out there. It's a pretty long--and sometimes obscure--list! For example, I wasn't surprised to see that October is 'Halloween Safety Month' as well as 'Domestic Violence Awareness Month' and 'Breast Cancer Awareness Month', but was a bit surprised to see that it's also 'National Sarcastic Awareness Month', 'National Roller Skating Month' and 'National Caramel Month'! (Even more surprising: the 9th is 'International Top Spinning Day'--looks like my international friends and I have been completely missing the boat on this one!--and the 13th is 'National Kick Butt Day', though I'm not sure how to celebrate it appropriately.)

Inspired by all the new celebrations to be had and awareness to be raised, I'm going to call more of them to your attention, and leave you with resources to make the type of positive changes in your life that these observances are aimed to promote, through the lens of stress management.

October is both 'Emotional Intelligence Month' and 'Emotional Wellness Month'. While the two topics are different, they can both be addressed here for the sake of brevity (we need to leave time to learn about Top Spinning and Kicking Butt, right?). 'Emotional intelligence' refers to the ability to identify and cope with emotions on oneself and others. 'Emotional wellness' refers to happiness and resilience as well as the absence of distressing emotional issues and the presence of healthy coping techniques--a main facet of stress management. Many of us have a predisposition toward stress or a sensitivity to particular stressors due to factors we were born with, hurts that we suffered earlier in life, or a lack of coping resources. This leaves people more vulnerable to stress, often to broad categories of stress like social stress or financial stress. The following resources can help you to better understand yourself and your emotional makeup, learn how you may be unknowingly contributing to your own stress levels, and change these patterns. (This is a pretty heavy topic, so you may want to bookmark this blog and cover these issues one by one. I'll be bringing more resources on emotional stress later in the month.)

Emotional Intelligence and Wellness Resources from Elizabeth Scott

• Emotional Resilience

• Type A Personality

• Understanding Anger

• Cognitive Restructuring

• Optimism and Pessimism

• Maintaining a Sense of Humor

• Unhealthy Coping

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