Glencoe Health

Expressing
Emotions in
Healthful Ways
Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Health eSpotlight Video

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

BIG Managing your emotions allows you to

IDEA
express them in healthful ways.

New Vocabulary
emotions empathy

hormones defense mechanisms

hostility

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Understanding Your Emotions

Main Idea

Recognizing and acknowledging your emotions is a

sign of good mental and emotional health.

How you respond to your emotions can affect your mental/emotional,

physical, and social health.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Understanding Your Emotions

Learning to recognize your emotions and to understand
their effects on you will help you learn to manage them in
healthful ways.

New Vocabulary

Emotions
Signals that tell your mind and body how to react.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Understanding Your Emotions

Changes during puberty are caused by hormones.

New Vocabulary

hormones
Chemicals produced by your glands
that regulate the activities of different body cells.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Understanding Your Emotions

Happiness Sadness

Common
Anger Love
Emotions

Guilt Fear

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Understanding Your Emotions

Hostility is a form of anger that can hurt others, as well as
the hostile person.

New Vocabulary

hostility
The intentional use of unfriendly or offensive
behavior.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Managing Your Emotions

Main Idea

Know how to recognize your emotions can help you

manage them in healthful ways.

Learning to express emotions in a healthful way will not only help

you cope with emotional upsets, but also helps those around you to
better handle their emotions.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Dealing with Emotions in Positive Ways

Emotions are neither good nor bad.

The way you express your emotions, however, can

produce good or bad results.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Dealing with Emotions in Positive Ways

Feeling bad, or emotional, when things happen in your
life is normal.

These feelings can be managed.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Dealing with Emotions in Positive Ways

One example of expressing empathy is supporting a
friend who is going through a difficult time.

New Vocabulary

Empathy
The ability to imagine and understand how
someone else feels.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Dealing with Emotions in Positive Ways

To help you recognize your emotions and express them in
positive ways, ask yourself these questions:
• Why do I feel the way I do about this event?
• Will this event matter later on in my life?
• Why should I wait before responding?
• What can I do to feel better?
• Who can I ask to help me deal with my negative feelings?

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Responding to Difficult Emotions

Reducing the Intensity of Emotions

Take several deep breaths.

Relax your muscles.

Get away from the situation until you calm down.

Analyze your emotions by writing about them in a private
journal.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Responding to Difficult Emotions

Sometimes you may use defense mechanisms
unconsciously as a way to protect yourself from intense
emotional pain.

New Vocabulary

defense mechanisms
Mental processes that protect individuals from
strong or stressful emotions and situations.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Responding to Difficult Emotions

Common Defense Mechanisms

Repression Involuntarily pushing unpleasant feelings out of one’s mind.

Regression Returning to behaviors characteristic of a younger age,

rather than dealing with problems in a mature manner.

Unconscious lack of recognition of something that is obvious

Denial to others.

Attributing your own feelings or faults to another person or

Projection group.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Responding to Difficult Emotions

Common Defense Mechanisms

Consciously and intentionally pushing unpleasant

Suppression feelings out of one’s mind.

Making excuses to explain a situation or behavior,

Rationalization rather than taking responsibility for it.

Making up for weaknesses and mistakes through gift

Compensation giving, hard work, or extreme efforts.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Handling Fear
You can overcome some fears by recognizing that you are
afraid and figuring out what is causing this fear.

If you are unable to control your fears, consider seeking

the help of a doctor or a mental health professional.
Some fears may be caused by phobias.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Dealing with Guilt

Guilt is a very destructive emotion that can harm your
self-esteem.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Dealing with Guilt

If you feel guilty about something:
• Look at the circumstances realistically and honestly.
• Admit it if you made a mistake. This can help you manage
feelings of guilt.
• Determine whether the situation was in your control. Sometimes
you may feel guilty about things that are out of your control.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Managing Anger
Anger is one of the most difficult emotions to manage.

As with guilt, it is best to figure out what is causing your

anger, and then deal with it in a healthy way.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Managing Anger
When you first feel anger building, try to calm down.

If this does not work, physically leave the situation that is

causing the anger.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

Managing Anger

Strategies for Managing Anger

Do something Listen to soothing music, read a book, or imagine sitting

to relax on a beach or walking through the woods.

Channel your energy in Use the energy from anger to do something positive. Talk
a a walk, play a musical instrument, or write down your
different direction feelings in a private journal.

Share your thoughts and feelings with a trusted friend or

Talk with family member. The listener may be able to suggest ways
someone you trust to deal with the situation.

Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home

Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

After You Read

Reviewing Facts and Vocabulary

1. What are emotions? How can

emotions affect your behavior?

Emotions are signals that tell your mind and body how to
react.
Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home
Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

After You Read

Reviewing Facts and Vocabulary

2. What are five common defense

mechanisms?

Any five: Repression, suppression, rationalization,

regression, denial, compensation, projection.
Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home
Expressing Emotions in Healthful Ways

After You Read

Reviewing Facts and Vocabulary

3. List three strategies for handling anger in a

healthful way.

Do something to relax, channel your energy in a different

direction, talk to someone you trust.
Glencoe Health Achieving Mental and Emotional Health Lesson Home
Glencoe Health

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Emotional Health

Expressing Emotions
in Healthful Ways

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