Emotions are physical events that take place in our bodies and minds. Our brain and our body are constantly communicating with each other to produce the sensations we interpret as emotions.

Emotions are constantly in motion. They do not stop moving, even at night, when they are instrumental in creating dreams.

Emotions are rational. They follow patterns, which although complex are based on explainable events.

There are four emotions which in the EmotFit programme are nominated as primary ones: sadness, happiness, anger and love. A dissertation on how this conclusion was reached can be found here

Each of these is associated with a distinct physical event or sensation. They are like the primary colours. From them all other emotions are generated in all the hues and shades of complexity. These four emotions can be called coherent ones. Other emotions are less coherent. The four coherent emotions are the ones that keep psychologists, psychiatrists, police and justice departments the busiest. Sadness is associated with depression and suicide. Happiness is associated with substance abuse. Anger is associated with violence, murder, vandalism. Love is associated with sex, relationships, and unwanted pregnancies.

The label ‘emotional fitness’ is quite self-explanatory. An emotionally fit person is better able to deal with the events that life throws up.

Emotional fitness is dependent on the situation. We may live quite happily through our lives when all of a sudden we are thrown into quite a different situation and one which we are not prepared to cope with; which we are not emotionally fit for.

Comparison with physical fitness. It is useful to consider the similarities between emotional and physical fitness. Although they are quite independent there are many aspects of emotional fitness that run parallel to physical fitness. A physically fit person is not necessarily going to be emotionally fit as well. The similarities are as follows
As with physical fitness we develop emotional fitness in a certain pattern according to our upbringing and lifestyle. This we might call our emotional structure
As with physical fitness we are fit at the emotions that we regularly exercise
As with physical fitness if we fail to exercise emotions we will lose fitness
As with physical fitness we can learn emotional fitness in areas that we are not currently fit in. We do not need to take for granted that our current emotional structure is unchangeable. It is.

As with physical fitness emotional fitness is associated with the strength and flexibility of certain muscles in the body, specifically the facial muscles.

How do we exercise the emotions?. It is not as simple to exercise your emotions as it is to go for a run or do an aerobics workout. We exercise emotions by allowing ourselves to feel them; letting their impact undergo change in our system and then responding in some way. There are no rules for how we do it, and everybody exercises their emotions differently. Some people carry their feelings on their sleeve and respond straight away, other people tend to store emotions and respond later.

Emotional Unfitness may happen suddenly or it may happen slowly. As with physical fitness it is dependent on the situation. A person who has trained for a 100 metre sprint may well suffer exhaustion trying to run a marathon. Similarly a marathon runner may pull several tendons when trying to do a 100 metre sprint. We are fit for the situations that we are experienced with. As we develop and go through our lives we learn to exercise our emotions in an increasingly large number of situations. Occasionally we will encounter a situation which we are not fit for and it will cause us stress. If we are not able to respond to this stress then we risk emotional injury. It is true that we need to limit our experience and thus the number and duration of emotions that we feel, however if we limit ourselves too much we risk becoming emotionally unbalanced. This coincides with rhythms/emotions not balancing up with each other. People who suffer depression experience a disproportionate amount of negative emotion. People who suffer mania experience too much positive emotion. If you cause imbalance in too many rhythms in your life what will happen? What happens if you sleep only four nights a week? If you get high on drugs five days a week? If you take four months’ off work? If you take more than you give in your relationships. All of these may well represent a certain level of emotional unfitness that could lead to stress. It should be clear that a certain amount of balance in your rhythms/emotions is necessary to keep you emotionally fit, and stress free.

We may give in to stress or we may fight it. If we give in we have to find a way out of our situation or succumb to breakdown and psychological illness, If we choose to fight it we have to process through our emotions until we can cope. Processing emotions is similar to exercising emotions, but it applies to responses that cannot be made immediately and in which the emotional energy is stored in the body. It may be stored there for any length of time whether it be hours, days, months or years. Processing is an indirect means of exercising emotions. Processing emotions is the equivalent to the emotional body to what fitness training is to the physical body. In order to do it effectively requires dedication, time and energy. Some examples of methods for processing emotions include: counselling, meditation, discussion, quiet walk, run, friends, hot bath.

When stored emotion is processed it can be channeled into constructive pursuits that benefit you as a person and not only make life better but prevent a repeat of the situation that led to emotional unfitness.