Not a stretch to argue that if you consume unhealthy foods, your body is likely to be unhealthy too. You are what you consume after all. The same could be argued with your emotional consumption habits. You are emotionally what you emotionally consume. If you surround yourself with experiences or people that are draining emotionally, you are likely to be drained and compromise your emotional health. Again, not a stretch argument either. What is worth your attention is how and what you are emotionally consuming. In this digital age, coffee shop conversations, dinners, lunches, walks with friends, etc are being replaced emotionally with social media. Whether that is good or bad is for another time to debate but make no mistake, social media has become a large part of our emotional nutrition.
Just as you would vigorously avoid a person who is a perpetual liar or constantly negative, or experiences that are no fun and stressful, why would you not exercise the same rigor with your social media nutrition? If you are looking to be physically healthy by perhaps shedding a few pounds, you would clean up your diet by avoiding bad foods like sugary sodas and consuming more good foods like fruits and vegetables. The same approach should be taken with social media nutrition. With everyone having a mobile device and easy access to a ton of social media, the onus falls squarely on you to clean up your social media and consume what makes your healthy. I am not suggesting that you only consume social media that you like. That would be like eating only donuts because you like them. I propose eliminating social media feeds, either from people or other sources, that stress you or deplete you of positive emotions that can allow you to be emotionally healthy. Emotions are contagious. Reading or viewing one negative social media post can ruin an otherwise very productive and rewarding hour, day or week.
This week, take inventory of your social media nutrition. When do you consume it? What are you consuming? What are positive and negative sources? Leverage your positive sources of social nutrition at times when you need it to perform at a high level and conversely avoid the negative ones either entirely or for sure just before a time that you need to be at your best. Practice this at home and take it to work. You will find, just like a nutritional diet, that being emotionally healthy is a choice.
