Dealing with emotions is very importance to your health. It's all very well to say that we must deal with these feelings, but how do we go about doing so, and what exactly is "dealing with our emotions"?

Dealing with our feelings is facing, accepting and working through them. We will always have emotions, so we have to learn to deal with them. If repressed, they will find a way to come out as in depression, anxieties, panic, eating disorders to name but a few.

A lot of the time, people do not want to feel what they are feeling. They may be ashamed or guilty of these feelings, or they just do not like a certain emotion. For example, you start to like your best friend's girl/boyfriend. You don't know how it happened, but you're now stuck in a predicament where you are totally infatuated with your best friend's girl/boyfriend. Automatically, you may try to suppress these feelings. If you ignore them, maybe they'll go away, right? WRONG! The chances are small that your feelings will just leave you; you'll most probably be feeling terrible about yourself, plus, a build up of pent up emotions leads to stress!

Confront those emotions that you're trying to ignore. Here's what you might do: keep a diary in which you write down your feelings. This diary is a way for you to think about the stuff that you're made of! By writing down and analyzing your feelings, you become aware of the real reason why you're feeling the way you are, and the emotion becomes less painful. Some questions you could ask yourself when you're writing in your diary are:

• What am I feeling?
• When did it start?
• What does it make me want to do?
• What were the triggers for this emotion?
• What pictures come to mind as I feel it?
• When else have I felt it? Is it familiar or something new?
• What would I like to say to the person/event/myself? Say it out loud - talk to your dog.

Or you can talk to someone. Many people go to other people to help them deal with their emotions; these 'other people' could be your school's guidance counsellor, favorite teacher, family relative, psychologist or psychotherapist.