Your emotional well-being is critical for maintaining your health. You can learn skills and take some steps toward a more emotionally healthy life whether you are already pretty balanced and happy or seek to become more so. By incorporating simple things into a monthly health maintenance plan, you can change your outlook and emotional state. Here are some possibilities:

• Keep a gratitude journal. It's easy to lose sight of the many positives in your life, and jotting them down once a day keeps things in perspective.

• Do one spontaneous kind act each day. A secret gift left on the desk of a coworker; take an aging neighbor out for lunch; keep dollars in your pocket for homeless people. Once you are looking for a daily “kindness quota,” opportunities will abound.

• Read a book about learned optimism or positive psychology and try it out. Changing the way you think can change your physiology — for the better!

• Get counseling. If you are persistently feeling negative or as though you are not emotionally okay, this will take a toll on your health. Find a counselor through your work, your health provider, or trusted friends, and make an appointment.

• Choose one person that you'd like to forgive — make it something easy — and spend the month reminding yourself that you are letting it go. Then let it go. Hanging on to grudges and slights is stressful and takes away from your quality of life.

• Say “thank you” at least ten times a day for a month. Keep track.

• Take a meditation class. Practice at least three times a week for a month. Notice how you feel.

• Have sex with someone you love. (Even if that is yourself!) Orgasm releases oxytocin,a peptide hormone secreted by your hypothalamus that gives you a feeling of well-being, and is known as “the bonding hormone” because it has the effect of emotional bonding.

• Get a massage. Massage can release toxins you may be holding in your muscles, and can help you relax.

Any of these activities can create a healthy emotional state. Practicing them over a month's time can turn them into lifetime habits that improve your overall emotional well-being.