What? Do I have the right to be in a bad mood? I had never heard anything like it before, and this idea changed my life.
I was never allowed this as a child. Anger was not considered a normal reaction to any event, it was regarded as bad behavior. It was believed that I, a good girl, should always be happy. My anger was considered unacceptable. And so I was doomed to feel shame, guilt and anxiety.
I wonder if there would be a dragon inside me if I was allowed to experience and express anger and anger?
I had to go through a journey of spiritual growth to learn self-compassion due to the negative feelings I was experiencing. After all, in fact, both anger and bad mood are a completely natural part of our lives. They should not be condemned or regarded as destructive. We can control them, deal with them without harming anyone.
Over 20 years of working on myself and practicing with clients, I have developed the following techniques to help cope with a bad mood.
Smile
A 2011 study at the University of Michigan found that positive thoughts that make you smile make you feel happier.
The fake smile that some workers are required to keep on their faces, on the contrary, leads to emotional exhaustion. But another 2003 study from Clark University in Massachusetts found that smiling itself triggers positive memories.
So just smile and hold that expression for a while.
More sex
The report by Nick Dridakis, an employee of the Institute for Labor Research, presented interesting results of the experiment.
It turns out that people who have sex at least four times a week are happier and more confident, they reason better and suffer less from sad moods.
In addition, sex has a positive effect on health, relieves stress, strengthens the cardiovascular and immune systems. And the feeling of happiness and health are closely related.
Keep a Gratitude Journal
In fact, it could be a notebook, a note, or a regular document in which you write down what you are grateful for.
A study published in the Journal of Happiness proved that there is a direct link between gratitude and feelings of satisfaction and happiness.
Participants in this experiment wrote thank-you letters for three weeks, listing everything they were grateful for in life. Every week the letters became longer and people felt more satisfied with their lives.
Quick ways to cheer up4
The easiest way to quickly become cheerful and cheerful is to turn on your favorite music. You can make a playlist of energizing tracks in advance. You can combine the two methods and go for a run by inserting headphones with invigorating, energetic music into your ears.
If a difficult situation arises in life, you may need the support of loved ones. Calling a friend or relative is one option for quickly improving your mood. Social interactions make people happy, but loneliness depresses people.
Other quick options to improve your mood are to set simple goals and achieve them quickly, or watch a good movie or read an interesting book.
By ordering delicious food from a restaurant to your home, you can also quickly improve your well-being, and you don’t even need to strain for this. You can also search the Internet for funny pictures and videos, read jokes and find any other reason to laugh.
Walk wider
It turns out that when you walk, it’s not only where you walk that matters, but also how you do it. Sarah Sondgrass from Florida Atlantic University conducted a study on the type of gait and the sensations associated with it.
One group of people was given the task of walking with long strides, waving their arms and holding their heads high, the second was given the task of walking in small steps with their hands clasped and their eyes downcast.
Finally, participants were asked how they felt during the experiment. It turned out that people from the first group felt much more confident and happier.
When going out for a walk, even under the weight of your problems, do not forget how to walk.
Should I take vitamins?3
If depression drags on, the reason may be a simple lack of vitamins. Solving this situation is very simple - you just need to consult a doctor and purchase a suitable multi-complex.
This is especially important for residents of northern cities, those where the sun almost never appears. A bad mood can be caused by a lack of vitamins D, C, A and E. However, you should not prescribe them yourself; to make sure that the cause of your bad mood lies precisely in the lack of vitamins, you should get tested.
The best dietary supplement is blueberries; they are sold without a prescription.
How to improve the mood of a creative person7
It may seem trivial, but a person who loves to write books, compose music or paint pictures just needs to do what he loves. If you don’t want to go out and merge with the noisy crowd, you can completely enjoy being at home, dance, turn up the music at full volume (but not so loud that the neighbors start banging on the pipes), or give your friends nice hand-made gifts .
But when doing creativity, it is important not to forget to straighten your back. Walking with a straight back is necessary not only from a visual point of view, but also for comfort, as well as to avoid curvature of the spine, which can also partly have a negative effect on mood.
Interesting facts about human mood8
The time of year and weather have a significant impact on a person’s sense of self. When there is no sun for weeks, the content of vitamin D and some hormones in the body drops, which means there is no good mood. Waking up on a cold day in a warm apartment, you want to stay under the covers and do nothing, but when the sun is shining brightly, a person is eager to go outside, wants to walk, breathe fresh air, and do some kind of action.
The amount of sleep, the level of stress, and life circumstances also have a significant influence, however, experts have found that in general our mood depends on the amount of certain hormones in the blood - endorphins, dopamine and serotonin.
Endorphins regulate a huge number of processes occurring in the human body. First of all, they affect metabolism, the immune system, and help strengthen and preserve memory. However, among other things, endorphins cause a feeling of joy. This same hormone is the “culprit” of the feeling of falling in love with another person. people who have normal levels of endorphin experience joy every day, their lives are filled with bright colors.
Another hormone is serotonin. Interestingly, people who are divided into pessimists and optimists can actually all quickly switch roles if the amount of serotonin in the body changes. Pessimists often complain of poor sleep and decreased sexual activity, however, as soon as the hormone level rises, the situation quickly returns to normal.
To quickly increase serotonin levels, you should improve your diet and introduce chocolate, bananas, and dates into your diet. It’s also worth taking care of lighting, using more lamps at home, or going outside more often into the sun’s rays.
The third important hormone is dopamine. When there is a lack of it, a person plunges into a stressful state. The decrease occurs when doing unloved work, as well as with a small amount of sex and chocolate.
Simple joys to improve your mood6
Each person decides for himself - to be sad, or to cheer up by any means. Fortunately, there are many different options for quickly improving your condition without spending any money or a lot of energy.
The simplest options: watch an interesting and funny video, read your favorite book, cook a tasty and favorite dish, or treat yourself to some little thing for 100 - 200 rubles.
If you manage to stay at home alone, you can sing a fiery song or dance. Both men and girls can watch a good movie, play with a cat or dog, brew aromatic tea and wear a nice suit to work.
Intimacy between partners, if they love each other, also improves mood and self-awareness.
Emotional states in psychology9
Psychologists have found that the various experiences that fill a person’s soul are a representation of his emotional sphere. No one begins to hate or love just like that, all feelings are directed towards one specific object. Hormones and certain factors can influence a person’s condition, but mood changes constantly. It is important to understand that long-term, stable states are feelings. Short-term changes are understood as affects.
Both states color a person’s life in certain shades and influence all areas.
By some signs, one can distinguish a person’s mood from other, stronger and deeper emotional states: personal characteristics of the state, which depend not on external factors, but directly on the person and his attitude to the situation.
The mood may have no connection with any specific situation. However, it manifests itself so strongly that it affects almost all areas of life, and can greatly ruin the situation in the public and social sphere.
Mood is a whole fusion of different experiences and states. Even at one point in time, a person can combine emotions such as joy, sadness and irritation, and sometimes even hatred.
Find something to laugh about
Laughter has positive effects in the short and long term.
When you laugh, the consumption of oxygen-saturated air increases, the work of the heart, lungs, and muscles is stimulated, and the amount of endorphins increases. Laughter helps fight stress and provides a calm, relaxed state.
In the long term, laughter improves the immune system and reduces pain, helps cope with difficult situations and improves mood, eliminating apathy.
Enjoy a cup of tea
Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, author of Hardwiring Happiness, argues that noticing and focusing on pleasant little things is a way to “train” the brain to feel happiness.
10 seconds of a beautiful view outside the window, 20 seconds of pleasure from tea and chocolate, and you have already tuned your brain to good stimuli.
In general, we are accustomed to reacting much more strongly to negative stimuli than to positive ones. This is explained by the desire to ensure security. However, now such attitudes “from the Stone Age” do not so much help you survive as they prevent you from feeling happy.
And you can completely change the habit of concentrating on bad events by “reconfiguring” your brain to other stimuli - positive ones. To do this, you need to pay attention to positive events, happiness and pleasure.
How famous people dealt with depression5
The biography The Melancholy of Lincoln describes the president's two greatest depressions, the first at age 26 and the second at age 31. During one of these depressions, Lincoln expressed various suicidal thoughts, and this frightened his close friends so much that they even posted caretakers at the doors.
Some acquaintances noted that when Lincoln passed by, melancholy and despondency literally oozed from him. To cope with this condition, the president read funny texts.
Great depression also overtook the famous artist Georgia O Keefe. When the woman turned 46 years old, she was even taken to a New York hospital with symptoms of anxiety and depression. During this breakdown, the artist did not sleep or eat. Despite the fact that treatment in the hospital did not help Georgia, she found her own way to cope with depression and began to travel.
American psychologist William James, despite his impeccable consultations, himself suffered from depression, and even thought about suicide. Only the philosophy of pragmatism saved the psychologist.
Plan your vacation
One study by Dutch scientists conducted in 2010 showed that when going on vacation, even two months in advance, people feel happier.
If you don’t have a vacation, think about the New Year holidays and subsequent holidays - it’s also nice.
More than 1,500 Dutch adults participated in the experiment, which lasted 4 months, about 1,000 of whom were going on vacation.
It turned out that two months before a planned vacation, a person’s mood improves. He begins to plan a vacation, which provides many pleasant thoughts, and looks forward to a great time. His mood increases as he approaches date X.
