Being grateful and giving compliments doesn’t help? Maybe these lesser-known strategies can lift your spirits.
As far as we know, life doesn’t seem to consist only of sunny, happy, good-humoured moments and days. Whichever path we choose, whether we start a family, have a love triangle, live alone, are self-employed or employed, have a lot or a little, we will go through happy and sad times on each of our paths. Phases in which everything feels easy and phases in which everything feels difficult. That’s not to say it doesn’t matter what choices we make and how we live our lives – there are certainly some paths we’d rather take some dark and arduous journeys over than others. However, if we believe and expect that we are always doing well and that we are always doing exactly the right thing, we are heading straight for disappointment, no matter which route we take.
Therefore, it can’t hurt if we know strategies that help us get through mood, emotional, motivational and other lows in life. Which might shorten it or make it easier and more bearable. In a blog entry for “Psychology Today,” psychologist Alice Boyce presents some previously lesser-known, unconventional methods for getting out of a bad mood hole.
For advanced users: Unconventional ways to lift your mood
Freeing yourself from a “must”.
Most of the things we think and feel we have to do have meaning and justification. Shopping, cleaning the toilet, answering emails – it is in our interest that we regularly and conscientiously do things that may not be fun, but keep our lives in order and in line. However, our everyday responsibilities can sometimes add up to just that little bit that makes us feel overwhelmed. Because everything becomes too much for us, our mental load becomes too heavy for us. Consciously crossing one or two things off our “I still have to do” list can provide relief and be liberating in such moments. Because despite all the justification and sense, many of the things we think and feel don’t always necessarily have to happen exactly when we want them to – especially not when that keeps us in a low mood.
Choosing a much easier path
Some things we deal with stress us out more than they should because we have adopted an approach that makes them unnecessarily difficult for us. For example, it may be that we place very high demands on ourselves and our work that we cannot meet on a long-term basis. Or we routinely consider other people’s needs while or before advocating for our own. However, instead of sticking to what seems obvious to us because we are used to it, for example expecting ourselves to enter into a social exchange with a top compromise, we can choose energy-saving approaches, such as communicating flatly and clearly what we actually want want. Or do our work without looking for and exploiting potential for improvement at every point.
Change the narrative
Especially when we have an idea of what is bringing us down, what is causing our low mood, it can help to try to interpret the situation differently. To tell us the story differently. Instead of “I couldn’t do it” or “I didn’t follow through,” we could try an approach like “I took on more than I could handle” or “I needed a break.” Instead of “I made her angry,” an equally accurate description is often “she’s angry and I get it.” Sometimes it’s our interpretations that put us in a bad mood, not the things that happen to us. And in these cases, playing around with our interpretations and looking for alternatives that make us feel better can greatly uplift and liberate us.
Do something unusual that was once fun
In some cases, variety can help us get out of a low mood – and instead of randomly trying something new, we can break our routine by doing what we already enjoyed. For example, going outside for a coffee without meeting anyone, or visiting a beautiful place we’ve already been, or re-cooking a recipe we last made for a special occasion. We don’t have to demand that we expand our horizons and step out of our comfort zone when we already feel weak and powerless. But if our usual comfort zone doesn’t feel comfortable for us in a certain phase, perhaps there is another one in which we were comfortable before.