It’s perfectly normal and understandable to feel down in the dumps from-time-to-time. Sure it would be nice to be deliriously happy all the time but sometimes life has other plans for us and we just have to cope as best we can.
Now although feeling down doesn’t necessarily warrant the term depression it can still make you feel pretty miserable and you’ll usually find it’s just as difficult to shake off. Luckily there are a few simple strategies that you can put to use that will help you lift your melancholy mood.
How to Lift Your Mood and Beat The Blues
Self-Assessment
Start by asking yourself why you feel the way you do. Was there a specific event or situation that triggered this mood? If you’re able to determine the reason you will be better equipped to take corrective measures and deal with it at its roots.
It may be a relationship, financial or stressful home or work environment causing you to feel this way. Whatever it is, try to determine this cause and then you can take a logical approach to amending or dealing with the situation. Knowing you’re trying to sort something out that’s dragging you down will naturally lift your mood even if you see no end solution.
Open Up About How You Feel
Bottling things up will only mean your negative feelings manifest! If you can identify a specific cause such as relationship problems then speak to your partner it’s not healthy to just let it fester in the mind and if left unchecked may manifest into a more severe form of depression.
Even if you are unable to determine a specific cause it doesn’t matter. Just open up to someone you know and trust. Getting things off your chest and getting a third-party perspective can work wonders for lifting your spirits.
Take Your Mind Off Things
What do you enjoy doing? When I get down or stressed I like to produce some music in my make-shift studio. It’s my little escape where nothing else matters (even if only for a few hours at a time).
Identify your activities that take your mind away from what’s troubling you. I don’t mean sitting around watching TV or hitting the pub with friends but activities that are productive that you can lose yourself in and ones that will bring a long-lasting natural smile to your face.
Reconnect With Faces From The Past
I am an active socialist online and there’s nothing I like more than connecting with people. The internet has brought the world to our fingertips and it’s now easy to reconnect with people you have maybe been close to but as you aged you become slightly distanced from each-other (commitments an all)!
But you’ll be surprised how reminiscing with old friends can naturally lift your spirits. Catching up on old times and revisiting those buried memories of times past can have a powerful effect on the mind. In fact new studies have shown that Nostalgia is an extremely effective means for naturally lifting a person’s mood.
Go For a Stroll
Walking is a great past-time and work wonders for clearing the mind of any mental baggage that may be burdening you. You may not necessarily feel like going for a walk as you tend to be unmotivated when you’re feeling the blues but push yourself to get on those walking shoes and take a gentle stroll, soaking up the scenery as you go.
Assess Your Lifestyle
Could your lifestyle be contributing to your negative emotions?
It’s important to maintain a healthy state of being in order to promote a healthy mind. This includes your diet and willingness to engage in physical activity.
If you’re sat around all day watching TV eating the wrong foodstuffs with little drive to do much else then of course over-time you’ll naturally become more depressed. Humans were meant to be active, we were hunter gatherers collecting foods from the land that were healthy and natural so ward off the blues by staying active and managing a proper diet.
Monitor Your Emotions and Thoughts
The best way to monitor the way you’re feeling is to keep a small journal and update it on a daily basis. You don’t need to write an essay each day but just make notes of; how you’re feeling, why or what led you to feel this way, how long do these feelings last and so on..
Not only can this help you monitor how your feeling day-by-day but it can also help you determine triggers that you might not otherwise have thought of. Remember a journal is personal so no matter how dark or stupid it seems only you need to know what’s really going on in your mind.
Wrapping It Up
These are just a few techniques that you could use to shake off the blues and lift your mood. Remember it’s impossible to remain completely free of negative emotions unless you’re a monk perhaps but you can take corrective measures and apply some simple coping strategies to get you back on track.
Ricky P O’ Shea
