How To Kick That Bad Mood in the Butt
Hello! Hannah here. I'm almost halfway through my summer break (WHAT) and finding the motivation to write has been really hard. I've been busy with summer activities as well as a summer class and a math tutorial thing (which I passed, by the way). But, I came up with a whole list of posts to write this week and I'm quite excited about them. Today's, in particular, is going to be fun because it's something that I came up with myself: a method for kicking a bad mood.
Between bad sleep and general anxiety, I often find myself in a bad mood. A lot of times, that bad mood doesn't have a specific reason and therefore is difficult to fix. I've lost a lot of work time and reading time to my bad moods, and I wanted to find a way to kick that in the butt ASAP. So I experimented. I tried different ways of kicking my bad mood. Some didn't work at all, and some only worked for a little bit. Frustrated, I combined a bunch of these things and BOOM. My bad mood was kicked. It wasn't a particularly fast process, but it WORKS, and I'm here to share it with you to help you kick your bad mood, whether it has a reason or not.
Step 1: Recognize you're in a bad mood
The best way to keep a bad mood around is pretending like you're not in one. This will not solve a thing. It's in your best interest to recognize that you're upset for one reason or another instead of pretending like everything's cherries on top (yeah, I just used a Panic! lyric in my blog post). So first stop: think to yourself, "Okay, I'm in a bad mood. Why?"
Step 2: Write it out
For me, this is the most helpful part of this process. Writing out my feelings is an essential part of keeping my emotions and thoughts in order. It takes everything out of my brain and onto paper, where it takes concrete form and allows me to look at it outside of my own head. This is crucial because our heads are so caught up in our own melodrama that it thinks every thought we have is rational, even if it's not. Our psyche is a dramatic place. and it's important that we take time to get our feelings out of our heads so we can see that the world isn't actually ending. The thing you were upset about doesn't seem so bad anymore.
Step 3: Be alone with your thoughts
Once you've written everything out, take a few minutes to go be alone and mull over what's going on in your head. Go on a walk and listen to music. Or don't listen to anything at all. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to scream, scream. I was doing my devotional yesterday and the author said something that caught my attention. She said, "The stress of hiding your emotion will only drive you deeper into the valley"(Anchored: Through Deep Waters, YouVersion). That, my friends, is one of the most important things you'll ever hear. Do not attempt to cover up your emotions. It will lead you deeper and deeper into that valley of negativity. Come to peace with your current emotions, and deal with them in a healthy way. Write, scream, cry, do whatever you can. Just don't hide it.
Step 4: Smile
You've probably heard this a dozen and one times, but when it comes to kicking a bad mood, smiling to yourself is more powerful than you might think. This small little action releases endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine. All of the things that are responsible for making your brain happy are released when you smile. So, do it. Go to your bathroom or to your vanity or whatever, sit down, and smile at yourself. You're going to feel stupid for a minute, but it will help. I promise. Soon, you might not be able to stop smiling.
Step 5: Continue with life
After you've gone through these four steps, go back to whatever you were doing before and see how different you feel. Do you feel lighter? Do you feel at peace? Is your brain a little quieter? Are you able to focus on the task at hand? Good. That's what happens to me too.
I hope this little method works out for you, and if it doesn't, or you have any other recommendations for ways to kick a bad mood, comment down below or shoot me an email.
Love,
Hannah
Between bad sleep and general anxiety, I often find myself in a bad mood. A lot of times, that bad mood doesn't have a specific reason and therefore is difficult to fix. I've lost a lot of work time and reading time to my bad moods, and I wanted to find a way to kick that in the butt ASAP. So I experimented. I tried different ways of kicking my bad mood. Some didn't work at all, and some only worked for a little bit. Frustrated, I combined a bunch of these things and BOOM. My bad mood was kicked. It wasn't a particularly fast process, but it WORKS, and I'm here to share it with you to help you kick your bad mood, whether it has a reason or not.
Step 1: Recognize you're in a bad mood
The best way to keep a bad mood around is pretending like you're not in one. This will not solve a thing. It's in your best interest to recognize that you're upset for one reason or another instead of pretending like everything's cherries on top (yeah, I just used a Panic! lyric in my blog post). So first stop: think to yourself, "Okay, I'm in a bad mood. Why?"
Step 2: Write it out
For me, this is the most helpful part of this process. Writing out my feelings is an essential part of keeping my emotions and thoughts in order. It takes everything out of my brain and onto paper, where it takes concrete form and allows me to look at it outside of my own head. This is crucial because our heads are so caught up in our own melodrama that it thinks every thought we have is rational, even if it's not. Our psyche is a dramatic place. and it's important that we take time to get our feelings out of our heads so we can see that the world isn't actually ending. The thing you were upset about doesn't seem so bad anymore.
Step 3: Be alone with your thoughts
Once you've written everything out, take a few minutes to go be alone and mull over what's going on in your head. Go on a walk and listen to music. Or don't listen to anything at all. If you need to cry, cry. If you need to scream, scream. I was doing my devotional yesterday and the author said something that caught my attention. She said, "The stress of hiding your emotion will only drive you deeper into the valley"(Anchored: Through Deep Waters, YouVersion). That, my friends, is one of the most important things you'll ever hear. Do not attempt to cover up your emotions. It will lead you deeper and deeper into that valley of negativity. Come to peace with your current emotions, and deal with them in a healthy way. Write, scream, cry, do whatever you can. Just don't hide it.
Step 4: Smile
You've probably heard this a dozen and one times, but when it comes to kicking a bad mood, smiling to yourself is more powerful than you might think. This small little action releases endorphins, serotonin, and dopamine. All of the things that are responsible for making your brain happy are released when you smile. So, do it. Go to your bathroom or to your vanity or whatever, sit down, and smile at yourself. You're going to feel stupid for a minute, but it will help. I promise. Soon, you might not be able to stop smiling.
Step 5: Continue with life
After you've gone through these four steps, go back to whatever you were doing before and see how different you feel. Do you feel lighter? Do you feel at peace? Is your brain a little quieter? Are you able to focus on the task at hand? Good. That's what happens to me too.
I hope this little method works out for you, and if it doesn't, or you have any other recommendations for ways to kick a bad mood, comment down below or shoot me an email.
Love,
Hannah
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