How to deal with a bad mood in any situation

This has happened to each of us at least once: it would seem that everything is fine, life is going according to plan, but then the mood suddenly deteriorates. And it is completely unclear why this happens.

Several factors are responsible for a good mood: our thoughts, psychological state, life situation, environment and people nearby. A change in one or more of these components can lead to emotional swings.

Psychologists have analyzed seven common scenarios of bad mood and told how to deal with it.

A friend complains about life and you start to feel sad too

This is where emotional contagion comes into playC. Herrando, E. Constantinides. Emotional Contagion: A Brief Overview and Future Directions / Frontiers in Psychology is a simple, even primitive psychological phenomenon. University of Hawaii psychology professor Elaine Hatfield explains that during a conversation, people naturally repeat the facial expressions, posture, and rate of speech of the interlocutor.

The movements of the muscles involved in this process (for example, when you frown) activate neural connections, and they give rise to the same feelings in you that the interlocutor is talking about. This feature of the brain is designed to help us empathize with others, thereby strengthening social connections.

How to cheer yourself up

Take a break from the conversation, say go to the restroom. Remind yourself that the bad mood you are experiencing at this moment does not belong to you, but to your friend. And the best thing you can do is listen to your loved one, and not solve his problems.

Communication and sex

Communication is also an important point for treating a bad mood. Loneliness will never help get rid of it, but conversations and contacts will. But no communication can replace sex, which acts on a person, instantly correcting a depressed state. Besides everything, this is one of the most enjoyable ways to improve your mood. During sex, the body is fully activated, and you receive not only pleasure, but also benefits.

Loneliness is another reason why you are always in a bad mood. In order to fix this, go on a visit, or even better, to a party or club. You can have a party at home. Then you will be busy preparing and will completely forget about your bad mood.

You think about a difficult situation for a long time, but still cannot find a solution.

Thinking carefully about life's big questions seems, on the surface, to be a very sensible approach. But sometimes, from searching for a solution to a problem, this process turns into marking time.

Sonya Lyubomirsky

Candidate of Psychological Sciences, author of the book “Psychology of Happiness. New approach."

It's hard to stop yourself from endlessly repeating thoughts about life because you feel like you're learning deeply about yourself in the process. In fact, this is not true. You are just spinning the wheels on a kind of psychological bicycle, but you just can’t get anywhere. This worsens your already bad condition and reduces your motivation.

Two signs indicate that you are marking time and not looking for a way to solve the problem. These are unpleasant emotions, such as anxiety or anger, and the inability to switch to other ideas due to constantly returning to the same thought.

How to cheer yourself up

Take a break. Read a book, watch a movie with an exciting plot, listen to music, take a walk in the fresh air.

Take 15-20 minutes and write down your thoughts on paper or talk about the problem with a friend, and then come up with a solution plan. This will move you from thinking to action. “You may realize that your life situation is not nearly as hopeless as you thought,” emphasizes Sonja Lyubomirsky.

How to fight

First of all, you need to pay attention to nutrition and exclude from the diet at this time those foods that have a stimulating effect. For example, caffeine, black tea, chocolate and Coca-Cola. Try to consume as little salt as possible, as it retains water in the body. You will also have to exclude sweets - they increase the discomfort.

You should completely abstain from alcohol. But B vitamins, on the contrary, help alleviate the condition. They are found in fresh greens, bananas, nuts, liver, cereals and legumes. Relieves irritability, headache and swelling. Zucchini, spinach and nuts relieve tension, and clean water prevents swelling.

And the most important thing is rest. You need to be able to relax, and in this state it is better to postpone things for other days.

You are constantly stressed

Sometimes stress is a side emotion, a kind of reaction to other feelings. Imagine that the deadline for an important project at work was suddenly pushed back or that your loved one set you up. In both cases, you will experience stress, but it will only be a secondary emotion. In the first option, the main feeling will be irritation or despair, in the second - resentment.

Susan David

Doctor of Philosophy, author of the book “Emotional Flexibility. How to learn to enjoy change and enjoy work and life.”

Emotions are an important source of information about your life and what worries you. Correctly identifying emotions helps you understand what is really going on inside you and why you experience certain feelings.

How to cheer yourself up

Ask yourself what other emotion your psychological state is similar to. Identify the underlying feeling of stress and try to understand why you have that feeling.

People often experience strong emotions when someone insults their dignity. You may be stressed because you feel unappreciated at work or at home. When you find the root of the problem, you will also find the solution.

Susan David notes that even if nothing can be done about the situation, correctly identifying the primary feeling will help relieve stress.

The connection between hormones and mood swings

Mood swings are characterized by rapid and frequent changes in emotional state. For example, a positive, cheerful and joyful disposition turns into negative, apathy and even anger, or, conversely, from negative to positive, from tears to laughter. Such changes can occur in all people; it does not depend on gender or age.

Mood is a stable, stable state of people, which reflects the emotional perception of real events.

A positive mood is very important for the health of each of us, since frequent changes in emotional state destroy a person both mentally and physically.

Our emotions are very diverse, and they are significantly influenced by hormones:

serotonin, which is responsible for a positive, joyful, optimistic mood, is also called the pleasure hormone;
dopamine, also responsible for positive feelings such as pleasure, joy, pleasure, enthusiasm;
endorphin, another happy hormone, causes euphoria;
Phenylethylamine is responsible for the state of falling in love and romantic mood;
Testosterone is responsible for determination and confidence, the desire to win;
oxytocin, a very important hormone during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding,
thanks to him, a person feels tenderness, trust and affection;
Adrenaline, a hormone of a negative state, causes stress, rage, irritation, anger, fear, tension.

The production and presence of certain hormones in the body have a complex chain of reactions, as a result of which a person can make any decisions. Many hormones seriously affect brain function.

Therefore, any disruption in the hormone-brain circuit contributes to the fact that mood can change spontaneously and manifest itself in the form of uncontrollable and unmotivated behavior.

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If you have frequent mood swings, for example in teenagers, you should immediately contact a specialized specialist. If you delay and do not pay attention to this, this condition can subsequently develop into depression, bipolar disorder and even lead to suicide. The specialists you can contact are psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and neurologists.

You feel guilty that you could be happier

Meta-emotions, that is, feelings that arise due to other emotions, are a fairly common psychological phenomenon. If you were sad because you felt anxious, or embarrassed because you wanted to cry, you were experiencing meta-emotions.

Kristin Neff

Professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas, author of the book “Self-Compassion. About the power of compassion and self-kindness.”

People perceive emotions as part of their personality. The brain works this way for a number of reasons. As children, boys and girls are often taught that completely normal human emotions, such as anger, are bad. Because of this, the child begins to believe that when he is angry, he himself becomes “bad.” In fact, emotions come and go. And they have nothing to do with your personality and character.

How to cheer yourself up

In order to learn to understand your feelings, and not judge yourself for them, you need to seriously work on yourself.

Kristin Neff

Get rid of the illusion that you always have to control your feelings. Think about what you would say to your friend if he came to you with the same primary emotion. Most likely, you would respect his feelings, show that you care about his suffering, and reassure and support him.

Reminding yourself that it is completely natural to feel what you feel will help you stop worrying about feeling bad.

How to get rid of a bad mood

If you are very sad or sad, call a friend or just someone you know with whom you feel comfortable. Try to chat about something that you both are interested in, discuss something. Perhaps you can simply share that you are in a bad mood and need support. Usually, a not very close friend will be more likely to bring you out of this state, since you already communicate with close friends quite often and it may happen that you simply have nothing to talk about.

Force yourself to smile and look at yourself in the mirror. After reading this, probably the first thought that came to mind: here’s another stupid and impossible piece of advice from the “don’t be nervous” series. However, the key word here is “force”, in the sense: physically stretch your lips into a smile, and if you don’t want to, then make an effort. And look at yourself in the mirror.

Your crooked and forced smile can make you laugh. Walk around with this forced, artificial smile for a couple of minutes. There is such a thing as muscle memory: when your muscles are in a certain position, the connection between this position and your certain emotions or states is triggered in the subconscious. In other words, the muscles of the face that depict a smile will gradually put you in a state in which you usually smile. This way you will improve your mood through your body.

Stand in front of the mirror and look at the expression on your face. Determine what it is: sad, angry, irritated, dull, etc. Imagine yourself as an actor or actress on stage, a clown who needs to portray as expressively as possible the emotion that you are now experiencing. Take it to the point of absurdity: depict a face as sad as possible, or distorted with anger, bring it to a caricature. Very soon you will probably just feel funny. Try to create some kind of association associated with your emotion, for example: “I have a face like a beaten dog.” You will immediately want to change your facial expression to a more welcoming or cheerful one. And, accordingly, you can get rid of your bad mood.

Do some physical exercise: do something like physical exercise, or just walk in the air, or better yet, jog for at least a couple of minutes. If possible and health allows, let this physical activity be intense.

Ask yourself for forgiveness. If you somehow associate your bad mood with your mistake, character, behavior, then forgive yourself for them, say that you can fix it, rid yourself of guilt, and if you can’t do it right now, then make a plan, how you will do this: who you ask for forgiveness, who you confess something to, or change your behavior.

Pamper yourself, take care of yourself. Take a relaxing bath with aromatic foam, make a cosmetic mask, go to the hairdresser and change your hairstyle or hair color. Of course, these tips are more suitable for women, but a man can also pay attention to self-care: visit a bathhouse or massage room, go to the gym or just play football in the yard with the boys, go fishing. Going to the hairdresser and changing your image can also be a way to get rid of the blues.

Organize the space around you. If you are at work, clear out the accumulated pile of unnecessary papers, finally do that routine work that you have been putting off for a long time until “later”. By the way, the thought that this burden is hanging on you can also contribute to your spoiled mood. Do what you should have done a long time ago and get rid of the burden.

If you are at home, then think about what you can change in the stop, how to decorate your home or make it more comfortable. Buy indoor plants or make some decorative items yourself. Throw away what irritates you.

Allow yourself to cry. Even if you are a man, if you feel bad and sad, cry, throw out the negativity that has accumulated in your soul. You can create a certain environment for yourself if you find it difficult to cry: play sad music or watch a sad movie. Tears will relieve negative tension and free up your strength and energy, which you spend on not allowing yourself to cry, on holding on, “being a man,” etc., instead of directing them in a positive direction.

Take an old album with photographs of you in memorable places or in the company of people with whom you have good memories. Evoke in yourself the positive emotions that you felt when these photographs were taken. Try to find people with whom you communicated or were friends back then.

Do not use this remedy too often and neglect other ways to lift your spirits and improve your life. Otherwise, you risk being “stuck” in the past.

Try to start thinking positively. Read about positive thinking and try to direct your thoughts in a productive direction.

Become aware of your negative thoughts and emotions that have taken hold of you at the moment. Do not avoid them or suppress them, but on the contrary, strengthen them and determine: “I am now feeling sad, I am irritated, I am sad.”

Working with negative emotions, recognizing them and letting them go is effective using the Sedona method, and for some people Louise Hay helps. In any case, read and start applying any of the techniques that interest you to free yourself from negative emotions and thoughts.

Learn to relax physically and mentally. It is impossible to cheer yourself up if a mixture of thoughts about work, troubles, problems, etc. is constantly spinning in your head. Use meditation and relaxation and stretching exercises, such as yoga. They will help you let go of anxious and stressful thoughts, and you will simply begin to relax. A good rest is something that will always help lift your spirits.

You constantly replay the worst possible scenarios in your head.

When your brain imagines the worst thing that could happen, it tries to prepare you for it. However, this approach only increases anxiety, so changing your thinking is important and necessary.

Of course, you shouldn’t look at the world through rose-colored glasses and ignore problems. It is enough to objectively perceive what is happening and see the immediate future.

How to cheer yourself up

When bad thoughts take over, ask yourself two simple questions:

Is there evidence that this can actually happen?
How to look at the situation in a neutral or even advantageous light?

This approach is called cognitive restructuring / Understanding Cognitive Restructuring / Verywell Mind, and it can have a positive effect on mood.

Then try to look for a solution to the problem and look at it more broadly - this will help you return to an active position again.

Causes of bad mood

Common causes of bad mood:

Financial dissatisfaction or major losses. The need to do work that is not interesting. Failure of plans. Conflict situations. Strained family relationships. Anticipation of possible troubles. Bad feeling.

These are the main reasons, but there are a number of other reasons that remain unaddressed. But, nevertheless, they affect both well-being and the emotional background - the general mood. This is influenced by lifestyle, routine, diet, interests and hobbies, friends and loved ones and other aspects of life.

You feel sad from time to time

Changes in air temperature outside the window and early sunset in autumn and winter can negatively affect the psychological state and even change sleep patterns and eating habits. This happens because the body does not have time to adapt to new conditions. Scientists have found that sunlight also affects D. C. Fernandez, P. M. Fogerson, L. L. Ospri et al. Light Affects Mood and Learning through Distinct Retina‑Brain Pathways/Cell to areas of the human brain responsible for mood.

How to cheer yourself up

Try to walk outdoors more often on clear days. In winter, you can try using a special “joy lamp”, which replenishes the lack of sunlight for the body and helps Will a SAD Sun Lamp Actually Make You Happy? / Cleveland Clinic Coping with Seasonal Depression. The brightness of such lamps ranges from 2,500 to 10,000 lux, while a regular light bulb is up to 500 lux.

Depression

A bad mood not only creates discomfort, it is dangerous, as it can lead to long-term depression. And it, in turn, negatively affects not only human life, but also relationships with colleagues and loved ones. In addition, the negativity also extends to a person’s performance.

But depression and bad mood are different concepts. Depression has three components: fatigue, autonomic disorders and mood disorder, which is precisely caused by bad mood, the duration of which is more than two weeks. In a depressed state, a person often cannot notice his mood, since this period is accompanied by melancholy, despair, anxiety, and indifference.

You get angry and irritated for no apparent reason

You are probably familiar with this situation: the day is going great, but suddenly some little thing turns your mood upside down. If this happens often in your life, you need to understand what is the real trigger for these changes.

Perhaps it is a matter of physical health. American scientists have identified S. Penckofer, L. Quinn, M. Byrn et al. Does Glycemic Variability Impact Mood and Quality of Life? / Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics the connection between the amount of sugar in the blood and the emotional state. The researchers noted that sharp fluctuations in glucose levels are often accompanied by low quality of life and poor mood.

Don't forget about your personal triggers: people, places or other factors.

Good and bad mood. Let's listen to ourselves

First of all, you need to look inside yourself and understand what can cause a threat to your mood. Listen to your feelings and sensations, to your soul. Only the person himself will be able to understand what is wrong there and find discomfort or doubts within himself that can change his mood in the future. And in this case, you need to choose what you prefer - despondency or joy.

Sensitivity and observation are not innate qualities for everyone. Those who do not have them need to develop them with the help of special exercises and techniques. There are many personal trainings conducted by specialists in order to teach people to understand themselves and their feelings.

Situation No. 3. It couldn’t be more banal – a quarrel with neighbors!

They ruined my mood... neighbours! If you decide that it is worth sorting things out with your neighbors in a raised voice, you have doomed yourself to an epidemic of bad mood on a separate site, because now compassionate neighbors will take care of it! My friends, you should live peacefully, quietly with your neighbors and sort things out delicately and amicably. This is where the proverb comes in handy: “A bad peace is better than a good quarrel.” Believe me, it’s better not to pay attention to something than to focus on the little things. Of course, I don’t take it to extremes. In all other cases, take care of your mood, it will be useful to you for other needs and do not quarrel with your neighbors, unless, of course, you are a masochist.

Situation No. 4. At the ATM... This is, in some way, extreme!

They ruined my mood... at the ATM?! When you urgently need it, and someone’s card is jammed by the machine. In general, these iron monsters are on their minds, you will agree. You never know for sure what might happen to him. And when you’re standing there trying to withdraw the coveted amount, and someone is breathing, excuse me, down your neck. Of course, it's a little stressful. But it’s quite bearable, because this is the spirit of the times and nothing can be done about it. It’s not the machine’s fault, it’s people who are imperfect, those others who first created and did not foresee much, although this reassurance is from the weak category. In short, when preparing for your next encounter with an ATM, be patient right away. It's like taking air into your lungs when diving.

How to help a loved one or yourself?

You can only help a loved one on your own at first.

If you see that a friend cannot cope with depression and get out of a stressful situation, try to restore his interest in life in simple but effective ways.

Walks

Go out for a walk: just walk through parks, along city streets, explore the surrounding area. During physical activity, serotonin (the hormone of happiness) is released. The person feels better.

Hobby

A person needs to feel an interest in life, and this will be caused by doing what he loves. It doesn’t matter what it will be: knitting, dancing, sports or baking pies. The main thing is that the classes bring pleasure and a visible end result.

If a person bakes pies, eat them and say that you have never eaten such delicious ones. Offer to take treats to a nursing home or orphanage: helping another disadvantaged person often brings a person out of a state of uselessness.

Proper nutrition and sleep patterns

Women especially often experience depression from simple fatigue. This can happen when a woman raises a child alone, does not feel supported, but gives her love and care to the children. Or, for example, he works seven days a week to support the whole family.

She doesn’t have enough time or energy for herself: she doesn’t get enough sleep and doesn’t eat enough, she simply doesn’t have time. In the end, the strength runs out, and the woman becomes despondent, depressed and, as a result, depressed.

In this case, you need to set aside time for food and sleep. If a child cries, this is not a reason to refuse food - he does not need a sick mother. Sleep when your baby sleeps. No need to rush to wash clothes or wash the floors. Relax!

Ask for help from friends, work colleagues, neighbors: even a 30-minute walk alone will give you back your life.

How to deal with apathy?

Auto-training, self-hypnosis

Remember to tell yourself that everything will get better, everything is fleeting and everything will change.

Accept what happened and find the positives in the current situation. If apathy arose after being fired, it means that a new interesting job awaits you, but in the meantime you have time to watch your favorite TV series or do simple home renovations.

Remember that if the condition that you call depression occurs frequently or does not go away for a long time, you need the help of a psychologist, and sometimes a psychiatrist. The specialist will select the necessary medications that will help the body cope with the disease.

You can watch the video :

Situation No. 2. Bad moods are found in beauty salons!

My mood was spoiled... in a beauty salon? This is where the bad mood was left more than once, and spread, and abandoned! You can inadvertently pick up someone else’s, in the sense of a bad mood. For example, your hairdresser is in a bad mood. Consider that you will have to split it or reschedule the visit. All sorts of exhortations such as calm down your mood or appeasement will not lead to anything good. Everything will still go wrong. One way or another, draw your own conclusions. I prefer to avoid people in a bad mood when it comes to my personal affairs. Everything will go wrong. And here’s another thing: a bad mood tends to be transmitted by airborne droplets, and we don’t need other people’s troubles.