Emotions are a part of life, and while it’s normal to feel down sometimes, it’s never pleasant and is probably not how you want to feel most of the day.
While you can’t just tell yourself to feel better, you can change the thoughts and behaviors that help influence your mood.
The first step to reversing a bad mood is to identify your mood.
This sounds simple, but actually requires a serious understanding of our current state. In daily life, it’s common to ignore emotions, making improving them nearly impossible. How can you feel better if you don’t know how you feel?
To determine your mood, taking a sensory temperature check using what’s called a sensory thermometer. The feeling thermometer has four zones – green (which represents a comfortable feeling or a good mood), yellow (the next level on the thermometer, which means you might be feeling a little tired), orange (which is another zone for stress or depression), and red (Very uncomfortable – like feeling sad, angry or other negative emotions). This simple resource identifies your emotions and is a great tool for gauging how you’re feeling.
Once you’re aware of how you’re feeling, you can figure out what to do and take steps to control your emotions before you reach the red zone, which is an emotional state that’s difficult to break out of and come out of.
But if you’re in the yellow or orange zone, there are a few strategies you can easily adopt to turn your mood around.Here are some ways to do this.
Try breathing exercises.
One thing we can take advantage of is using our breath to get out of a bad mood.
Try one of these two breathing exercises the next time you feel down. One option is a “physiological sigh,” which involves two quick inhales and one long exhale.
It works by clearing carbon dioxide from our bodies, making us feel more relaxed. This double inhalation increases the lungs’ ability to fill with air and reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the body. Increased carbon dioxide levels activate our body’s stress response, so being able to get rid of carbon dioxide can also reduce our stress.
Breathing affects the body’s vagus nerve, taking us out of our fight, flight, or freeze mentality. So, taking a long exhale can help you relax.
You can also try the 6-7-8 breathing exercise, which involves breathing in through your nose for six seconds, holding your breath for seven seconds, and exhaling for eight seconds.
Pranayama allows the body to control the mind rather than the mind controlling the mind. This takes our attention away from things that may be bothering us.
Turn to fitness.
You’ve probably heard many times that exercise is good for your mental health, and it can also help you get rid of a bad mood.
By moving your body for 15 to 20 minutes, you’ll produce endorphins and adrenaline, which can help us shift our perspective quickly.
When you’re not feeling your best, engage in your favorite fitness activity like running, yoga, tennis, or indoor cycling. If you’re in a bad mood, you don’t want to put more pressure on yourself by doing a workout you don’t enjoy.
Focus on others instead of yourself.
Taking the focus away from yourself is a great way to lift your spirits. Helping others or building relationships with others will only make you feel better (and help eliminate bad feelings).
The simplest thing is to decide to do random acts of kindness during the day or ask a coworker if they need some help.
So if you find yourself in a bad mood, try reaching out to a friend who is going through a hard time or donating items to an organization that needs support.
Taking the focus away from yourself is one of the most effective ways to combat a bad mood.
Spend time outside.
Study after study has found that nature is good for your mental health — spending time outdoors lowers stress levels, reduces anxiety, and generally puts a smile on your face.
Nature can be great medicine if we use it this way, getting out there and changing your perspective can sometimes change your mood very quickly.
Incorporating music into your outdoor time can be even more beneficial and interrupt the cognitive loop that quickly sets in once we’re in a “bad mood.”
Practice gratitude.
The most powerful and helpful of all positive emotions is gratitude—gratitude simply makes us happier, while happiness and a bad mood are certainly incompatible behaviors.
To activate gratitude in your heart, think of two or three things in your life that you are grateful for. These don’t have to be big things, they can be simple things like the smell of new candles or the weather.
Stay in the moment.
Often when we are in a bad mood we think about what happened in the past or worry about what will happen in the future.
Experts believe that about 90% of the things we worry about never happen.Therefore, most worries that affect your mood are usually meaningless.
There are things we can do very intentionally behaviorally to bring ourselves back to the present moment, whether it’s taking a deep breath or just tuning in to our senses to really distance ourselves from what we’re worried about.
In other words, it’s a good idea to practice mindfulness during these moments, which might mean doing the breathing exercises mentioned above or trying meditation.
Another way to get rid of worries about the past or future is to argue with yourself. So, let’s say you’re nervous about an upcoming conversation with your boss.Instead of giving in to these thoughts, ask yourself why you feel that way. Most importantly, remind yourself of the good meeting you had with your boss earlier. This may help you calm down.
If you’re upset, grab an ice pack.
You can trick yourself into staying calm by doing things that affect your body chemistry.
One thing that’s actually very effective, especially when you’re really angry, is cooling your body down, so grab an ice pack and put it on your forehead.
The physical cooling effect creates a feeling of relaxation.
Focus on your muscles.
You can also try progressive muscle relaxation to help improve your mood.
To do this, you practice tensing and then relaxing certain parts of your body—so you could clench your fists and then relax them, or shrug your shoulders and then let them go.T
his in turn puts your body into relaxation mode.
And don’t discount your unpleasant emotions — they’re normal.
While getting rid of bad emotions may indeed be helpful in the short term, learning to accept our emotions, whether positive or negative, may be a better strategy in the long term.P
ositive psychology is the study of happiness, and while joy is part of happiness, happiness does not mean we are happy all the time.
A key aspect of happiness is the ability to accept the full range of human emotions—from excitement and joy to boredom and pain.
It’s also important to note how fleeting our emotions are, they come and go, and know that this is a big step in dealing with bad moods and negative emotions.
This means that even if you do feel uneasy, you won’t feel that way forever.
What’s more, we’re genetically predisposed to negativity, dating back to our caveman ancestors who used negativity to hide from real threats.
To some extent, this still keeps us safe today, but sometimes, we can be overwhelmed by this negative bias. Finding a level of emotional harmony is important, and this is where positive psychology and interventions created through research can really help.
In the spirit of listening to your emotions, emotions don’t have to hijack your day if you practice how to regulate them in an emotionally healthy way.
This might mean following some of the practices above, like breathing exercises, fitness, and general mindfulness, to make you better able to deal with all the emotions that come up—both unpleasant and unpleasant.
While it’s normal to be in a bad mood occasionally, you should be aware of certain warning signs.
For some people, simply getting rid of a bad mood isn’t realistic. Mood can also be affected by other psychological factors, such as a diagnosis of a mood disorder.
Let’s say you feel sad most of the time for at least two weeks. In this case, it’s worth talking to a therapist.
Alternatively, you should talk to someone if you feel hopeless or tired, or have lost interest in activities you once enjoyed. However, there may be more to it than just “being in a bad mood,” and just using the tips above won’t solve the problem.
If you need professional help, you can use Psychology Today’s online database to find a therapist near you.
