9 Little Hacks to Quickly Lift You Out Of a Low Mood
by Alex Mathers
At any point in the day, our mood can be plotted on a sliding scale from a lower frequency to a higher frequency. If you’re in a ‘bad mood,’ you can say that your consciousness is low, and there can be many reasons for this.
If you find yourself low a lot of the time, you need to take a look at your foundational health habits like getting adequate sleep and eating a clean diet.
That’s not for this post, however. Sometimes all you need is a little jolt to get you moving again.
Here are some ideas:
List out exciting ideas
Write a list of all the cool things you’d love to do and create in the next few months and years. Many of us never give ourselves the opportunity to dream, visualize and have fun with what’s possible without self-censoring and being ‘realistic.’ Write down what you’d love to make happen if you had no fear and you knew you couldn’t fail. Get that stuff done and feel your enthusiasm for life expand.
Dance
Throw on some high-energy music and feel your way into feeling the rhythm and joy of dance. Dance like no one is watching because they better not be. You’re out here gyrating like it’s your last day on Earth, so close the curtains. A lot of your stresses are trapped in your hips and your butt. Dancing is a mood-lifting hack.
Chug some water
More often than not, you feel sluggish and tired because you’re dehydrated, especially from all that coffee you’re inhaling. Drink some fresh, non-polluted water, and feel your energy return.
Do some squats
Don’t skip over this one. Get off your bum, shimmy to a good spot, and get dipping. Clasp your hands in a fist in front of you, and do at least ten. The blood will pump around your body, including into your brain, which oxygenates and makes you feel better and literally increases your IQ. Many of us avoid short bursts of exercise because it seems pointless. It isn’t. It makes all the difference and takes two minutes.
Three long breaths
It doesn’t take much for the power of conscious, slow nasal breathing to be felt. Often we’re uptight, nervous or scared because we’ve been breath-holding and cutting off that vital flow of oxygen. Breathing itself is literally a built-in calming mechanism, so use it. Enjoy the relaxation felt on each out-breath. When you’re physically-relaxed, your thoughts will relax, and your mood will lift.
Sing and shout
A weird shift takes place physically when you project your voice and enjoy yourself doing it. You don’t have time to whine or ruminate when you’re singing and screaming with abandon. Be weird. Get on your favorite tune and sing even if you don’t feel like it. Your mood can’t help but raise itself to your actions. Try it.
Meditate for one minute
The curious thing about moods is how closely related they are to the thoughts we are entertaining. If we’re in a loop of buying into negative and frustrating thoughts, that is how we’ll feel. Our feelings reflect our thoughts directly. So if you keep thinking about how annoyed you are that the Falcons lost last Tuesday, of course you’re in a bad mood, silly. Meditation, whether in the seated position or even while walking, gets us back into sensations, out of thoughts, and we can watch our minds settle in real time.
Go for a walk
You’ve heard this one a thousand times before, I know. But even I forget that just dropping what I’m doing and heading outside for a few minutes can help me go from stuck and frustrated, to calm and brimming with ideas again. I once shared a tweet that said:
Short walks solve 53% of your problems. Long walks solve 94% of your problems.
Brainstorm
Writing is powerful because it brings order to our otherwise chaotic thoughts. A lot of the time, we’re in a low mood because our minds are circling with all kinds of disorderly thoughts. I.e. it’s the high volume of thoughts that run in circles that lowers our moods. It literally cuts us off from innate intelligence.
When we write, we not only figuratively get thoughts out of mind and on to paper (which helps a ton), we order our ideas so that we find solutions. Ask yourself:
What’s my biggest challenge right now, and what are ten potential ways I can solve this?
Write it all down.
Try these and watch your mood soar.