Five Surprising Ways to Bust a Bad Mood

Everyone has experienced irritability and bad mood or a mood swing at some time in their life. Sometimes that can result in a few hours or a day of feeling on edge, like nothing is going your way. Maybe you are more short with friends and family, things that wouldn’t normally had gotten on your nerves really feel like they are pushing you over your limits, welcome to a bad mood! Below are some ways to beat irritability and a mood swing. If your bad mood or mood swings have lasted for weeks, or months, you may be experiencing a mental health related disorder, you should speak with a mental health counselor or therapist to diagnose and treat this.

Smile! When we activate the zygomatic muscles which course around our cheek bones and eyes, with the process of biofeedback, it sends messages to our brain to signal happiness. This effect has been researched, in studies, when participants held objects in their mouth, forcing the activation of the zygomatic muscles, they rated comic images as much funnier than those who were not holding objects in their mouths. Sometimes, ‘fake it till you make it’ works!

Make sure to smile!

Go for a walk in nature. While any exercise has a positive impact on mood, memory, energy and feelings of wellbeing, those positive effects are doubled when cardio vascular work outs happen in green space. Additionally, the stress marker cortisol is significantly reduced in post measures of participants who took walks in nature. This is compared to those who took the same kind of walk in a city space. Nature really does enhance our mood.

Watch out for cognitive distortions. Pay attention to the way you frame a bad mood, the way we talk to ourselves, or our internal script, really matters. If we run into an annoying situation, we should refrain from allowing that to define the whole day or week. For example, if your alarm doesn’t go off causing you to be late for work, instead of saying, “This is going to be a bad day.” We can say, “Well, this situation happened and I am devoted to making the rest of the day better!”

Dose up on omega 3’s and take that fish oil. Norway, is the country where citizens report being most happy in the world, there are a lot of hypothesis being tested around what makes them so blissed out. The answer might be their access to a diet rich in oily fish. We have long known that oily fish and omega 3’s enhance brain function by reinforcing the myelin sheath of our neurotransmitters, this may hold the key to our happiness.

Reach out to a friend

Phone a friend! Having a best friend, a vent buddy, or other person who will listen to your troubles has protective effects on our health. It is no surprise that those who state that they feel most socially isolated have poorer health outcomes. There is an effect called ‘tend and befriend.’ Women seem to benefit most from tend and befriend, we see this in the way that women often reach out to social supports to talk out their concerns. Women get the benefit of reducing cortisol stress markers and limiting their cardiovascular stress when they talk with friends, even better if they feel that their friend responds with attention, care, and compassion!

Call us at 412-322-2129 for an appointment in any of our Counseling Centers.

Please note, if you are experiencing depression, bipolar disorder, or another mood disorder, this advice will help best while paired with mental health counseling and psychological care from your therapy team, the above advice will not treat or cure a mental health disorder and may not apply depending on the particulars of your psychological needs.