In November 2009, I was navigating a particularly difficult time in my personal life. As an all-or-nothing thinker, I found myself labeling days as either “happy” or “unhappy” in my journal. Looking through my journal I noticed that I would reinforce the mood by doing things associated with that particular mood (e.g., happy mood=do something creative, unhappy mood=do something dry and boring). As a student of psychology, I recognized the importance of becoming more proactive with my actions. Rather than let my emotions shape my actions, I needed to use my actions to help steer my emotions.
It was during this time that I wrote my most popular post to date, 50 Ways to Add Joy to Your Day. I wrote this post to share ways that I found useful when trying to inject positivity into my day (regardless of how I felt).
I am a strong advocate for learning what brings you joy—especially the itty bitty joy triggers—so you can use this knowledge in your favor.
To supplement my earlier post, I found a particularly wonderful post on Everyday Health to share with you. The post, 8 Instant Mood Boosters, is written by Kristen Stewart and medically reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH. The instant mood boosters are about a minute to five minutes each so time will not be an issue :). I particularly love that each mood booster is grounded in research findings*. A few of the mood boosters discussed in the article: ogle at artwork, get decked out in green (or yellow or pink or blue), take a piping-hot shower.
What are some of your instant mood boosters?
*If you find any of the research studies to be particularly intriguing, I highly recommend (for research geeks like me) you look for the journal article with the study findings. The easiest way to do find the article is by doing a simple search on Google Scholar.
image: vicinity studio
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Thank you! I also tend to view the events in my day as “all-or-nothing” –i.e. working out perfectly or catastrophically failing– and thus coloring my mood as happy or sad. Luckily, it doesn’t take much (usually) to tip the scale to the happy side.
I love that visual of tipping the scale to the happy side! You are so right, it doesn’t take much to tip the scale. Such a great reminder :).
Instant mood booster: seeing my wife. Taking the dog out for a nice walk, cooking!
:)