How to identify and combat a bad mood

Everybody and everything getting on your last nerve today?  Traffic worse than usual?  Lunch unusually blah?  Workday progressing at a snail’s pace? 

I have a secret to tell you – your co-workers are always this annoying, your commute is always this bad, your lunch is just fine, and time is passing at the same rate it did yesterday. 

You’re in a bad mood.

There – the first step is admitting it.  Time to move on.

Not to over simplify.  Sometimes you’re in a bad mood for a good reason.  You’re not human if you don’t have obstacles, and I’m not about to try to analyze and solve your major problems here.

But all too often, the little things get to us. You’re sleepy, or hungry, or there are too many people in the grocery store and they leave their carts unattended and in your way and then they start backing up without checking behind them and for pity’s sake would you please just pay attention.  Whoops, sorry.  This particular scenario might just push my buttons.

Nightmarish trips to the store aside, I do have a terrible tendency to make mountains out of mole hills, and what should be a minor blip on my radar turns into sleepless nights and an eye twitch.  At this point, I find, I lose my sense of humor and my patience goes right out the window.  How do I cope?  The truth is that I’m still figuring that out, but I have found a few tricks that help.

1. Disrupt the negativity.  Play a game on your phone, read a book, watch a kitten video, write your grocery list.  Experiment with what works for you to reverse your thought process, but save the heavy stuff for when you’re in a better frame of mind.
2. Focus on things you can control.  Organize your desk, go to bed early, keep healthy snacks handy, clean out your email inbox. 
3. Remember the good in your life.  Count your blessings, make a gratitude list.  Whatever you’d like to call it, the odds are heavily in your favor that you are not the least fortunate person on the planet (about 7.35 billion-to-one kind of odds).  Heck, you’re probably not even in the bottom 10%.  Yay you!
4. Put on your favorite music and sing along.  Pro tip here – if you’re at work, maybe sing along just in your head, not so much out loud.
5. Exercise.  Mind and body improvement in one simple step.  Exercise makes you feel in control which might be all you need to clear away the dark cloud.  It also boosts endorphins, which are the body’s very own mood enhancers.
6. Do something nice for someone else.  Focus outside yourself and do something you can be proud of.  Another two-fer.
7. Don’t vent.  Seriously.  It just feeds your bad mood, sustaining it at the least, but probably even making it stronger.
8. Eye on the prize.  Did an unexpected speed bump just slow down your progress?  Focus on the end game and what the reward will be when you get there.  If the reward feels too distant to improve your mood, promise yourself a more immediate and easily-achieved treat to look forward to, like a new pair of shoes, or vegging in front of your favorite TV show with a glass of wine.  Or maybe you’d prefer something a little less girly.  You’ll figure it out.

When you’re in the throes of it, a bad mood can be tough to identify and even more difficult to shake off.  But if you can recognize it, and consciously work to reverse it, you’ll feel better and you’ll be easier to live with. It might take time, but don’t give up!