How to improve your mood and feel great most of the time

It’s not every day that we wake up feeling like sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes all you want to do is go back to bed and do nothing all day. Other time, you feel blue and you cannot point to a specific reason you feel that way.

However, no matter how bad our moods are, life goes on. There is work to do, bills to pay and if we could cheer ourselves up, that would be great. On such days, don’t you wish you can improve your mood?

Research has shown that a good mood helps with productivity. An experiment was carried out that showed that people who had watched funny bloopers, and were therefore in a good mood, were more efficient in problem-solving than those who were on average or bad moods.

Having low moods increases how much we think of problems rather than solutions and therefore develop anxiety and fear. We tend to overthink situations when we are in low moods as opposed to when we feel happier.

Sometimes I let my emotions get in my way. Say I have been struggling with something affecting my emotions I let it interfere with my work. Your emotional being highly influences your activities.

Even for the most emotionally intelligent person, one still experiences emotions but being aware of them is what emotional intelligence is all about.

I reached a point of self-awareness at a good point in my life and I can recognize when I’m experiencing some emotions and how they interfere with my productivity.

I am not a huge TV fan, but when I find myself watching a lot of Netflix, I usually know that I am getting lost in the series because I am afraid of confronting something that I have to deal with, whether it has to do with work or my personal life.

However, wide reading and listening to ebooks and educational videos teaches me that I can lift my moods when I want to, even when I am feeling down and don’t want to do anything productive. In this book, Thinking, fast and slow, Daniel Kahneman suggests that we have the ability to lift our moods.

So, how can you improve your mood and feel great most of the time?

Music

Music is soul food.

Sometimes, you may be feeling all blue and the moment you hear a nice song all you want to do is jam along. Whenever you listen to music that you love, you will always feel better about yourself and the situation you are in.

Every time I listen to music I love I ask myself why I don’t do this often. It’s true, that sometimes you are feeling so low not even music can pull you out of that feeling. Sometimes you view it as a distraction that’s is making you not focus on your thoughts.

If you make yourself listen to something nice, even at a low volume, before you know it, you will be turning up the volume when a nice song comes along.

Exercise

Getting blood pumping always works for me. When I am feeling all low and lethargic, a simple workout can cheer me up, especially something aerobic that will get the blood pumping. It’s not easy however to motivate yourself to work out because a workout is always a struggle for many even on a normal day.

If you can just take the first step though, you will be surprised with where the energy will come from and when you exceed your expectation on the exercise, you will be feeling as if you can conquer the world and isn’t this a great feeling?

Change of scenery

Many of us work in the same workstation day in day out and sometimes it can feel old. When you are in a low mood, you may consider changing sceneries and see if you will feel better.

I achieve this by taking my laptop or a book to a café and just read or work in a different environment from my daily work station.

Doing something different will break your boring routine and when you get back to your routine, it may feel like a whole new cycle. Change of scenery can improve your mood instantly.

Think good thoughts

Constantly thinking about all the things that are going wrong in our lives gives us foul moods. It is difficult to be all cheery when you think the forces are working against you.

You can change this by thinking good thoughts such as gratitude, something you look forward to, good things you have done in the past that made you feel great, and simply transform your thoughts such that they give you an injection of optimism.

Good thoughts and optimism give you hope, and this really brightens your day.

Get busy

Before I take on a task that I am not looking forward to, it is very possible I will be in a terrible mood. The more I think about it, the worse I feel and the more anxious I get.

Rather than thinking about a task for a long time, why not dive into it? Some things seem so complicated before you get started but the moment you start, you realize that it wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be.

Further, getting things done removes one more thing from your worrying path. Keeping yourself busy productively is also a good distraction such that you forget about what it is that was interfering with your mood and excel.

Do you have some tips to help us improve our mood? Share with me.

Read: How you can transform yourself and live an authentic and fulfilling life