dolorosa_12 | Friday open thread: recapturing the vibe

I feel certain that I've used this or something similar as a prompt, but given my current circumstances, I'm going to use it again. This morning I woke up with rolling anxiety which continued throughout the morning. I know what caused it (my bad brain feelings are always situational and it's always very easy to identify the trigger), and that's for me to work on in the longer term, but it took me an abnormally long time to come back to a sense of equilibrium. Hence the prompt:

What small, effective things do you do to improve a bad mood?

Everything I do in these situations falls under three (sometimes overlapping) categories: concrete action, physical movement, physical and/or mental decluttering.

What I did today was break several big work tasks into smaller pieces, and physically write them down in my bullet journal, along with a big life admin task. The act of writing things down with clear deadlines (and then crossing them off when done) is a big way for me to lighten the mental load.

The other surefire trick is one I learnt from my mother, whose solution to all distressing emotions is to go for a walk. If the weather is bad — as it was today — I replace it with yoga. My yoga teacher has a number of classes designed for stress and anxiety, but I find they don't work so well for me, because they have an emphasis on holding undemanding poses for a long period of time, and I need something tricky with which to distract my mind. Therefore, I tend to pick classes that have more of a flow to them, or tricky balancing poses, etc.

Finally, I did a bunch of cleaning and reorganising in the house — just half an hour cleaning the bathrooms, and another fifteen minutes or so reorganising my bedroom drawers — and I felt a million times better.

What about you?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

falena

Looks like I'm like your mother - if it's at all possible, going for a walk while listening to music will lift my mood pretty quickly.

Trying to focus on some 'treat' in the near future can sort of help too.

From:

dolorosa_12

Ooh, I like the 'future treat' idea! I must try that next time.

From:

yarnofariadne

I do all the things you do, but if I need to indulge myself I'll put on a song I can scream along to. It's not concrete or mature but it does the trick!

From:

dolorosa_12

Oh yes, that's a good one too!

From:

florianschild

I am in a very similar boat - I imagine many are these days. Just constant ambient dread following me everywhere. :(

I like all your suggestions though! I especially agree with the physical movement one. I like to go for a walk and when I'm really upset I stop at the playground near my house and swing on the swingset. It's weirdly cathartic. Decluttering also seems promising.

I also like stream of consciousness journaling. I use 750words and I find just ranting and complaining in a place that I have no intention of ever sharing with anyone or rereading can help a little bit.

From:

dolorosa_12

I think a lot of people are in this situation (although weirdly, due to the temporary media cone of silence in which I've banished myself, my ambient anxiety yesterday was not global politics-related). I'm sorry to hear that you were going through it too.

I love the idea of going on the swings: just staying in motion until all thoughts have flown away. Your jounalling technique also sounds very good.

From:

peaked

Sorry to hear you had an anxious morning! Hopefully it's passed by now.

It really depends on how bad my mood is and possibly what caused it.

✨ When overwhelmed, writing things down into manageable chunks, while also realising I am one person and can only do so much in a day. (I may have done this over the last few days thanks to feelings of being overwhelmed at work!)

✨ I've started doing a "Have Done List", so I can see how much I do do in moments where I believe I've achieved nothing.

✨ Go for a walk.

✨ If I'm in a particularly bad mood, I take some time to journal. I often find that alleviates some of the anger and heaviness.

✨ And if I'm in a bad, bad mood that won't shift, I try to avoid talking to people for most of the day because I find speaking to others can sometimes add fuel to the fire. That's when I know I need some alone time to decompress a bit and screw my head on straight!

From:

dolorosa_12

Your list of techniques is very sensible, and I especially admire your ability to remove yourself from people when things are particularly bad. Since stress due to competing demands from lots of different people is a major trigger for this state of mind for me, I should try to do the same (although it's often unavoidable, due to the nature of my work).

The 'Have Done List' is a fabulous idea.

From:

peaked

I have to deal with many people for work, which is harder in the office. I still take my time out and not interact with people, whether that be going to lunch by myself or just putting my headphones on. Sometimes, I find talking to people who aren't annoying me (for whatever reason, irrational or rational) helps settle me.

Someone on my flist mentioned a "Have Done List" and it's been a lifesaver during those days where I feel deeply unmotivated!

From:

mific

Sit in the garden for a while, looking at the plants and flowers. There's a cherry tomato near where I sit so at present I can eat one or two ripe tomatoes as well.

Have a cup of tea.

Do something useful but not needing any creativity. For me that's working on the Audiofic Archive, posting podfics.

Re-read a favourite fanfic.

From:

dolorosa_12

With your garden, I don't wonder that that technique works for you! What a lovely way to decompress.

'Useful but not needing any creativity' is probably why I clean things in these circumstances, I suspect.

From:

got_quiet

Moving around helps me a lot, and I hate that it helps a lot, because when I'm in that sort of mood I want to curl into a ball and remain completely still for 24 hours.

Listing to music I can shout along to gets out a lot of negative energy too.

From:

dolorosa_12

My husband and I have a joke that it's 'galling that exercise is so effective,' since moving around is, as you say, really helpful, even when it's the last thing one wants to do.

The listening to music technique is a good one, although I tend to do that mainly at work (with headphones, and no singing or shouting along) when I'm annoyed about something work-related. There's something about the idea that I can be angrily listening to angry music, and the people who've annoyed me have no idea about any of this that I find really therapeutic.

From:

chestnut_pod

Reading a book! It's worked for me since I became literate. The absorption is better than anything at getting my mind off things.

From:

dolorosa_12

Oh, lucky you that this works! I find I can only move on to reading a book if I've moved around or cleaned something first — I need the physical activity to still my mind, and then I'm calm enough to focus on a book.

From:

lyr

Cleaning and walking are also strategies of mine. Also, cuddling my puppies. Baking (and, actually, watching The Great British Bake Off) also helps. Creating things is a strategy for long-term anxiety, such as the current world-on-fire anxiety I am experiencing. And, if worse comes to worst, I dissociate as completely as possible.

From:

dolorosa_12

These all feel (barring the dissociation) like making order out of chaos — all very good strategies.

From:

nerakrose

that depends on what caused the bad mood and what kind of bad mood it is, but my coping strategies usually fall into one of the following:

- eat some chocolate
- go for a walk
- make a cup of tea or hot chocolate
- rant at somebody who doesn't mind being ranted at (and after the rant switch to a more pleasant topic)
- re-read something I wrote, or comments on something I wrote, or add some words to something I'm working on
- some form of cleaning/maintenance

I'm actually in a not great mood this morning for various reasons and I've dealt with it by putting on a load of laundry, changing my bedding and airing out my room, and once I've put the load in the washer into the dryer/to hang, I'm going for a combined walk/pharmacy trip.

From:

dolorosa_12

I've dealt with it by putting on a load of laundry, changing my bedding and airing out my room, and once I've put the load in the washer into the dryer/to hang, I'm going for a combined walk/pharmacy trip.

Just reading about this made me feel so calm and relaxed, and I hope it helped for your own bad mood too.