Friday open thread: recapturing the vibe

[dolorosa_12]

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?

Comments

[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!

[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.

[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!