How to recover from a bad mood

[lovinmyboys]

I am way too old for this, but I need help. When something goes wrong, especially if I get my feelings hurt, my brain just replays all the other times I or my kids have been hurt and it completely derails me. Usually a good cry and a nap mostly fix it, but I would like to move on from all the things in the past and not let one little thing get me so down. It was a beautiful day today, but one thing happened and I just kind of spiraled thinking of other things that happened. 

I tried to ask Dh because he doesn’t let things like this bother him, but I think he genuinely doesn’t care what other people think. And maybe that is the key. 

[Eos]

For me it's gratitude.  Not spiritual or woo-y, more like bootcamp.  When I'm really rock bottom I make myself say out loud what I'm grateful for and keep thinking about it until the mood wanes, or else I fall asleep, whichever comes first.  

[Garga]

How much sleep are you getting? My mood is tightly bound to how much sleep I’m getting. I ruminate more on the negative when I haven’t gotten enough sleep.

I need 8.5-9 hours a night for my best mood and most energy to get things done in the day.

Edited March 8, 2021 by Garga

[klmama]

40 minutes ago, Garga said:

How much sleep are you getting? My mood is tightly bound to how much sleep I’m getting. I ruminate more on the negative when I haven’t gotten enough sleep.

I need 8.5-9 hours a night for my best mood and most energy to get things done in the day.

This.  And for some reason, getting in the car and driving to the library often shakes a bad mood for me.  

[fraidycat]

A couple different tools I use are:

1 - Mind Interruption trick.

As soon as I become aware that I've let myself ruminate, I picture a Stop sign in my head. Once I've got a good clear visual that my brain had now basically become a stop sign, I let the sign go and visualize something super cute like a pile of about 3-4 week old golden retriever puppies trying to run and wrestle. 

I put my mind to work thinking about cute/fun/sweet things so it's too busy to think about crappy stuff.

2 - Clearing old Energy/Forgiveness

I clear away old hurts using Tapping (EFT), so they don't keep coming up.

3 - I read something that stuck with me: (I can't remember for sure where, it might be a Facebook meme thing or it might be in a book somewhere, or both)

The basic gist was If you had $86,400 and somebody stole $20 from you, you wouldn't then throw away the rest of the money too, just because you were upset. So why would you let a 20 second sentence/interaction/rude comment rule the rest of the seconds in your day.

It's a great reminder that I have a choice to be upset or offended and how I want to react or respond to it.

Edited March 8, 2021 by fraidycat
edited

[Garga]

6 hours ago, fraidycat said:

A couple different tools I use are:

1 - Mind Interruption trick.

As soon as I become aware that I've let myself ruminate, I picture a Stop sign in my head. Once I've got a good clear visual that my brain had now basically become a stop sign, I let the sign go and visualize something super cute like a pile of about 3-4 week old golden retriever puppies trying to run and wrestle. 

I put my mind to work thinking about cute/fun/sweet things so it's too busy to think about crappy stuff.

 

I do this one a lot. I force myself to think of something else as soon as I’m aware that I’m dwelling on something I don’t want to dwell on.  

For me, I like to make up little stories that I think about, for example: if I had $100 million, what would I do with it? Or I imagine a scenario where someone comes to my door and says, “There’s been a mistake. We have discovered that *you* are actually the queen of England.” Or I imagine I go back in time and am fabulously wealthy and have a staff of servants, but instead of making their lives drudgery, I treat them like 21st century workers and do all sorts of nice things for them (like give them days off and nice lodgings)

The key is to force your mind to have something else prepared ahead of time to think about other than the negative thoughts. And it does take effort to refuse to allow yourself to dwell on the bad thoughts.