Understanding low mood.
Everyone has low days. Everyone. But we all differ in how frequent the low days are and how severe the low mood. Something that people have come to realise over the years is how much people struggle with low mood and never tell a soul. Their friends and family would never know. They mask it, push it away and focus on meeting expectations. Sometimes people arrive at therapy after years of doing it. They feel like they’re getting something wrong.
Thoughts are not facts. They are a mix of opinions, judgements, stories, memories, theories, interpretations, and predictions about the future. They are ideas offered up by your brain about ways we could make sense of the world. Stop depending on your feelings to act, to move, to improve. Feelings like motivation will fail you.
Research shows that doing even small amounts of exercise is better than nothing, and anything more than your usual amount of movement will help boost your willpower (Barton & Pretty, 2010). Working on your body improves your mental health.
Away from people. Away from books. Away from your phone. Spend sometime alone with yourself. Most days are broken up by those quiet, sometimes boring moments in between periods of intense work and effort. But if we use those in-between moments to clear emails, scroll through social media or get a few things done, the body and brain will not be returning to a rest state to recharge.
All those self-help books that told the world to just think positive didn’t account for the fact that you can’t control the thoughts that arrive in your mind. The part you can control is what you do once they appear. Sadness, happiness, motivation over temporary feelings. Don’t get attached to certain feelings.
From a source, physical discomfort brought about by lack of sleep and dehydration, helped to create low mood. Not all low mood is unidentified dehydration, but when dealing with mood it is essential to remember that it’s not all in your head. It’s also in your body state, your relationships, your past and present, your living conditions and lifestyle.
What is the problem with instant relief? When we feel discomfort and the threat of low mood, we want to get back to feeling lighter. Our brain already knows from experience what tends to help the quickest. So we feel urges to do whatever will make it all go away as soon as possible. We numb or distract ourselves, and push the feelings away. For some that is via alcohol, drugs or food. For others, it is watching hours of TV or scrolling through social media.
YouTube. Instagram. Netflix are not the best places to relax.