How To Deal With A Low Mood

Dealing with a low mood is hard! If you have a low mood for any length of time, you must consider if it has gone just beyond the basic feeling of being sad and developed into something more serious like depression.

In essence, depression is a low mood that lasts and doesn’t go away. We can all feel low and unmotivated and this is part of the normal process of life.

However, if you do feel low there are things you can do to help boost how you feel and maybe help defend yourself from developing depression, which is a serious illness.

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Dealing With A Low Mood

Life has a way of throwing things into our paths that can challenge how we feel and how we view the life we lead.

Some of the common triggers for a low mood are:

• Loss of a job
• A break up in a relationship
• The loss of a loved one
• Change in routine
• Birth of a baby

All these things and more can change the way we feel and it can have an impact on our life too. A low mood can change how we act and how we go about our daily lives to the point where it can become too much to bear.

It can affect the way you feel about yourself, you might start to feel negative to how you look; you can project these thoughts as though they are coming from another person who is close to you, turning yourself against these people and isolating you from the world and your own life.

The thought of having a positive thought or feeling, you know isn’t going to happen anytime soon and while this is true because of your own low mood, it is often more difficult to turn this around than you might imagine.

Fighting Those Feelings

It is a fight to challenge those feelings, the ones that trap you in that low mood, the ones that seem to hold you back from exploring your life and creating the actions that will take you to meet your dreams and fulfil your goals.

However, whilst it is important to seek help for your low mood to help prevent it from developing into depression, there are some positive steps that you can take that allows you to move forward to feeling better and hopefully banishing that low mood before it really takes hold.

The problem with a low mood is the cycle that it can form and it is difficult to break away. An example might be:

• The mood: – you feel low
• The symptoms: – you might feel tired
• The behaviour: – you choose to stay in bed
• The thoughts take over: – no one listens to me

This whole cycle then starts to take momentum and breaking this chain of events gets difficult because you have no way out. You can’t break that cycle and each time round it is becoming more deeply embedded into how you think and feel.

How To Break Free

This is the most difficult thing that you have to do to break that cycle, to move forward away from that low mood, which is holding you back.

Some of the ways to improve your mood that you can take control with and take action are:

• Exercise: This is so beneficial for your mind as well as your body; it can lift a mood very easily.
• Food: The right food, it is easy to fall into the trap of just picking up something that is unhealthy because it is quick and easy; unfortunately, it can add to the way you feel, you might feel sluggish and unmotivated and this just holds you in that low mood.
• Dealing with those thoughts: Addressing those thoughts and feelings that are trapping you in that low mood, it might seem like the better option is to push these thoughts deep down into our mind and try not to think about them, however, this isn’t the best option as they can resurface at any time in the future. By addressing them and dealing with them will mean you are able to let them go and move forward with your life.

Pinpointing Why You Feel Low

Sometimes the hardest thing is pinpointing why you feel low. I knew that I was covering up my feelings for years and when I finally broke, it has taken many years to look back and to see the point where I started to crumble, but I was a strong person on the outside and hid those feelings, not just from the outside world but from myself too. I didn’t want to address them and this perhaps is why I had so much difficulty in accepting that whilst I put on this brave and happy face, on the inside I was crying in despair.

It is about finding solutions for those feelings that want to consume you from the inside out. There is help available for those who need it and it is important that if your low mood has lasted too long, you do go and seek the help you need.

Giving Yourself Time

However, it does take more time than you might imagine, a low mood can last a long time, you might not even be aware of the exact trigger that set the mood into action. Nevertheless, you do have the power to help yourself feel better, it might mean taking a course of medication, or counselling, but the most important factor is addressing how you feel and taking action.

You do have the power to see it through to the end, you can challenge how you feel and you can put into place an action plan that helps you develop ways and strategies to target those low moods and feelings in a positive way.

Recognising and acting upon those negative thoughts, which can lead to a low mood is important, perhaps the most important action you can take. Not letting a low mood control you is hard, it means you have to take action and if it doesn’t go away it is important to seek the help that you need.

What is your best tip for dealing with a low mood?

Resources To Help You Recover

• Seek medical help, they can help with different options including medication, counselling and just talking about your feelings and your mood.
• I found the cognitive behaviour treatment option beneficial whilst going through counselling, this book on cognitive behaviour is very popular and one that I would recommend.
• Talk to someone who you can trust and open up about how you feel.
• Keeping a journal and writing down your thoughts can help.

Therefore, being able to deal with a low mood is not an easy task; there are steps that you can take to help reset your mood. Challenge those negative thoughts and take steps to feel better, you are important and you deserve to have a happy life too.

I have written extensively on this subject and you can find more articles on depression, or, alternatively, a great article to read is: Why Your Depression Is Not Easy