One of Those Days: When Going Back to Bed Isn't an Option
Have you ever just had “one of those days”? If it could go wrong, it has. We all do. Often, days like this are accompanied by anxiety, depression, feeling defeated, or ready to fight out of frustration. If you find yourself wishing you could crawl back into bed and forget the day even happened, here are a few tips to help you right side the day and claim victory over what feels like inevitable defeat.
REWRITE THE STORY
The narrative in your brain has a powerful effect on your reaction to what is happening around you. Please take a moment to rewrite the story about what’s happening; when you do this, you create the possibility for new opportunities to present themselves.
For example, when stuck in traffic, it’s easy to get angry as you think about all the wasted time or even to play the victim (“This always happens to me.”). While expressing your frustration is genuinely positive, dwelling on these feelings will ultimately suppress dopamine’s feel-good feelings in your brain. Reframe the situation, you now have time to make the phone call to your parents, the time to start the audiobook or podcast you’ve been putting off, or perhaps you can practice mindful thinking or meditation.
What does this look like in practice? Let’s look at a few examples:
Negative to Positive Thinking: “I can’t do that; I suck at it.” to “I need to work on that part, but first, I will complete this step that I do well.”
Perception to Self-affirming: “They are staring at me.” to “I like these maroon colored boots.”
Passive to Active Thinking: “There is nothing I can do about this.” to “What is one small step I can take?”
Negative Past to Forward-Looking Thinking: “I can’t write; the last time was a failure.” to “Writing is something I want to do and have to practice to get better.”
Negative Future to Affirming Thinking: “I'll never finish; I don't know where to start." to "I have planned out my day and will work on what comes to mind first."
Liability to opportunity: "I'm such a perfectionist." to "My attention to detail will be constructive for this project."
Victimization to Empowerment: "This always happens to me." to "What’s great about this situation?”
GET A DOPAMINE HIT
The brain makes a neurotransmitter called dopamine that acts as a messenger between neurons. Dopamine is released when your brain is expecting a reward. Dopamine has excellent benefits, including making you feel alert, improving memory, stops self-destructive behavior, counteracts depression, and can help you resist impulsive behaviors.
What are some ways to stimulate more dopamine when you are stuck in a day when nothing is going your way? Here are a few ideas:
Reward yourself with a coffee, tea, or a square of chocolate. Be mindful while consuming, and take a moment to rewrite the story while you enjoy it.
Spend some time in the sun. Sunlight has the powerful ability to increases the number of dopamine receptors you have and gives you vitamin D, which activates genes that help release dopamine.
Hug family or friends. Human to human contact is a trigger for dopamine, not only for you but also the person you are hugging. This goes for pets too!
Listen to your favorite songs. Many studies have shown that listening to music you enjoy improves your mood due to the brain’s dopamine response. Create a go-to playlist that will allow you to pop in your earbuds and change the day's fate. However, noting that if the day is making you blue instead of frustrated, it may be more beneficial to listen to sad songs as it will help you validate your feelings (according to a study published in 2016). As illustrated in the movie Inside Out, Ignoring feelings of sadness doesn’t work – address it head-on.
Do something nice. Your brain will reward you when you are kind to others; it doesn’t have to be something big – it can be as simple as complimenting someone, grabbing a coffee for your office mate, holding the door for someone, or even giving up your seat on the subway.
Use your nose. Smells are powerful triggers of dopamine. Some scents will remind you and your brain of positive memories and ultimately make you feel better. A 2005 study found that scents like vanilla bean and clementine made people, in general, feel happy.
HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS
My grandmother, Messie, used to say, even in the middle of June, “You can be right, or you can have a Merry Christmas.” This isn’t as easy as it sounds; facing the choice of ‘being right’ or ‘being happy’ (referring to having a Merry Christmas) has to overcome the prioritization your brain may have already made. Often there is a notion that ‘right’ is the path to ‘happy,’ but that line of thinking doesn’t always lead to the result you want.
Viki Tidwell Palmer, the author of Moving Beyond Betrayal, wrote, “Choosing to be happy rather than being right means you value creating understanding or maintaining harmony and peace over insisting on being heard, making sure that other people “get” you, or teaching someone else a lesson.”
She advocates that choosing happiness over being right doesn’t mean other people get to walk all over you, nor that you should avoid telling people what you’re thinking or feeling, noting that boundaries are essential. However, when choosing happiness means you are choosing your mental wellbeing over a power struggle. Messie believed that happiness was a choice, and she loved a Merry Christmas – which will you choose?
POSITIVE INTENT
There is great power in focusing on a narrative of positive intent. What is positive intent? Assuming positive intent is having an optimistic view of someone else’s actions. The practice of positive intent believes that a person is doing their best or means well – regardless of actions or statements. We have movements every day that we write the narrative of other people – that narrative directly impacts how you perceive the world around you. That perception will color your mood for the day. Let’s look at some examples.
A colleague points out a flaw during your presentation.
Negative intent: “They just want to make themselves look good.”
Positive intent: “They saw something I didn’t see; thankfully, we can fix it before roll this out.”
A friend is not responding to your text messages.
Negative intent: “They’re ignoring me. I am not important enough for them to take the time to message me back.”
Positive intent: “They are likely busy; I’ll try them again later.”
Your employee forgot to send an important email.
Negative intent: “They are slacking off.”
Positive intent: “Let’s find out what happened and how we can improve the situation.”
A person cuts you off in traffic.
Negative intent: “@$$&*%#”
Positive intent: “I hope everything is okay; they clearly need to get somewhere in a hurry.” (I am serious, this works).
Assuming positive intent not only allows you to keep calm but also changes how you respond to others and keeps you clear-headed enough to manage most situations.
LET IT GO
Everyone has different ways to ball up something and let it go. Research indicates that writing about your feelings, and in some cases balling them up and disposing of them, can affect how you feel. Other studies suggest that practicing ten minutes of mindfulness or even meditation can provide your mind the clarity to move on and power forward. Lastly, removing yourself from situations and perhaps even taking a brisk walk can also provide you with newfound views of the world. I am also merely in favor of belting out the Disney classic, but you do you.
LAUGH, SNORT, CRY
Laughter delivers, you guessed it, dopamine! There are loads of reasons you should inject humor into your life, especially at work. But this section is just about phoning a funny friend or watching a comedy sketch; it’s about focusing on the emotions you are feeling, or in some cases not feeling, and creating a plan to deal with them. How do you do that?
Determine if your emotions are helpful or harmful. Anxiety is excellent when you are in danger, but it can be crippling when you need to give a presentation. Similarly, frustration can provide you with clarity, but frustration will trigger your brain to give up if you let it.
Embrace how you are feeling. Sometimes you need a good cry to move forward. Sometimes you need to process the anger of a situation before you can see it clearly. Find ways to process your feelings with healthy habits.
Don’t wallow—another helpful bit of advice from Messie. Wallowing is defined as rolling in the mud (or, for this example, in an emotional pigsty). When you get stuck in this space, it can be hard to get out of it.
Seek Help. In emotional situations such as crippling anxiety, depression, angry outbursts, etc., seeking help from a professional can help you create the tools you need to reframe problems into positive ones.
Using emotion can help you reframe a situation, but most importantly, being in touch with your feelings and how they affect you can be very powerful. Remember, if you have more bad days than good ones or have trouble controlling your emotions, seeking help is always encouraged.
IN SUMMARY
Everyone has those days; it's normal. When one of them looms, pause, take a few deep breaths, and try one of the many methods above to change the day's outcome. It can be beneficial to practice these techniques on days that aren’t extra terrible; this will allow you to start building habits to help you when you really need them.
Prefer to listen to this in an audio version? You can find that here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1650556/episodes/7537516