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Six steps to feeling better fast
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Yes, from the title of this week’s issue, you’d think I was writing advertisements for a drug company – but I’m not – I’m writing six steps that can lift our moods, when we get down.
Here they are, in no particular order.
Step 1. Get moving. If you’re feeling down, you’re likely to stop moving around. It seems to be just the way it is – the more depressed you get, the more likely you are to sit in one place for long periods of time. Get moving – and help your mood lift. It’s been proven that exercise boosts moods.
Step 2. Assume the posture. A Peanuts cartoon from long ago shows “Good Old Charlie Brown” with his face looking toward the ground. “This is my depressed stance,” he tells the girl behind him (what was her name anyway – Freida?). “When you’re depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand,” he says, “The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high, because then you’ll start to feel better. If you’re going to get any joy out of being depressed, you’ve got to stand like this.”
Charlie might have a point. For some reason that seems to confound us, our body position can make a big difference in our mood. When we smile, even if we force ourselves to smile, our mood seems to lift a bit. When we hold our head up and greet the day, rather than hold our head down, we tend to lift our mood as well as our heads.
Step 3. Help. Help. Help. I’m not suggesting you run around, crying “Help, Help, Help.” I’m suggesting you help, help, help others – and help yourself in the process. When we get down, we tend to get all self-absorbed – and as a result, we wallow in our troubles. Helping others, particularly those less fortunate than ourselves, helps pull us out of the wallow.
Step 4. Escape – for a while – and then come back. Another cartoon (Fasttrack) on my bulletin board shows an idyllic beach. Suddenly, there’s a big “Poof,” and a man appears at a computer. “Oops. Hit the Escape key by mistake,” he thinks.
It’s all right to put ourselves in another circumstance, for a while. Take a walk, take a day off, go to lunch. Escaping from our surroundings for a while helps our minds focus on other things – and gives our mind a chance to re-orient itself. Escape – for a while. Then come back and finish what you started.
Step 5. Consider. “Considering” is something most people do infrequently – if ever. Sit back and “consider” your blessings. Examine your opportunities. Consider your abilities. Ponder on your path. Decide how best to pull yourself out of this mire. Considering – thinking deeply about what you have on your plate, and what it means – is a great method to help pull you out of your funk.
Step 6. Throw it all into it. There’s a great Dickens quote from his book “David Copperfield. “Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well, that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to complete, that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.” Many of our doldrums occur because we haven’t thoroughly committed ourselves – we’re still waiting to make a stand, take a step, or change a life.
Until we commit ourselves to a course of action, we never really can change our lives – and often, we find our lives slipping away from us, simply because we never really took a step.
I firmly believe that action drives out despair – we cannot be committed to a worthy goal and still sit mired in the tragedy and trouble that our lives might find. When we are moving, growing, considering, helping, and growing, we will find our lives are full, our goals are being met, and our lives take on a meaning they might never have had before.
Sure – it’s not a wonder drug you can take – it’s not Speedy Alka-Seltzer. But these steps can help us to feel better fast.
Copyright, 2007, by Daryl R. Gibson and WeekdayWisdom.com. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the non-commercial redistribution of this document as long as it remains intact with this copyright and all other lines. This license does not extend to the use of this material in a compilation, whether for profit or non-profit use. Join us at http://www.WeekdayWisdom.com.
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