I just thought it might be useful to think about our mood for a moment. Most of us have moods which come and go depending on what’s happening day to day. People with depression or anxiety have moods which also might come and go but those moods tend to stay around a lot longer.
If a gazelle is attacked by a lion but escapes, it will literally shake off the trauma and resume life as normal. If a human is attacked they will be forever going over the experience in order to not let it happen again. We will rehearse where we were when the lion came; what we were doing; who we were with etc. All of these thoughts are to make sure we don’t get caught again. The problem is we have no mechanism to shake off the trauma. Instead we replay the attack over and over again. The aim is to make sure we don’t get caught out again. It should be a positive thing. Instead of being positive it becomes negative because we get attacked everytime we think about it.
Another problem is that our bodies and minds can’t differentiate between a disagreement/argument with someone and an encounter with a lion that wants to end our lives and eat us. Our mood spirals down and down and down etc etc.
One way of boosting our moods is to do things that are positive and uplifting for us. The NHS and Macmillan Cancer Support have produced a book list of mood-lifting reads so if you like reading and want a lift then one of these might be just the thing needed. Here are some of them:
If a gazelle is attacked by a lion but escapes, it will literally shake off the trauma and resume life as normal. If a human is attacked they will be forever going over the experience in order to not let it happen again. We will rehearse where we were when the lion came; what we were doing; who we were with etc. All of these thoughts are to make sure we don’t get caught again. The problem is we have no mechanism to shake off the trauma. Instead we replay the attack over and over again. The aim is to make sure we don’t get caught out again. It should be a positive thing. Instead of being positive it becomes negative because we get attacked everytime we think about it.
Another problem is that our bodies and minds can’t differentiate between a disagreement/argument with someone and an encounter with a lion that wants to end our lives and eat us. Our mood spirals down and down and down etc etc.
One way of boosting our moods is to do things that are positive and uplifting for us. The NHS and Macmillan Cancer Support have produced a book list of mood-lifting reads so if you like reading and want a lift then one of these might be just the thing needed. Here are some of them:
- A cat called Norton by Peter Gethers
- The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
- The Island by Victoria Hislop
- The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett
- The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey by Rachel Joyce
- The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
- The Other Side of the Dale by Gervaise Phinn
- The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher