Mutterings and Musings

Crazy Alert

Challenge: What do you do to improve your mood when you are sad? If you are frustrated or angry, what is your secret to feeling better?

Write. Obviously

Well, that is and it isn't true. I've tried keeping diaries and journals over the years - from Dear Diary types to travelogues to bullet journals to blogs on various platforms. And nothing ever seems to stick.
Don't get me wrong, I love my bullet journal. When I remember to do it.
I love writing up travel adventures. But I give up halfway through the holiday.
I quite enjoy pontificating on my thoughts of the day or, on that rarest of things, when something's happened that I think other people will actually want to know about as well. Only that doesn't happen very often, and I sound pompous to boot.

That's one of the reasons I signed up to the 30 Day Blogging Challenge; to have some sort of external impetus to sit down and write something every damn day and maybe even force myself into something resembling a habit. Who knows, maybe this time it'll stick.

In the past I've had no difficulties writing diary entries on days when I'm in a raging foul temper. It's easy to write when I'm frothing at the mouth, and it's much less painful than punching the wall.* But that's another reason diary-writing and I don't seem to get on. Whenever I've looked back over previous diaries, the entries seem to dry up after a week or two and then there's this big long gap followed by visceral hate-fueled rant followed by another gap until the next phlegm-flecked bust for fury. It makes me sound like an angst-ridden emo, and I'm far to bloody-minded for that lark.

My other go-to for anger is the "I'm going for a Walk." Capital W required. This is the I'm-too-angry-to-sit-still shaking-with-adrenaline borderline hysteria anger. Okay, forget the borderline bit. There's something about being able to storm off and just walk and walk and walk until your mind stops fizzing and those ghastly tight bands around your chest start to loosen and you can breath properly again. Admittedly this is all making me sound rather psycho - I promise I'm far too lazy to lose it like this is often. But well, it's like a dam; once it's built up long enough.....

As for feeling sad or generally low, unfortunately that's a lot more common for me. Mostly I keep my depression under control, but - particularly during the winter - general moodiness and feeling down isn't all that unusual. If I can, I'll just stay home for the day and keep myself to myself. I can pretty much guarantee that'll re-set me for the next day (did someone say introvert?). But frequently staying home and keeping a low profile isn't an option (I have a public facing full-time job), in which case I'll try and ride it out. Spoiler, it doesn't normally work......
Coffee and chocolate help, but it's normally my lunch break that fixes me; I'll hide away for 30 minutes and read whatever book I have handy, praying that I go back to work at least civil and sensible.

Again, I find exercise is a really good therapy for feeling down; I love hiking and swimming, and although I don't feel like doing either when I'm down, if someone coerces me, I feel a lot better afterwards. Funnily enough, writing doesn't seem to help so much with general sadness - it's great to lift me out of a depressive episode if I'm having a series of bad days, but not so good for actual sadness or grief. Reading (which I guess is more passive) seems to help me a lot more.



*never a clever idea. You either end up with very sore knuckles or a hole/dent in the wall that means someone else is about to get mad too.