In today’s fast world, we are sometimes overwhelmed with how 'busy' life can be. Life IS getting faster, the world IS becoming smaller, everything IS instant. Taking time out alone for an hour is a way that will allow you to shut the world out, to think about things, to put issues into perspective and to slow your brain down.
For some of us, we are simply too busy to have the time to spend an hour alone in silence. Sad but true. Isn’t it the case that often the things we should be doing at the time we need to do them is when we least want to. This 'busyness' can sometimes leave us feeling drained and our mood can drop. We feel tired and flat.
There are some immediate things that you can do to lift your mood – talking with others, smiling throughout the day and hugging people will give you an energy boost. (Be careful with the last one, oxytocin is a powerful chemical!).
Another option is to do one thing each day that makes you happy. A walk, going to the movies, a sport, whatever you choose must be something that you want to do.
A combination of all of the above will allow you to keep your head (brain) above water so that you can breathe...
If your mood is a bit lower - in other words you are flatter (sadder) - here is something that research tells us will go you a longer lasting boost in just 20 days. The 20/20/20 method.
The first 20 is twenty minutes of continuous exercise - a medium to fast paced walk is all it takes to burn off the accumulation of adrenalin and cortisol in your body. The second 20 is twenty minutes of laughing or smiling – this needn’t be continuous, across the day will do. The third 20 is twenty minutes of looking forward (in your head) to good things coming up, thinking of happy things, recalling a holiday, visualising a place you like to be at or want to visit, or any other thought that makes you feel happy. You cannot do this continuously; although I challenge you to do so.
For those of you who are really busy, I suppose that you could combine smiling with your exercise thus eliminating twenty minutes from the sixty-minute process.
For the fastest results in lifting your mood, you must combine physiology with psychology. Mind and body. We often focus on the body and forget about the mind, the mind being the most critical part of the process.