The Best Life Hacks for Improving Your Mood

The Best Life Hacks for
Improving Your Mood

Been feeling down lately? Don’t seem to take pleasure in your old standbys? Everybody feels blue from time to time, and assuming it isn’t a clinically diagnosable issue, there are quite a few ways to improve your mood. So try a few of the suggestions we’ve listed below, and see if you don’t find yourself feeling a little bit better in your day-to-day life.

See Your Friends

Regular social interaction is an important part of keeping your mood well regulated. Spending time around friends and loved ones is one of the easiest and most rewarding ways there is to improve your mood -- and you might even improve some of their moods at the same time.

Hemp-Based Products

There are a wide range of healthy and high quality hemp-based products out there that have been shown to have mood-elevating properties. We recommend terpene-infused hemp extract drops. Just place a couple drops under your tongue, and let the stress-reducing and mood-enhancing properties do their thing.

Get Some Sunlight

Simply put, humans were not meant to spend all our time indoors. The sun’s rays can damage your skin if you’re not adequately protected or if you spend too much time outside. But it’s also true that sunlight is integral to your body’s production of serotonin, one of the chemicals in your brain that determines your mood. You’ve heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder? Many experts believe this can be attributed to diminished sun exposure during the cold winter months, which is when it’s most important to take a break or two during the day to get some sun.

Find a Hobby

It’s true what they say: you’ve got to have a hobby. Hopefully you have one or two already. But if you don’t, there’s no harm in adopting one late in the game. Be it creative, artistic, physical, crafty, or something else, a hobby is a great way to provide stability and consistency through life’s ups and downs. And that alone can have a real lightening effect on your mood.

Get More Exercise

If you want a fast, almost magical way to lighten your mood, find a physical activity that you love doing and do it often -- every day if you can. Even something as simple as a moderate walk can leave you with a better, improved mood. It’s time to get active!

Eat Better

For better or worse, the foods we eat have a marked impact on the way we feel. And while a lot of heavily processed foods filled with sugars and fats taste great at the moment, if you eat too much of them, you may find yourself struggling with irritability and moodiness. On the flipside, if you start regularly eating fruits and vegetables, you might be shocked by how much better you feel on a psychological and emotional level.

Bonus Tip: Don't Skip Breakfast

Breakfast has often been called “the most important meal of the day.” If you can start your morning with a nutritious meal, you’re keeping your blood sugar more balanced, and helping yourself to make better food choices throughout the rest of the day. And it probably goes without saying at this point, but it can also cumulatively improve your mood. Opinions differ on what makes an ideal breakfast, but it’s probably better to err on the healthy side if you can. And even that old morning cup of coffee has been shown, by some studies, to improve moods and decrease the risk of more serious depression.

Enjoy Some Music

It has been said that music can soothe the savage beast. But you don’t have to feel like a savage beast to benefit from enjoyment of some choice tunes. If you’ve been wishing for a better mood, the solution might be as simple as a well curated Spotify playlist or favorite album. Give it a try, and if it works, try to take some time to listen to music every day.

Get Some More Sleep

Insomnia and other sleep dysfunctions are reaching epidemic proportions, and it’s bad for the general health and wellbeing of everybody. But as most of us already know, not getting enough sleep can have a significant, negative effect on your mood, as well. So if you’re finding yourself consistently surly, grumpy, moody, or cranky, maybe the problem is as simple as getting more rest.

Smile!

It might sound counterintuitive, but research has shown that the human mood can benefit from a sort of inverted placebo effect, also known as faking it until you’re making it. If you feel like you’re in a rotten mood, try and act the way you think you would if you were in a better mood, and you might just find your actual mood rising to match the imagined one. It’s not a surefire cure for the blues, but it has been shown to lighten people’s moods, and it might just work for you.

Regulating and improving one’s mood isn’t a matter of finding the right magic bullet, but the reality is that a lot of the good habits we should try adopting for better health and wellness can also significantly improve our moods. With that in mind, there’s really no reason not to try an “all of the above,” approach to lightening your mood and finding out what works best for you.