There are things that I don’t want to do. Shit! Can’t force myself, but it needs to be done. How to find joy in those moments? How to flip the things around and enjoy it?
Where this apathy comes from? Is it physical exhaustion, meaning that I just need to rest?
If you don’t enjoy what you do. If you don’t believe in what you do. DROP IT! Or push through? I think this is where the problem is… I don’t believe that I can succeed. Otherwise I’ll be sprinting towards the office every morning at 5 am. Instead my startup start feeling as a drag…
The business idea is great – that’s not a problem. It has a lot of potential. The problem is in my head – I am running the same old “not good enough” tape in my head. I am given the opportunity to radically change my live and create something that I can be proud of, but no… Not smart enough, not good enough. F it!
I am mad at myself for that. Why others see me so much better than I see myself? One of us is wrong – me or them? What if I truly believed in my abilities to do anything? Too selfish. What if I had a bulletproof self-confidence? Foolish.
If you don’t enjoy what you do. If it feels like a drag. Drop it! No one holds you hostage and you have other options. However, if you do so, you might feel even worse – a loser. You gave up. Dammit – there is no way out. There is no fast fix to make you feel good in an instant. This is when people turn to food and alcohol.
You know what… I won’t quit just yet. I will force myself to finish this damn pitch script and I will make FUN! I don’t know how, but if I need to dress up in the lobster costume, while writing it – I will. I will finalize the website and have it published. I will enjoy it. This is my website, my presentation, and my business. Because it’s mine – I will build it the way I want. If someone asks why it’s done this way and not the other, I will simply say – Because I decided So. What am I going to lose? Nothing in this world matters, so I might as well make it a fun game. I forgot that I can play. I forgot that there are no rules. No one knows anything for certain, so I get to set my own rules.
This helps… Light it up! Fuck rules and opinions – do what you think is right. Most likely it won’t work, so why you care? Become okay with being wrong. You are not a loser, because you tried. You really tried to make it work and I have respect for your hard work.
To build something you can be proud of. To enjoy the process.
An ancient village… Most men are the hunters. Some are good, some mediocre, others suck. Good hunters frequently bring the game to the village. They feed their families. Everyone admires and loves them. However, most men are mediocre. They go out for a hunt but usually come with a small game or empty-handed. They try to catch an animal but are often unsuccessful.
The world has changed, however as human beings we are all the same. There is a huge gap between good and bad hunters. No longer do we need to kill an animal to be a hunter, but figure out a way to make money. No longer hunting is limited to men. Women are on the field as well. What is the difference between good and bad hunters?
Good hunters pay the price. They make small deposits of time and work day by day. Good hunter spends most of his time in the forest. He studies animal behaviour. He talks to more experienced hunters. He practices…
Mediocre hunter spends time laying on his couch, scratching his belly. He hangs out with girls. Drinks beer with his mediocre hunter buddies at the bar. He relaxes, because “life is meant to be enjoyed”. He spends his life f*cking around. He does not invest in his future. He does not see further that a few months from now. A good hunter is in the forest… People rarely see him in the village.
The time has come and both men went out for a hunt. An average hunter spent some time walking around with his bow and arrows. He couldn’t catch anything. “Not a good day”, he thinks and goes back to the village empty-handed. No game? Yeah, that sucks… but he and everyone around is used to him coming back with nothing. Maybe next time he will have more luck.
The good hunters stayed. Rain or snow, he sits and waits. He could decide to move 10–20 miles away from the village because there will be more chances. And further… and further. Does he like to be wet and cold? Of course not, but he continues to spend his time and energy. He spends… spends… and spends. This is the key. Sooner or later he kills the animal and brings it back to the village. Even if not this time, statistically he will be much more likely to bring it the next time. When he comes back, everyone will look at him and say: “What a man!”. Kids will look up to him and others will show respect. Other mediocre hunters will find a lot of reasons to disregard his success.
A good hunter is a strategist. His strategy is to put in the effort daily, regardless of the circumstances. He sees his work as an investment into the future. Everything he does and endures — will pay back, just a matter of time. He limits himself here and now, day after day, just so he can get more in the future.
Good hunter has the willpower to limit himself and waits because he believes it will payback. Bad hunter does not have such a will. Bad hunter didn’t catch anything today, so he turned around and went back home. Rain? Snow? Hell no, he is back on his couch. They both had chances.
A good hunter knows what it FEELS like to catch that large game. He knows how it FEELS to bring it back to the village. He’s experienced it before, so he knows exactly what he sacrifices for. We are all driven by emotions. Dopamine, oxytocin… This is why he pushes himself.
A loser had never been successful. He doesn’t know what it feels like to be on top of the game. He does not have such experiences, therefore it’s harder for him to sacrifice for the possibility of success. Bad hunter does not know what he loses if he comes home empty-handed. He loses motivation and becomes okay with being a loser.
It’s easy for me to lose 30 pounds because I know how it feels to be lighter. It’s easier because I remember how it feels when someone at the gym asks how I got so ripped. I know exactly what I sacrifice for. Most people don’t, so they lose motivation before achieving their goals. I push through, I limit myself, I endure. I see and FEEL the reward.
Why do people often prefer an instant pleasure over the long-term one? Why do you take that cupcake when you know that it hurts your health? Why do you smoke or drink when you know for a FACT that it will kill you slowly?
You are not better than my dog. You are just an animal. You react to the immediate impulses and urges of your body. Your actions are driven by anything else, but not you. You and your life are the products of your instincts. You want to eat — you eat. You want to have sex — you have sex. Just like my dog. Actually, Blake is much more intelligent than a lot of people.
Take a lizard as an example. It’s driven solely by instincts and its behavioural model goes like this:
Any objects that are bigger than me — are the enemies. Runaway
Any objects that are smaller than me — I eat.
Any objects that are a similar size as me — I have sex with.
Find any similarities?
The human superpower is to resist temptations. Unlike any other animal in the world — we are capable of controlling our urges and impulses.
THE BETTER YOU ARE AT CONTROLLING YOURSELF — THE MORE OF A HUMAN YOU ARE
We are humans. We can control our urges and temptations. We can fight our instincts. We have the will power. We can use imagination to envision future success. It depends on our ability to resist temptations.
WHAT MAKES A BEAUTIFUL HUMAN BEING IS AN ABILITY TO RESIST TEMPTATIONS THIS IS WHAT DIFFERENTIATE US FROM ANIMALS
My product is Deep Work Studio. My brand is based off the need of people for Deep Work – which is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.
My questions are:
How to make deep work hot?
How to make it cool, so people will want to become a part of it? How can I make it mainstream?
Will it be a platform where people can share deep work spots? Places around the city, which are not their home, where they were able to work uninterrupted and get a lot done?
It used to be cool to take photos of your food and post on Insta. Folks can be sharing photos of their work setups? Unique workspots, saying like: “Hey! I’ve been working from this cool place”
In today’s turbulent world, people are hungry for a sense of connection. People participate in communities for a wide variety of reasons—to find emotional support and encouragement, to explore ways to contribute to the greater good, and to cultivate interests and skills, to name a few.
People are more interested in the social links that come from brand affiliations than in the brands themselves.
I used to write long-ass lists of goal and things to accomplish at the end of each year. As usual, I attempted to do the same this year… Couldn’t force myself.
What about the past year’s goals? With fear, I realized that there had to be a document on my hard drive named “Goals 2020”, so I went to search for it. A long list of things that I set myself to achieve in the past year. Coronavirus hit and all my plans went to hell.
I realized that the way I planned my years in the past was not practical. This year I will make it simpler. Where to start?
First, I remind myself what is important to me. What’s my life’s motto? Why do I live?
“To be the best myself – to be the most impactful”
Alright, that remained unchanged, so I will use it as the foundation. I am the happiest when I see the progress. I strive for improvement and pushing my boundaries. Seeing myself grow, getting smarter and stronger is what make me joyful. This is the way to go.
There are three major areas in my life, in which I want to excel:
SPORT
BUSINESS
MIND
HEALTH – maintenance
Three things to which I dedicate all my time and energy. I will plan the year of 2021 around what’s important. I will try to make the plan as simple as possible, so I can memorize it as a mantra and recall it anytime, anywhere. Let’s begin.
Sport
I will lose 12 kilograms and keep it off for the rest of the year and beyond. I will look ripped and feel strong. My body will be healthier and fitter than ever before. I will improve in all three disciplines of triathlon. I will become much stronger cyclist. My FTP will be +300 Watts. I will be much faster runner, breaking the 3 hour marathon mark. I will find joy in swimming, which will also help me improve.
Business
I will make my first million this year. I will build a business out of nothing that will worth at least $1 M by the end of 2021. I will also have enormous amount of fun along the way. I will enjoy it so much, so it will feel illegal.
Mind
I will read two books a month. Not for the sake of reading, but to learn. I will read what’s relevant and make educated decisions based on what I learned. I will make notes of what I’ve read and post my summaries. Reading will stimulate my mind to thinking, so I’ll write to put my thoughts on paper. I will make an effort to finish and publish one of my books. On Amazon, by the end of 2021.
Health
If I could improve only one thing that will make me healthier, it will be my relationship with food. I will improve my eating habits and stop eating before bed. I will treat the food as fuel and get off sugar. I will also make an effort to give my body more rest when it needs it and try to be more sensitive to it’s needs. I will sleep when tired. I will take it easy, when fatigued.
That’s it. Sport, Business and continuous Improvement. I tried to make it as simple as I could. I don’t list the places I want to travel to. In fact, I’ve traveled quite a bit, so now I feel that I’m getting fed up a bit. I will definitely travel, however I don’t make the plans for it. I will go with a flow.
2021 in one sentence:
Now I will print this and put it on my forehead to remember. Happy New Year 🥳
Row with calf raises is to improve mid back strength and calf strength simultaneously. Mid back strength is important for posture in endurance sports especially towards the end of a race – helps maintain the position of the rib cage for optimal diaphragm excursion. And the calf muscles, especially the soleus (which is trained with the knee bent) is very important for running. The soleus excepts the load of the body at initial contact and pushes off the ground during terminal stance while running.
How?
Raise up on toes and squeeze calf muscles in this position 3 sets of 10
Step-up with High Knee Combo (part I)
Why?
Focus of the exercise is to build quad strength and work on control/balance for the running form during the step-up/down down portion. The knee should cross over the toes when stepping up to emphasize the use of the quads. The high knee portion of the exercise is to focus on improving stability in the hip flexors which are very important in all aspects of triathlon, but specially in running they help to pull the leg through during the swing phase of gait and stabilize the spine when the foot is about to hit the ground.
How?
3 sets of 10 Use an 8-10″ step
Farmer’s Carry
Why?
The purpose of this exercise is to work on controlling and building strength in the running form position: mid back, core, glutes, and hip flexors.
How?
4x80s (40s heel to toe and 40s march) Aim to hold an 18kg and 16kg KB in each hand (weight should be different in each hand) Switch after every pass
What is emotion? According to the Oxford English Dictionary its: “a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others”. There are hundreds of emotions that human can possibly experience and this is the list of the most basic ones:
Anger
Sadness
Fear
Enjoyment
Love
Surprise
Disgust
Shame
Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not easy.
Aristotle
As Aristotle learned, there is nothing wrong with being emotional. It becomes a problem when people are inappropriate with expressing their emotions. People who mastered the skill of managing own emotions and feelings, as well as other people’s feelings are more likely to be effective in their lives. Folks that cannot control their emotional lives constantly fight inner battles that drain their energy and negatively impact their ability to focus and think clearly.
According toPeter Salovey and John Mayer, Emotional Intelligence is the ability to:
Recognize, understand and manage our own emotions. Self-awareness is the pillar of EI. The ability to monitor feelings inn a given moment is essential to self-understanding and managing responses.
Recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others
Motivate ourselves and persist in the face of frustrations
Control impulse and delay gratification
Regulate the mood and keep distress from harming our ability to think clearly
Recognize emotions in others
Handling relationships
Emotions in the body
Every emotion has its impact on our bodies on physiological level, whether we recognize it or not. The more mindful and self-aware person is, the more sensitive one to the impact of emotion onto the body. Modern technologies allow researchers to study how the body reacts to the basic emotions.
Anger. Blood rushes to our hands, making us ready to attack. Heart rate rumps up, adrenaline gets released into the blood stream, making us feel strong and ready for action.
Fear. Blood fills large muscles, such as legs, chest, back muscles, making our bodies ready to run or fight. This is why in the state of strong fear, our fingers and toes might feel cold as the blood went into the muscles.
Happiness. Doesn’t bring noticeable changes in the body, however increases available energy and brain activity.
Love. Activates the parasympathetic nervous system and sets us into relaxed, euphoric and calm state.
Surprise. Raises our eyebrows and widens the eye pupils to allow more light into retina.
Disgust. Either taste or smell will change our facial expression by lifting up the upper lip and wrinkling the nose.
Sadness. Causes a drop in energy levels and enthusiasm towards life.
Mother Nature equipped you with two kinds of processors (brains): rational and emotional. Throughout the evolution, emotional one was the first to develop, followed by the thinking brain. They’re in the constant battle with one another, the battle of head and heart.
The thinking brain. One of the greatest nature’s gifts we were given is neocortex. Its located It’s a “thinking” brain that allows us to think about our feeling and ideas. Without it we won’t get to experience love and parent-child connection.
The feeling brain. Small part of the brain is dedicated to Amygdala. Withoutit we would loose recognition of feeling, as well as feelings about feelings. Our lives would seem meaningless, without the need to compete or cooperate.
Amygdala and neocortex are at the the hardware that runs our emotional intelligence. They both are designed not to just process incoming information from our sensors, but to also store it for future use. Strong emotions and experiences, particularly negative ones are being picked up and stored in amygdala. The stronger and more intense the experience, the longer it will be stored in the brain. Amygdala constantly scans the environment for events and experiences, constantly comparing them to the ones it has stored in the memory from the past. In case or reoccurring situation, it makes sure we react to it, exactly the way we did in the past, trying to keep us safe. When it comes to live or die situation, amygdala works faster that a flash, not giving us a chance to rationalize and think about what actions to take.
Neocortex on another hand allows us to make sense of the information we receive and lets us to choose how to respond to it. Speed is the weakness of it as it takes longer to processes information. Did you become sad after your dog died? Did you feel happy winning a competition? Did you get angry over the comment someone made about you at work? Neocortex is at work.
Self-awareness
Being aware of your own feelings and emotions is the keystone of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is the skill that if developed, allow you activate your neocortex to monitor the emotion. It lets you to step back and and gain control over what is happening. The only way to becoming more intelligent emotionally is through self-awareness.
Self-awareness means being aware of your mood and thoughts about your mood.
After you recognized the emotional sensation, once you registered it with your neocortex, you gain control over it by deciding to change your outlook, therefore your mood.
There are three types approaches commonly used by people to manage their emotional lives:
Self-aware. These people are aware of their moods as they’re having them. They are typically in good psychological health and tend to have a positive attitude towards life. They are able to get out of bad mood easier.
Engulfed. These people feel overwhelmed by their emotions and feel helpless in taking control over them. They’re not aware of how and what they feel and makes them loose perspective over the situation.
Accepting. These people are aware of their feelings and they accept them. However they don’t try to change the way they feel. In case of being in a bad mood, they simply accept the condition they’re in and doing nothing to get out of unpleasant feeling.
Alexithymia
This is a condition which described by phycologists as inability to identify and express or describe one’s feelings. People with such condition are unable to speak clearly and openly about their feelings, not because they don’t want, but because they simply don’t know how they feel feel at the first place. When they experience strong emotions, they often feel overwhelmed and try to escape that feeling as soon as possible.
Inability to prioritize
There are people that have no sense of priority. They get lost in every small detail, and everything seems equally important to them. The main cause of it is poor self-awareness. Person don’t know what he feels about the decisions he makes.
Strong emotions have significant impact on our health. Negative emotions and toxic relationships are strongly correlated with chronic diseases. The ones who learned to manage their emotional lives calmly and mindfully are on the path of living more healthy lives.
By properly managing our emotional lives, we can not only cure decease, but prevent it from occurring at the first place.
We all know know how important strong immune system for our well-being. It defends us against viruses, bacteria and cancer. There is been shown a strong link between the central nervous and immune systems as well as correlation between stress and its harmful impact on our immune resistance.
Toxic Emotions
No doubts, emotions impact out bodies physically. A lot of surgeons report that if the person scheduled for surgery, comes to the procedure panicked and scared that day, they bleed much more than people who came in calm. Anxiety and panic increases the blood pressure, causing serious complications during the surgery. People who experience chronic anxiety, long periods of sadness and pessimism, hostilities, suspiciousness – are in the risk of doubling such disease as: asthma, arthritis, headaches, heart disease. Smoking and eating fast food equally decrease your chances of living a long healthy life. Therefore being a pessimist is no better that being a smoker.
Anxiety
One of the most harmful emotions for your body. The right amount of anxiety can help us to prepare for upcoming danger, however when if becomes chronic, it ramps up the stress levels causing medical problems. Anxiety weaken the immune system, making you more susceptible to catching such viruses as flu or herpes. Studies has shown that people who rated their stress levels moderate or high, were 47% more likely to get sick – direct evidence that stress and anxiety weakens the immune system. In additions to lowered immune response, anxiety harms the cardiovascular system, making people more susceptible to heart disease.
Depression
As mentioned before, depression harms your body. In a study of 100 patients who had their bone marrow transplanted, 12 of the 13 who were depressed died within the first year of the surgery. 34 of the remaining 87 were still alive two years later. Also, in patients with kidney failure, those who were diagnosed with serious depression were most likely to die within two years. Therefore depression impede medical recovery and dramatically increases the risk of death. Depression predicts how long we live.
It’s clear that anger, anxiety, chronic stress and depression shorten our lives. Optimism on another hand, can not only speed up the recovery from a major surgery, but also reverse certain medical conditions. 122 men who had their first heart attack, were evaluated on wether they were more of an optimists or pessimists. After 8 years, 21 men out of 25 most pessimistic ones had died vs 6 out of 25 most optimistic. One way to explain such positive impact of optimism on our bodies is that pessimism essentially leads to depression, which lowers the immune system, greatly reducing our chances to fight disease.
Value of Relationships
Social isolation – a sense that you have no one to share your private feelings with or have a close connection – double the chances of sickness and death. Just let it sink in, feeling lonely, lost and isolated kills you at the same speed as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity and lack of exercise. In fact, smoking has less negative impact than social isolation. In the study of a 100 bone marrow transplant patients, the ones that felt they had support from their friends and family, had 54% more chance of surviving than people who were left alone. Another study, that was done on 752 middle-age Swedish men, who were born in 1933 went through a free medical exam, then retested seven years later. 41 of them had died. The others who reported highly stressful lives and lack of emotional support had 3 times greater chances of mortality in the following years. Men who reported having meaningful connections in their lives – wife, close friends – showed no correlation between high stress and death rate. By simply having someone to talk to, to ask for help or advice, protected them from life’s trauma and deadly effect of stress.
Stressful life events are associated with high mortality in middle aged men. Men with adequate emotional support seem to be protected.
Rosengren, A (1993, October 30)
By learning basic emotional intelligence skills and how to manage upsetting feelings – anger, anxiety, depression, pessimism, social isolation and loneliness – we get the power to prevent disease. If you are facing a medical condition and battling disease, it is crucial to keep the positive attitude and have emotional support from close friends and family, as in some cases it predicts you live or die.
References:
Rosengren, A., Orth-Gomér, K., Wedel, H., & Wilhelmsen, L. (1993, October 30). Stressful life events, social support, and mortality in men born in 1933. Retrieved December 25, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8251807
In a close relationships between male and female there are two emotional realities: his and hers. Roots to misunderstanding in couples lay far into the childhood. As a little boy or girls you were thought to handle your emotions a certain way. Parent unconsciously use more emotions when talking to daughters than sons. When mothers play with their child, they tend to express wider variety of emotions to girls. When they talk about their feelings, they usually discuss the emotional states more in details. With boys, they are being practical, describing the situation from the view of causes and consequences. Therefore there are many more boys that may become unconscious of their emotions and feelings.
When girls play together, they do so in smaller groups than boys, who put a lot of emphasis on competition. Boy value independency and autonomy, while girls require a strong web of social connections. With time girls become better adept to reading verbal and non-verbal emotional signals, and boys get better at minimizing emotions, especially the ones that have to do with vulnerability, guilt, fear and hurt.
Red Flags
Criticism is the early sign that relationship is in danger. Specifically a personal, harsh criticism. The difference between complaint and personal criticism is that complaint specifies exactly what was so upsetting and criticizes the other person’s action, not the person. Criticism is aiming to attack a person. Such personal attack makes the other person defensive, ready to counterattack in return. It is the most obvious reaction, helping to deal with the anger. Stonewalling is another approach commonly used to deal with criticism.
Another pitfall is feeling yourself as a victim. People in relationships, who feels themselves victimized, are constantly scanning every move his partner does, looking for a way it can hurt him. It puts person on another side in a no-win situation: even if she does everything right and kind, it is being viewed through the negative lens as she is planning some type of attack.
Flooding
Being flooded means to be overwhelmed and swamped by negative emotions. When you’re flooded it’s nearly impossible to hear without distortion or respond with clear-headedness. People can’t organize their thinking and react primitively to external impulses. On physiological level, flooding begins at approximately 10 beats per minute above a person’s RHR (resting heart rate). If you constantly feel flooded when get into the argument with your partner, it creates a tendency of seeing even the lightest argument as potential threat. Flooded partner starts to think the worst of the spouse nearly all the time, seeing everything she does in the negative light and preparing for battle. More men than women react to criticism with flooding. It also takes more time for men to recover physiologically. That’s why more men are tend to stonewall their spouses, as a natural defense mechanism. On another side or fight, when the wife sees her husband withdraw from engagement, she ups the volume and intensity of her complaint or criticism. Remember, when you stonewall your wife, it triggers flooding in her and a small misunderstanding can turn into a huge battle.
Advice
For men the advice to dealing with conflicts is not to sidestep the fight, but to understand that when your partner brings something up, it may be as an act of love, trying to keep relationship healthy. Don’t try to find a shortcut in ending the discussion. Show your spouse that you hear her and try to understand her feelings. When she feels that her feelings were recognized and validated, she calm down.
For women, make sure that your partner doesn’t feel that you criticize him personally. A personal attack will lead to a husband’s defensiveness or stonewalling ,which will only make things worse.
Learn to fight
One of the emotional intelligence skills is being able to calm yourself and the other person down. Calming down is a skill, which takes time to master, but it gives the ability to stop and recover from emotional flooding faster.
Listening is another skill that have a great potential to save the relationship. You need to not just to hear what’s being said, but truly listen, trying to get to the feelings behind the words. One method of effective emotional listening is called “mirroring”, when complaint receiving side repeats it back in his own words , trying to express not just a thought, but the feelings that go along with it. The purpose of mirroring is to make sure you both are on the same page with thoughts and feelings.
Use XYZ as a constructive way of expressing the complaint. When you did X, it made me feel Y, and I would rather have you done Z.
Love and mutual respect are the most effective tools in resolving issues. It works not just in marriage, but in any area of life. Let your partner that you love her, but you see things from another perspective . Fights are not caused just by one person, therefore take responsibility or even apologize if you see you wasn’t right.
Every feeling and emotion we experience have its meaning, so don’t ever try to suppress unpleasant emotions. Life without ups and downs, without passion would be boring. To stay psychologically healthy, we need to keep distressing emotions in check by not letting them to gain control over our lives and act appropriately to circumstances. The goal here is not to control when we feel certain way, but for how long we stay in that condition.
Anger
Anger is triggered by the sense of being in danger. This sense of danger can be perceived in different ways, such as: threat to self-esteem; being treated rudely; being insulted or frustrated.
Look at the situation from the positive side;
Challenge the thoughts that triggered the anger initially;
Cool off physiologically by giving yourself some time (go for a walk; be alone);
Use the skill of self-awareness. Catch the feeling as it arises, then reframe the situation or challenge it;
Don’t let the anger out. By giving your anger power and expressing it is not effective and it will make you feel even worse;
Anxiety
In the core of anxiety is the worry that something might go wrong and you’re not ready to deal with it. People anticipate the dangers before they even arise, and ofter they never do.
Shift your attention away;
Be self-aware. Catch the worrisome sensations at the very beginning as they arise;
Challenge the worrisome thought. Be critical and assess the actual chances of it happening;
Sadness
Sadness or melancholy drains all the energy out of us and makes us feel tired and apathetic. Depressed people tend to lock in within themselves, justifying by the attempt to “understand themselves better”. In fact, by passively immersing into sadness, they make things worse by fueling the negative feeling.
Don’t stay alone, get out!
Challenge the thoughts at the core of sadness. Think of how valid they are and attempt to look from the different angle;
Mood-lifting tools
Cry! Crying is the nature’s way of lowering levels stress. “Good crying” could break the sadness, if done properly. It has to be intense, BUT short. Cry your ass off, take as much time as you need, but after you done, you have no right to feel sad and sorry for yourself.
Aerobic exercise is one of the most effective tools for fighting depressing feelings and bad moods. Go out for a run, fast walk or bicycle ride.
Distraction breaks the chain of sadness, while allow you to maintain thinking. The most effective distractions, are the ones that lift your mood. They could be: reading a book, watching a movie, video games, puzzles or sleeping.
Plan a small win. Engineer an easy success by completing the task from your to do list that you’ve been setting aside for a while. Cheer yourself up by treats or sensual pleasures. You can also try dressing up in your fanciest clothes.
Help others. Volunteering, such as feeding the homeless or coaching small kids, is one of the most effective tools in battling depression. It is also one of the rarest.
Pray. You don’t need to believe in god or be religious to pray. A study published in Sociology of Religion suggests that prayer can ease people’s anxiety and help alleviate worries. Don’t ask, just pray.