When I hit midlife, I discovered that you can pull a muscle in all kinds of new ways: sneezing, parking a car. And, as I found out last week, you can tweak your back just getting out of bed.
While I hobbled to the kitchen, my phone pinged with two stomach-dropping texts (a mold-removal assessment, a friend who wanted to “talk something out”).
“This day is shot,” I grumbled.
But that’s not necessarily so, I learned from Susan Albers, a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic. Your day may start off badly, she said, whether that means a rough morning meeting, unwelcome news, or a stranger being rude. But you often have the ability, she said, to “create a different ending.”
How can you turn a bad day around quickly? I chatted with experts about a few things that can help.
Put the incident into context.
When clients tell Dr. Albers that they are having a lousy day, she often advises them to “respond, rather than react,” by stepping back from whatever prompted that thought and looking at it from a different perspective.
So if you’ve had a salty interaction with someone, reflect on a few key questions, said Michael Lee, a professor of communication and director of the Civility Initiative at the College of Charleston. Ask yourself: Is this really about me, or is it about them? How much weight do I give to their words? Does this person know my true character? What is the story I created around the thing that happened?
Putting an experience into context and analyzing your feelings can dial down stress, Dr. Lee explained.
Switch things up.
A quick way to rescue your day, Dr. Albers said, is to try what she called a “sensory change.”
Take a hot shower, change your clothes or light a scented candle, Dr. Albers said. Different smells, textures and temperatures can help you reset by diverting your attention. If you’re at work, she added, make a fragrant cup of tea.
Or get up and move, she said, which releases mood-enhancing chemicals in your brain, lowers anxiety and can help reduce rumination. Dr. Albers recommends at least 20 minutes of exercise to clients in need of a mood boost, but anything helps, she said, even if it’s walking the dog.
When you’re stuck in your feelings, a little activity and a change of location can help unlock them, she said, “kind of like shaking a snow globe.”
Give yourself ‘little rewards.’
If your day started off badly, you might be tempted to white-knuckle it until the evening, when you can collapse on the couch with some ice cream, said Annegret Falkner, an assistant professor of neuroscience at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute.
But giving yourself little intermittent rewards during a difficult experience can make it less stressful than a large reward afterward would, Dr. Falkner said. At least, that’s what she’s found studying stress and resilience in mice.
She has applied this research to her own life when she hits a bump (her go-to is calling a loved one or taking a walk to get coffee). So if your day unravels early, Dr. Falkner said, find small hacks to make your life better while the stress is happening.
“You don’t want to reinforce the sort of ‘dopamine later’ idea,” Dr. Falkner said. “You want the little bits of dopamine now.”
Set up an emotional first aid kit for next time.
Think about what soothes you, so that you can be prepared for future bad days, Dr. Albers said.
A friend of mine told me he made a “serotonin playlist” that he uses to give himself an instant lift. (Music has been shown to improve mood in a “spontaneous and effortless” way).
Another friend has begun collecting positive emails and screenshots of texts from friends and family in a folder, which she pulls out when she feels down. I have started to do the same.
As corny as it sounds, I’ve found a suggestion from Jack Canfield, author of “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” helpful: Do what he calls a “rampage of gratitude,” taking one minute to appreciate everything you see.
This morning I received a text from my neighbor, who told me that a tree is leaning “dangerously close” to my house.
Before my Inner Eeyore could declare that the day was sliding downward, I fired up my serotonin playlist — heavy on ’80s pop — and went out for a quick walk. Thus fortified, I called my tree guy.
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