Seriously.
I’m not selling anything, nor is this a quick fix. While their simplicity may make you want to roll your eyes or to not try this, below are two simple things as close as your thoughts that can lift your mood and make bad days better. No workouts or salads or white-knuckle willpower. Does it get any better than that?
Write Five Things You’re Grateful For Every Day
If you’re really miserable, write twice a day. If things are that bad, you may write only 3 things, keeping in mind that you’re going to work your way up to 5 or more.
Frequently people respond to this with a look like they’re trying not to roll their eyes. “It’s too simple. What good will this do?”
“Please, just try it. If it doesn’t help, you can always go back to being miserable.”
You don’t need a special journal, and technically you don’t even need to write it at all. Writing will help you get this habit started, and it’s a way to tell your brain that it’s time to think about something else now.
The nice thing about this task is that you can do it in boring meetings, when your kids are acting out, or your partner didn’t do what you asked. You can do it while driving (excellent for Chicago traffic), while “powdering your nose,” or anytime you need to reboot your brain. Personally, I prefer to do this when I’m falling asleep and while waiting for the morning coffee to kick in.
The list doesn’t have to be anything major, and keeping it simple is best. When you do this for 30 days, you’ll find yourself seeing situations differently. Keep doing it, and it can transform your thoughts and thereby transform how you live in this world.
And if that doesn’t motivate you, prove me wrong.
Laugh Hard Every Day
I’ve alluded to the importance of humor in previous posts. This is another way to redirect your thoughts, especially worrisome and depressing ones. It won’t cure depression, but it will offer relief, even if it’s only for the time you’re laughing.
I believe humor is so important that I assign this to depressed clients. When I went through a major depressive episode twenty years ago, before I became a social worker and therapist, laughter would have been a welcomed tool. Maybe its simplicity is why none of the professionals ever suggested it. And when someone is depressed, laughing is not one of the things you’ll naturally move toward. You have to be reminded to do it.
Obviously, you don’t have to be depressed to benefit from laughing. In our stressful world of overbooked schedules and instant access to the latest news, we could all use a laugh break.
Schedule time to do this. Half an hour is great, as it’s the length of a sit-com with commercials. And with YouTube, Netflix and other streaming you should be able to catch something funny.
Back in the day of printed newspapers one could turn to the comics section. Now you can go on Facebook or Instagram. Find a meme that cracks you up. Or an image that can stick in your mind, like the cat on this post. If it helps, print the image and post it as your wallpaper or on your refrigerator or at your desk. A LinkedIn contact posts daily jokes, and it’s one of the first things I look for every morning.
It’s ok to laugh out loud and it can be even better to do it in public. Back in the dinosaur days of printed newspapers and my marriage, the husband would get frustrated when I’d laugh at the comics. His response made me laugh even harder. Guess there’s a reason that relationship didn’t work out…
Eventually you’ll find yourself laughing, or maybe only “smiling out loud” at something funny that happened. For me, I can’t tell a joke to make my way out of a paper bag. And I laugh at all the punch lines I’ve blown. Once upon a time telling jokes to a crowd of people was part of my job. That was one of the hardest things I ever did, not because I did it in front of a crowd of people, but because remembering punch lines was really hard. Memories of people politely looking at me when I thought I nailed it still crack me up.
Just a warning, as we’re trying to make things better here, not worse. Do your best to find things to laugh about that aren’t hurting others. Animal memes are great as they’re generally not offensive and shouldn’t get you in trouble. Political humor can be ok, provided you keep it private or share only with like-minded individuals. Humor doesn’t have to make America’s Great Divide any worse.
There. Now go and do and let me know how it goes.