Happiness Clinic: How to Make the Most of a Really Bad Day

Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

It happens to the best of us, usually stemming from anger or disappointment or grief, something happens (sometimes more than one thing) and suddenly we are smack dab in the middle of a really, really bad day.*

Sometimes it’s like a kick in the gut, and you can point directly at what is happening to cause it, and other times it feels like you are swimming in molasses and you have no idea why.##

Here are some tips to get through your bad day and back to the business of being happy.

H.A.L.T (and think)

H.A.L.T. From addictions therapy, the H.A.L.T. concept is a huge help if you’re feeling bad and don’t know why. The initials stand for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. When you suddenly feel rotten, and probably a bit self-destructive, the first thing you should do is stop and ask yourself:

• Am I hungry? If yes, eat something (simple, I know).
• Am I angry? If yes, how can you handle it without being self-destructive?
• Am I lonely? If yes, who can you call or text or visit, or where can you go to people watch and enjoy the mass of humanity?
• Am I tired? If yes, as soon as you can, take a break, and a nap.

To expand on some of the H.A.L.T. advice, here are a few additional tips:

• When you eat something, make sure it has complex carbohydrates and/or protein. Simple sugars and fat can spike your mood and then drop it, leaving you worse off.
• A lot of what looks like mild long term depression is physical unwellness due to lack of exercise, healthy diet, and adequate rest. Even five minutes a day of exercise can help, and going to bed a half hour earlier each nights shows results almost immediately.
• When you feel angry, it’s a good idea to deconstruct why you’re angry. Were you really wronged, or were you rebuffed where you had either unrealistic expectations or a sense of entitlement? Being angry because you were treated with disrespect by a loved one is legit and the best solution is to talk as calmly as you can about how you feel. If this is a long term pattern, perhaps re-evaluate your relationship with this person. Being angry at a total stranger because he didn’t immediately drop what he was doing to do what you want to do is unexamined privilege, even if his job is to provide a service to you. Re-evaluate your expectations.
• Is your anger actually frustration at a circumstance you can’t change? If your phone, for instance, stops working and you have to stay on the customer service line, on hold, for a half hour for service, it’s not the customer service representative’s fault. You can be angry at the phone company if you want to (go ahead, I’m giving you permission – as if you needed it), but a better way of handling it is to realize in advance that this is the typical experience with the phone company, and plan for it. Get on the line, put it on speaker phone, and go about your day until the customer service agent comes on the line, or go to the local customer service center and bring a book, a magazine, some knitting, or something else to do while you wait.
• What if you’re angry at yourself? Sure, go ahead – but how useful is it, really? Realize you made a mistake or didn’t live up to a promise you made yourself or fell short of your expectations in some way, then do something about it.
• Loneliness in the short term can be very hard to overcome if you haven’t invested time and energy in building relationships. The first thing is to figure out what you like doing in your life and build your friendships and relationships around that. I like knitting and other fiber fun, so a large part of my social life centers around my knit group. I also have close friendships among homeless service providers and writers and editors, and a large group of people from a little corner of the web called alt.callahans, where shared joy is increased and shared pain is lessened. Building those relationships takes time, but when Maureen has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, (with apologies to Judith Viorst) those relationships can be a lifesaver. Oh, and Husband helps, too (love you, honey!).
• If for whatever reason you can’t connect to someone face to face when you’re lonely, there are other options. Participate in on-line forums or Facebook conversations, listen to music that transports you to good memories, write a (handwritten!) letter to someone you miss. Yes, even if that person is dead and buried. It will help. Really.
• Sometimes routine and ritual and gaining control of your space can help with loneliness. Cleaning. Decluttering. Organizing. Grooming (you know, showering and shaving and putting on real clothes). It’s worth a try. Heck, it even works for me, and I’m a notorious slob.
• Tired isn’t just physical. Sometimes its emotional. If you’re physically or emotionally worn out, disengage. Do something completely unchallenging. If you work, these moods are great for data entry or sorting email or stacking cordwood. If you have the luxury of time off, watch a mindlessly silly movie (I love Night of the Comet for times like this, or Princess Bride, or Shrek), or read a mindlessly silly book (anything by Harlequin or Silhouette, — but visit Smart Bitches, Trashy Books for Don’t Read This recommendations –  or anything by Piers Anthony or Harry Harrison or Louis L’Amour), or knit something in simple stockinette or other mindless stitch pattern, or play video games. With regard to video games, one caution. If you are mentally tired, you might want to avoid games with high frustration factors (Angry Birds, for instance), and if you are engaged in a MMORPG, you might want to use this time to farm or craft. Raiding when you’re exhausted is bound to piss off your raid group.
• Finally, go to sleep. If you’re having trouble sleeping, drink warm milk (with a bit of cinnamon and vanilla in it, it’s yummy) or take some melantonin (an over the counter supplement that works very well and is very expensive) or count sheep or (if you’re me) concentrate on a part of that danged book you can’t figure out until your dreams take over.

 What caused the bad day? If it’s something easy to identify and relatively easy to correct, do one thing to change it. For instance, if you just got notice that you got turned down for a job you really wanted, spend an hour cleaning up your resume.

If you’re having a bad day because you’re grieving (whether it’s the loss of a loved one, a dream, or something else important to you), allow yourself to feel the unhappiness fully. This isn’t going to be popular advice. We are bombarded with ads day and night that tell us that sadness is a disease that needs to be treated. Poppycock and nonsense. While major depression and other mood disorders are treatable diseases, sadness just ‘is’. Take the day off if you can, and wallow and let the emotion out, or if you can’t find work for the day that allows you to be alone with your thoughts, or at least steal time for yourself at the end of the day.

Bad days are normal. They happen to the best, the brightest, and even the happiest. What you do with them determines whether or not you get back to the business of being happy quickly, or whether you derail your hard work.

*If after a few days your mood doesn’t lift, and is getting worse get help as soon as you can.

## If you start having thoughts of harming yourself or others, get professional help immediately.

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