Have you ever thought about what affects how you feel? If you are interested in learning how to change your mood to feel better (you should be), pay attention.
How we feel at any given moment depends on two basic factors: our chemicals and our thoughts.
Let us examine each one in more detail.
A. OUR CHEMICALS
The biochemical makeup and the physiology of our bodies (chemicals such as hormones, neurotransmitters and trace elements that circulate inside our brain and body), directly affect the way we feel at any given moment. Our thoughts, memories, feelings, mood, and a whole series of important processes – our entire existence one could say – store up in the brain, that peculiar organ located inside our skull.29 We are nothing but one-and-a-half kilos of grey matter surrounded by an electrochemical solution!
How can we feel good without the necessary chemical balance in our brain and body? How can we feel good when we are not rested or have not slept well; when we are weakened by the lack or the poor quality of the necessary fuel, glycogen in the blood, water, oxygen, nutrients, or vitamins?
The reasonable next question to ask, of course, is …
Can I control my chemicals?
We have significant control over the chemicals circulating around the avenues and alleyways of our brain and body. We can, for example, eat or drink something, change our breathing, our posture, and our movements and – as if by miracle – formulate our body’s chemistry to produce the desired psychosomatic condition.
If, at this moment, you are not feeling particularly good, it may be due to the fuel with which you have stoked your engine – not just a few hours ago, but over the past several weeks or months. Hence, our current mood may be affected by what we have eaten lately. (Some scientists even suggest that you do not catch a cold you actually eat a cold.)
Any biochemical changes in hormones and neurotransmitters affect our emotions, our behaviour, and our health overall. Hence, our “chemicals” are quite important.
Good to see you pay attention to your diet.
At this point, we should also mention rest, which is extremely important for recuperating physical and mental strength. Some days the best move someone can make is to go home early to rest and enjoy some valuable, good quality sleep.
If you want to feel better immediately, take the first step in the right direction by making changes to your physiology. How are you sitting right now? Check your posture. Are you slouched in the armchair or are you sitting on a chair with a straight back? Sit straight on your seat and stretch your arms up.
To relieve some of the pressure of the day, change your breathing. Take 10 deep diaphragmatic breaths every hour. Breathe in for four counts, exhale slowly, hold your breath for two counts, and inhale again. Repeat this process as many times as you like. I recommend 10 deep breaths in the morning with a glass of water, 10 at lunchtime, and 10 in the evening before you go to bed. If people around you are wondering, tell them that you are following doctor’s orders!
The first factor that determines how we feel at any given moment is our body’s biochemistry. It is the most powerful means we have to change our mood in any situation. It works immediately and successfully.
Why do people take drugs, smoke, drink coffee, drink alcohol, or eat too much? To alter their physiology and change their mood. However, you do not have to go to these lengths. You can change the way you feel instantly, by changing your posture, your breathing, your diet. You can even change the way you feel just by some form of physical activity, or by just cuddling someone else.
Are we allowed to engage in intercourse?
Is sex allowed, teacher?
Of course! As much as you can. If, however, you smoke after sex, you are doing it … too fast!
The second factor that influences how we feel at any given moment is …
B. OUR THOUGHTS
Like you, I believe that external events and conditions influence our mood. At the same time, however, I believe that what happens is not as important as how one views it, and how one responds to what is happening (what one does about it).
If our thoughts at any given moment are pleasant, then we feel good. Therefore, if we train ourselves to control or direct our thoughts, we will also be able to control our mood.
Every good thought you think is contributing its share to the ultimate result of your life. – Grenville Kleiser
Our thoughts also affect our body’s physiology – it is a bidirectional relationship. In other words, there is a constant interaction between thoughts and chemicals. As much as I may try to change my thoughts, I will never manage to improve my mood if my body does not have the appropriate physiology. How can I feel good if I haven’t eaten and I have a stomach ache or if I haven’t slept and I have a headache? Conversely, even if my chemicals are in excellent condition, I should really learn to control my thoughts.
We all need to feel good, at least for some periods during each day, especially if we are experiencing difficulties and face tough situations. In their attempt to change their mood, people with a poor repertoire of stress management strategies often resort to unhealthy means, such as excessive food intake, alcohol, smoking, or even drugs.
This second section of the book focuses on describing a series of cognitive and behavioural techniques that we can consciously employ to manage our thoughts and our emotions. It aims to help you expand your stress management strategy repertoire and offer techniques to change the way you feel inside when things on the outside go wrong.
Ideally, the most effective way to deal with a stressful situation is to deal with the cause and resolve the problem. Yet, as we noted earlier, we do not always have control over the external parameters upon which an event is dependent. Hence, although sorting out the problem should normally be the first priority, rather than altering external conditions, most cognitive techniques focus on changing one’s emotions by changing the way we think about it.
Thoughts play an extremely important part in our experience of the world. What is going on in our mind can be a creative, constructive, or disastrous force. As we will see, we can choose our thoughts. Choose to think happy thoughts to experience happy moments. Many happy moments make up a happy hour, a happy week, a happy life!
In the words of Aristotle, “happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” More than anything, people seek happiness and, although happiness is the purpose, every other aim only has value because we expect it to make us happy.
The concept of felicity, according to Aristotle, correlates happiness with creativity. Happiness, therefore, is a feeling experienced when a person is developing his/her skills and engaged in meaningful and important activities.
Others consider happiness as the satisfaction that stems from the balance between a person’s needs and their desires.
Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get. – Bernard Meltzer
Controlling our thoughts, changing our appraisal of situations, and regulating the emotions generated by events are all effective strategies, particularly when we have exhausted all possibilities of resolving the problems ourselves.
Alas, let us take things from the beginning. As you well know, the best approach to disease is not cure but prevention. Before we talk in more detail about responses to stress from the moment an unpleasant event has become a reality, let us invest some time to the “pre-match” or “preparation” period, i.e., the period prior to the manifestation of a problem. To prepare for the sporting demands of the upcoming season, athletes begin training months ahead. How