Nearly seven percent of adults in the Western world are suffering from severe clinical depression at any given time. Fifteen percent of us will endure paralysing depression at some point in our lives. And 18 percent of us have an anxiety disorder at any given time. These figures don’t include those of us who simply feel blue or unmotivated, or mildly unenthusiastic about life. Major depression is more serious than that, more long-lasting (persists at least two weeks), and more likely to lead to suicide.

One thing about depression, whether mild or severe, is that it tends to colour the day from the moment you wake up. So in order to help you feel better and enjoy your day, follow these simple practices and I am sure you will find your enthusiasm and joie de vivre again very soon.

How to Boost Your Mood with 6 Daily Practices

Instead of starting your day in despair, here are simple things you can do that might help to lift your mood.

1. Get Up Earlier: Research found that women who are early risers have a lower incidence of depression than their peers.  After controlling for sleep duration, sleep quality, work shifts, exposure to light, weight, exercise, and so forth, the researchers concluded that those who went to bed early and got up early had up to a 27 percent lower chance of developing depression than the night owls.

While tucking in earlier alone might not obliterate the blues, it may give you a bit of a boost. Experts point out that your preference for early versus late rising, or “chronotype,” may be driven by genetics, but it can also be influenced by things such as exposure to natural light, diet, and exercise.

2. Start with Water: If you’re one of those people who sleepwalk to the coffee machine and downs a cup or so before you can function, you might benefit by drinking water first instead. Water gives your kidneys, liver, and digestive system a flush to help get rid of toxins that accumulated overnight, and if you’re dehydrated, drinking water will take care of that.

Experts say warm lemon water is the best for getting the job done. Coffee, on the other hand, acts as a diuretic, dehydrating you even more. But most importantly drinking coffee first thing leads to the underproduction of serotonin, which regulates mood. That’s because coffee is an appetite suppressant and may lead to skipping or delaying breakfast, which will likely interfere with serotonin production.

3. Use Neuroscience to Set Your Brain Right: Our brains have a negative bias. In other words, the brain holds onto bad experiences and tends to discard good ones. When you’re already depressed, that negativity bias becomes even more pronounced. You feed your mind a steady diet of negative stories, and those stories keep building in your psyche, and the bias is so strong that simply telling yourself to cheer up is useless. Fortunately, neuroscience has discovered that we can create new, more positive neural pathways in the brain by learning how to focus on the positive. The key is to spend enough time dwelling on the positive for your brain to “digest” it, which means you need to spend a minimum of 12 seconds “drinking in” each positive experience you go through. 

Otherwise, the brain simply tosses the positive experience and reverts to the negative state. It helps to start each day with a deliberate program to dwell on the positive, whether you create a gratitude journal or simply list happy memories from the previous day.

4. Ban Technology: At least 25 percent of adults check their cell phones within a minute of waking up, and 80 percent check the phone within 15 minutes. There’s plenty of evidence that too much device time leads to depression and brain changes, as well as stress-related conditions such as hypertension, thyroid disease, heart failure, and coronary artery disease. Instead of reaching for the phone or the laptop, do your brain rewiring exercises and see how the day goes after that.

5. Do Your Exercise: There are arguments for fitting in your exercise later in the day, but those who do it first thing reap rich benefits. For one thing, research shows that those who exercise early in the day are more likely to institute a regular workout regimen and tend to be more consistent. And morning workouts have psychological advantages since exercising boosts mood-elevating hormones and endorphins to start your day, and the effects last for hours. 

6. Feed Your Spirit: This is not the same thing as setting your brain right with positive programming. Feeding your spirit means underlining your connection to beauty, goodness, and, if you’re so inclined, to purpose in the universe. You might accomplish this by meditating, practicing yoga, listening to inspiring music, or even praying.

There are many other things you can do first thing in the morning to promote well-being, and if you’re really depressed, it makes sense to also get counselling and take helpful supplements. But even if you only institute one of these six practices, you’ll likely see positive results sooner than otherwise. That said, the more of them that you make part of your life, the more positive the results you’re likely to experience.

I hope this 6 daily practices will help you feel better within yourself very quickly.

Namaste

Christel🙏