It's natural to have days when you feel down but there are things you can do to turn it around
YOU can feel it's going to be one of those days”. From the moment you woke up everything went wrong. You opened the fridge and there was no milk for coffee, you had an argument with your partner and then got stuck in traffic and was late for work.
And when you get there your Wi-Fi just doesn't seem to be stable.
We've all had those days where we wish we could just climb back under the duvet and start over. And it's easy to fall into a slump, thinking nothing can make things better.
It's totally natural to feel this way, says British psychologist Julie Smith, but there are still things you can do to turn it around.
In this extract from her book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, she gives some practical tips you can use to turn bad days into better ones.
EVERYONE has low days. Everyone. But we all differ in how frequent the low days are and how severe the low mood.
Something I’ve come to realise over the years of working as a psychologist is how much people struggle with low mood and never tell a soul. Their friends and family would never know. They mask it, push it away and focus on meeting expectations.
Sometimes people arrive at therapy after years of doing that, feeling like they’re getting something wrong. They compare themselves to the people who appear to have it all together all of the time and are always smiling and full of energy.
They buy into the idea that some people are just like that, and that happiness is some sort of personality type. You either have it or you don’t.
This story is from the 28 April 2022 edition of YOU South Africa.
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This story is from the 28 April 2022 edition of YOU South Africa.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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