7 Extremely Low-Effort Ways To Cheer Yourself Up Besides Watching The Great British Bake Off
We’re in a mood. Way too often. These 7 tiny things might just get us out of it.
by The Candidly Team
Right, so maybe you don’t watch The Great British Bake Off and this title seems dumb.
And if that’s the case, go watch it right now. You’re 13 years late to a task that’s guaranteed to bring you a wild dose of pure, unadulterated joy.
But if you clicked in because you’re looking for other extremely easy ways to keep your spirits up, warm your heart, awaken you to the good that’s in the world, you came to the right place.
We, too, desire this. And we, too, are too lazy for self-help seminars.
And so, we found 7 scientifically backed, extra chill ways to de-gloom. Try 1. Try all 7. Many feel like nothing. Most take mere minutes.
Today, we tried numbers 2, 3, and 6. And we gotta say, we’re feeling pretty good.
1. Try a small change of scenery.
Studies show the most menial little edits to our routine or just giving our eyes something novel to gaze upon can spark happiness. Did we need studies to tell us this? No. Do we still pretty much ignore this reality and keep plugging on without changing a damn thing? Yes.
But if you notice your mood start to plummet, it’s worth getting a wee bit creative. Take a different walk to work. Right, you work from home. Or you drive your car. Take a different walk to a coffee or lunch place. Eat at a new coffee or lunch place. Find a park, any park. Watch the leaves fall.
Is this all just making you sadder?
Look, the useful takeaway here is that putting our physical selves in even slightly new or non-routine settings makes us come alive a little bit. It awakens us to all kinds of sensory experiences, energy boosts, and vital reactions. And vitality, my friends, is the fuel for a good mood.
2. Make like a plant and plop yourself in natural light.
If I’m buried under 3 blankets nursing a foul mood and someone tells me to go outside and get some sun, I’m probably throwing all 11 of my throw pillows at them (the instructions are in the name).
But once again, study after study shows that natural light is magic for our mental health. Light itself affects parts of our brains that regulate mood. One particular study of 500,000 people found that “each additional hour spent outside in natural light was linked to a corresponding decrease in the risk of developing long-term depression.” So, once again, take those walks, bask in the glow of any window, and don’t let the sun disappear for the day without soaking in its magic powers.
3. Walk, even if just for 10 minutes.
Yeah, that’s right. We have to tell you to walk, guys. We’ll lose our state-the-obvious license if we don’t. But truly, it’s maybe the most powerful tool in your toolkit. Even just a 10-minute brisk walk can measurably improve your mood.
Sitting all day puts us at increased risk for depression… and death, in case you thought you were depressed before reading that last bit. But taking walks even for just five minutes every half hour (don’t scoff at us; it’s science!) could help offset some of those effects. A 20-minute (again brisk) walk 5 times a week was found to lead to a “16 percent lower rate of depressive symptoms and 43 percent lower odds of major depression.”
So do whatever you can whenever you can. It’s ALL good.
4. Eat darrrrrrrrk chocolate.
At last, an exciting one! A 2022 study found that eating 85% cocoa dark chocolate can improve your mood. Not 60% . Not 70%.
85%.
We know. Intense. And a little less fun than if we told you to have brownies for breakfast.
But cocoa of this caliber has special abilities that, fascinatingly enough, tie into our gut microbiome (as all health things are seemingly starting to do). The chocolate with 85% cocoa actually had prebiotic effects that researchers concluded could “improve negative emotional states via the gut-brain axis.”
Wow, right?
5. Try an altruistic app.
First, we’ll give it to you reeeeally scientifically: “The tendency to engage in altruistic behaviors is associated with greater activity within limbic regions such as the nucleus accumbens and…” Ok, ok enough of that.
Translation: being kind makes us feel happy.
But going out of our way to be there for someone outside our immediate home-zone or signing up to volunteer isn’t necessarily something we do everyday. Which is why we love this app called Be My Eyes, which allows sighted people to take a moment to help a blind or low-vision person with a daily task for which they’ve requested assistance. It’s all done easily through the app.
And there are others like it.
Charity Miles, for example, lets you earn money for charity by tracking your walking or other similar activities whenever you do them and wherever you happen to be.
We know. AGAIN with the walking. But this time, it benefits your mood on two levels… and a charity! So it’s a win-win-win.
6. Smile.
Our first reaction to this one was “yuck.” Being told to smile by strangers is the worst of all fleeting stranger interactions. Ironically, smiling is actually the best.
But smiling needs to be organic. Doesn’t it? Our good mood or positive emotion is supposed to make it happen. Not the other way around.
Well, it turns out that’s not entirely true. You can kind of fake it by just making yourself smile more, and poof, your mood might just follow. It’s a little trick you can play on your brain, and it can even help boost your immune system. 2-for-1. Yay!
If this all sounds too Stepford wives for you, we get it. But since we’re really on the prowl for minimal effort ways to feel happier, we’re gonna go ahead and give it a try. We’ll let you know how it goes.
7. Do this unexpected 5-minute activity.
We wrote all about this activity when we recently discovered it can boost your mood more than mindfulness meditation. And it takes 5 literal minutes. It’s called cyclic sighing, and it’s pretty much just a breathing technique.
All you do is slowly inhale, preferably through your nose until your lungs are expanded. Pause, then take in one more sip of air to fill your lungs to the max. Take your time to slowly exhale that full breath through your mouth. And repeat this for 5 minutes.
Yeah, that’s it. Here’s a video of what it looks like.
If you need more detail on why it works, go here. Then, try it yourself. The benefits can feel wild.
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