9 Easy Ways to Immediately Make A Bad Day Better

Yesterday I was at my brother-in-law’s house. He has two boys, right around my daughter’s age – they’re all toddlers. And my oldest nephew brought out a Pete the Cat book that I read for the first time, and absolutely loved!

In the story, Pete the Cat is having a bad day. He wants to skateboard, but it’s raining, so he can’t. But then he puts on his special sunglasses, and his day instantly becomes better!

Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses, by Kimberly & James Dean

This story just hit home for me. It teaches a powerful lesson that it’s taken me far too long to learn for myself: a day can seem bad, or good – the facts may objectively be the same – but the power of perspective shifts it from good to bad (or vice versa).

I just loved how the story explained this so clearly, at just the right level for a kid to understand. Bad day? You can make it better! Change the way you look at things, and you can make yourself feel better!

I loved how the story uses sunglasses too, because it literally is about changing how you look at things. By changing your perspective, you can honestly change your life. Sometimes it helps to have a little help from something special that makes us feel better.

I’ve only just recently learned this for myself. I’ve had feelings of sadness and depression my whole life. I was a melancholy kid. It’s how I’m wired. Early in my childhood I liked feeling sad, sought out sad stories, enjoyed a good cry, thought about losing my family… Maybe not “normal,” but I genuinely believe there are many of us out there who share this in common.

But as I got older, my emotions got deeper and more layered, and I started getting stuck in feeling “sad” (in its many shades), and didn’t know how to pull myself out of it. And these pits of sadness got stickier and stickier. And sometimes I’d get stuck in these phases for too long but didn’t know how to get myself out of being sad.

Now that I’m older, I’ve finally been learning how to stay out of these moods when I feel them coming on. I haven’t had a serious breakdown in almost a month, which I can fully appreciate!

I think getting better at staying grounded and happy is a combination of a number of things, which I’m trying to share in this blog. But one of the biggest helps is having an arsenal of tricks that make me feel better available to me at any given moment when I might need it. I have a really bad memory – made worse by depressive episodes – so it’s taken longer than it should for me to recognize the value in this, and to actually come up with a list of these things. (Actually, as I write this, I realize I really should write these things down in a concrete list.)

Tying it back to my point above, these little “saves” throughout the day are like Pete’s magical sunglasses. Those little things that I can embed into the day to make myself feel better, and nudge my perspective toward realizing from a bigger picture that truly, things aren’t so bad! Or at least, things aren’t all bad. That makes a huge difference.

With that being said, here’s a list of my favorite things to make a bad day better.

1. Fragrances

Incense (I wrote about using incense and candles in my “Journaling” post) really help shift my mood. The ritual of lighting something – incense, candles, palo santo, sage – is so relaxing. It forces a break into the day, but isn’t long enough to make me feel guilty for it. A little hand lotion also helps, with the added bonus of working in a little self-massage when you apply it. I don’t wear perfume, but I did for a while have a bar of soap that I adored the smell of that I kept nearby while I worked, and I’d stop to take a sniff of every now and then when I needed it. Weird, yes… But really soothing. (Has anyone seen that episode of The Office with dinner party at Michael and Jan’s place, where Jan has her candle making office upstairs and basically does what I just explained with the soap, with her candles???)

Zum Bar Soap – Frankincense & Myrrh – 3oz

2. A Hot Drink

Tea has been a huge deal around the world for millennia. Wars were literally fought over tea. Cultures and customs and traditions were built around tea. It’s powerful stuff. I’ve discovered that having a hot cup of tea or coffee, depending on my mood, is incredibly relaxing. I enjoy sipping on it, preferably out of a cute mug that matches my vibe. The hot temperature relaxes me. It puts my mind and body at ease. It gives me something good to latch onto, even when – especially when – I find myself on the verge of feeling stressed out or down. I find the ritual of preparing a hot drink calming. Sometimes I find myself stressing out over how long it takes, especially if I’m doing it in the middle of work, but that’s usually a hint that that’s exactly when I need it the most – to remind myself that yes, actually, there is time to stop and prepare some tea!

3. Makeup

I never did my makeup when I was younger. I didn’t care (or didn’t want to come across as caring?) about how I looked. But now that I’m older – an “adult” as some would say (haha!) – I’ve found that I really enjoy the ritual of applying makeup. It’s a form of creative self-expression. I feel better for it, during and after. Even buying products (all drugstore, so far) brings me joy. It sparks joy, as Marie Kondo would say. It feels good to take a few minutes to do this act of personal care in the morning for myself, giving myself that little luxurious pocket of time to do something expressly for myself. And a little bit of that feeling stays with me throughout my day, just knowing that I’m shining because of something I did for myself earlier in the day.

4. Meditation

I struggle hard with meditation; I don’t think I actually “meditate” in the proper sense of the word, but I’ll throw this in here anyway. I found this video one morning when I really felt like I needed something to help me ground and center for the day. I ended up loving it, and now I do like to start my day off with something like this if I can get a few spare minutes in. It really helps set the tone for the day, and if I’m really having a hard day I can force myself to take another break during the day to reset with this! (Five minutes is like a generous bathroom and water break, right? When I put the time into perspective, it’s easier for me to let myself take that break.)

5. Outfit

Picking a good outfit, like makeup, starts at the beginning of my day but can really help boost how I feel throughout the rest of the day. Look good, feel good, like the Italians say. Especially because I work from home, putting in a little effort to look good can help elevate my vibe and help me feel less scruffy, knowing that I put more care into my self-presentation. Comfort is still key though, and the benefit of me working from home is that I can wear something that makes me feel cute, without worrying about it being “unprofessional.”

6. A Good Book

A good book isn’t always something I can stop and break to dive into in the middle of my day, but I can carve out time for it in the morning, at night, and in small pockets throughout the day. It really depends on how determined I am to read it. But what I love about a good book – I’m partial to fantasy and science fiction – is that it transports me to another world where I’m usually faced with big problems, questions, and themes that make my daily stress look boring by contrast. I usually end up feeling refreshed, caring less about whatever I have on my plate at work (not in a bad way, just in a more professionally detached way that protects my personal energy). And it gives me something to look forward to later on!

I’m currently reading The Secret Commonwealth by Phillip Pullman, the second installment in The Book of Dust series. I’m obsessed with this series! It’s my all time favorite, so love that I have new reading material!

The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth (Book of Dust, Volume 2)

7. A Good Stretch

Like I’ve mentioned before, part of what I struggle with when I feel stressed out is feeling like I have time to do anything. But the truth is, there is time for what you need to do. You make time. A good mantra is, “I have time to get everything that I need to get done, done.” (There are different variations of that mantra out there, but that’s the general idea of it and that’s what matters.) But when I get really stressed out, sometimes I need to stretch my body out to ease some of my tension and give myself a physical reset. Even raising my arms up while I’m working at my desk can help, or stretching my neck. Stretching out my back, arms and hands is particularly effective because I don’t pay them much attention and I’m usually typing hard for most of the day. A stretch can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, but however long, I usually feel much better for it. Again, it’s a little perspective shift – I can feel bad about something – and usually that means I physically feel tense and maybe a little sick – but by stretching it out, I feel a little better about handling whatever was making me feel bad a moment ago. Even adjusting your posture can do this – check yourself throughout the day and correct your posture when you find yourself hunching over or collapsing. Power posing makes such a difference!

8. Go Outside

Pete the Cat’s sunglasses give him a perspective shift. Sometimes I just need to change my environment to get that, and to do that I love just stepping outside. I get a change of scenery. I get fresh air, which is so different from being in the space where I was just a moment ago, in a space that was occupied by my stress. Outside, there’s space for it to dissipate. When my daughter was still a baby, that was one of my tricks – when she was crying and nothing else would soothe her, oftentimes taking her outside would do the trick! She would feel better because she just felt so different. (Also, sunshine is good for the soul.) If I don’t go outside, I’ll open a window. Or just walk to another room, or take a bathroom break. Anything to step away from the space where I’m starting to feeling bad, to recalibrate before I come back to what I was doing.

9. Keeping Up the Momentum

Keeping myself happy is much easier when I’m already feeling good – “It’s easier to keep up than catch up,” right? I’ve been getting much better at stabilizing my mood, especially this year, as I felt truly, deeply ready to embark on my journey of personal development more than ever more. These little things I’ve mentioned above are all nice little tools that I use to help myself stay in that higher vibration, but it’s important for me to keep using what’s available to me to feel good, so that I stay feeling good consistently, and not just when I’m falling.

And… that’s it for now!

I know it’s super basic, but these are genuinely things that help me feel better throughout the day. My Pete the Cat sunglasses, if you will. Side note – I don’t have rose colored glasses, but I bet that would legit make a difference too. I’m going to keep an eye out for some and follow up here if it does help at all… stay tuned…!

What helps you make a bad day better? Comment below! I would love to read your tips and recommendations!