Blues Busters
Returning home from vacation, a spiritually uplifting week in Sedona, I was energized and eager to tackle new creative projects once my suitcases were unpacked. Imagine my surprise to find myself blue, sad and far from energized within days of coming home. My house felt inordinately quiet, I missed having coffee with my family. I longed to see the red rock mountains, star-filled skies and breathe the fresh air. Yes, I was glad to be home and grateful for the time away, but I felt restless and dissatisfied with my lot. My heart was heavy, and all creativity escaped me. I was working myself into a first-class funk. Now what?
Time to implement my sure-fire blues busters.
First step was to get my sad sack to yoga. There is magic that happens on the mat when you seek it. The purposeful movement and controlled breathing always work wonders on my mood. Before class, I set the intention to raise my vibration and release the melancholy. All forms of exercise help improve the spirit, but yoga is especially effective for me. I breathe in hope and possibility; I breathe out gloom and doom. The results are nothing short of amazing.
Next step, time to address the food/mood connection. Could this malaise be diet related? You bet!
When I was in nutrition school, we studied the connection between food and mood from many angles. I personally began to experiment with my own diet and watched the results manifest in my moods and attitudes. I learned early on that certain foods may satisfy my taste buds, but adversely affected my energy level and/or mood. Some food brought an initial sense of comfort and pleasure but within a relatively short time, I felt worse than before I ate. And eating more fruits and vegetables, I felt lighter. A green juice leaves me feeling practically euphoric. Time to clean up, dietarily speaking.
It takes some discipline to eat well when you’re feeling blue. The lower we feel, the more sugar and naughty carbs we crave. Unfortunately, those foods are the worst for improving our disposition. In fact, sugar is the number one food known to disturb our moods. Sugar worsens symptoms of depression. Talk about a vicious cycle. To read more about the evils of sugar, take a look here.
We are very disconnected when it comes to listening to our bodies. And that disconnect is nowhere more pronounced than connecting what we eat to how we feel. The first step to nourishing your soul, and boosting your mood, is to lovingly feed your body. That means a lot of organic produce, well-sourced and high-quality protein, and wholesome carbohydrates. No sugar!
Food is energy. Different foods carry different energetic properties and our bodies (and our mood) respond accordingly. Anyone who says that what they eat doesn’t affect them emotionally is simply not paying attention.
I had been lax about my diet even before vacation. It was time to pay attention to what I was eating and make better choices.
Finally, I needed to shake things up.
Vacations are wonderful for experiencing new activities, trying new foods, exploring different cultures and ideas. It’s not surprising that our lives feel a little flat after such excitement. I am a creature of habit and my routine had become exactly that – routine. No wonder I was feeling restless and discontented, I wasn’t feeding my soul nourishing activities. Simply put, I wasn’t having fun.
Injecting a dose of fun into one’s day sounds easy enough, right? In theory, yes. Why was I having trouble with such an easy, and fun, remedy for the blues?
One common question I fear most on first dates and job interviews, “What do you do for fun?” I always felt that my version of fun sounded, well, not so fun. And judging from the reactions I usually got, I wasn’t wrong. It took me years to learn to accept my interpretation of fun was indeed fun, for me. Who cares if I’m the only one who thinks so, as I’m the only one who gets a vote, and it counts double.
Sometimes when I get myself worked into a funk, I forget to appreciate importance of fun. In the daily obligations and responsibilities of adult life, it’s easy to schedule over fun time. But fun is one of the rewards you owe yourself precisely for carrying out those adult tasks and duties, and it’s important to your overall happiness. All work and no play, really is no fun! For more on creating joy, have a read here.
When you are in the doldrums, summoning discipline to eat well and enthusiasm for fun may seem hard to muster, but both are vital to busting the blues. And busting the blues is only self-care by another name. Making self-care top priority will always improve your outlook on life.
There’s nothing wrong with having a good wallow, once in a while. I repeat, once in a while. Think of it as a spiral – you can choose to spiral up, or you can ride the spiral down. If you find that your dark mood can’t be lifted with some exercise, better diet and a healthy dose of fun, you should seek professional help. Depression is serious business and should not be taken lightly.
As we head into the season of shortened daylight and endless to-do’s, make yourself a priority so that you keep the blues at bay.
