It’s safe to say we have all woken up on the wrong side of the bed at some point. Or experienced an interaction throughout the day that left us feeling down. Or maybe we can’t quite explain it, but we just feel blah all over.

We know we don’t want to feel this way, but the mood fairy with their magic wand and pixie dust didn’t get the memo, and you’re left trying to snap out of your funk on your own.

Here’s a little trick you can try the next time you feel that sense of sluggishness, and you wanna shake it off.

Set a timer.

5 minutes… 10 minutes… No more than 15 minutes.
You don’t want this feeling like a chore, or yet another time-consuming obligation. It’s a reset technique, so the quicker the better.

While it’s important to not deny our emotions, and to allow ourselves time to feel them, ruminating and wallowing isn’t healthy either. Sometimes we feel the urge to switch mental gears, we are just missing the technique we need to do so quickly, while having a bit of fun at the same time.

Here are some fresh ideas:

• Get up and dance!
• Scribble with pencil on plain paper. Just scribble.
• Look at something as if you are seeing it for the first time ever—a flower, a book, a cupcake, your pet… anything! Use as many of your senses as possible to observe everything about this item, from all sides, angles, perspectives.
• Walk up and down a flight of stairs as many times as you can.
• Cut and paste. Find scissors, paper, and glue. Cut random shapes and paste them in your art journal without any plan in mind.
• Stand in a cold shower—I promise you will laugh!
• Write in your journal in raw, brain dump fashion, then shred/burn/paint over it.
• Light a candle or a stick of incense and simply watch the smoke dance + play.
• Listen to a short guided meditation or audio story (not an audio book—you want to start and finish before your timer goes off) and let it carry you away.
• Walk outside in your bare feet no matter the weather or season, seriously. I cannot even explain how grounded and centred this makes me feel.
• Draw a page full of circles and challenge yourself to turn those circles into various round objects—like a tire, pizza, face, sun, etc.
• Drink water, and appreciate every sip and gulp.
• Laugh! Watch quick goofy videos, try laughter therapy, or simply start laughing out loud!
• Grab any mark-making tool and, following the cadence of your breath, draw lines in your art journal—up and down, side to side, diagonal.
• Call a friend. Reaching out to someone you haven’t connected to in a while is a mood-booster for both of you!
• Play in the dirt. Repot a houseplant, dig in your garden. Get your hands dirty.
• List everything you are grateful for.
• Finger paint. You heard me.
• Perform a random act of kindness.
• Write somebody—or yourself—a love note.

If you try any of these, I’d love to hear how they helped. And if you have any other surefire mood-changing hacks, let me know in the comments!