This is How to Improve Your Mood Based on Neuroscience

There are tons of reasons for being in a crappy mood.  Stubbing your toe, your dog doing his business on the kitchen floor, having financial issues, dealing with health problems, to name a few, can all make us sad and bring us down.

I have some friends who are in a bad mood until they have their first cup of coffee in the morning. “Don’t even think of talking to me until I have had a cup of coffee!”

These types of things are sometimes out of our control, so it is tough to affect the outcome. However, there are a few things you can do and things you can control for how to improve your mood.

In His Book, Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life, John Arden, Ph.D., former Chief Psychologist at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Vallejo, California offers a number of ways to rewire your brain for how to improve your mood. Of course, if you are suffering from severe depression, you may want to seek the assistance of a professional.

Let’s now briefly delve into some of the ways that Arden suggests for how to improve your mood.

5 Ways for How to Improve Your Mood by Rewiring Your Brain

I say briefly because he gets into some serious detail, much of it pretty scientific, so if you want to understand more of the science than I am presenting, you may want to check out the entire book.

(1)  Priming Positive Moods

According to Arden:

“Researcher Kelly Lambert has drawn attention to the effort-driven reward circuit in the brain as being particularly critical for lifting depression. This circuit involves three principles areas: the nucleus accumbens, the striatum, and the PFC.” ¹

Without getting into too much neuroscience, the network between these 3 parts of the brain connects thinking, movement, and emotion. So, basically, the effort-driven reward circuit connects the action you take or don’t take with rewards or the lack of rewards.

In fact, without even knowing which areas of the brain are involved, many cognitive-behavioral therapists have recommended depressed people to up their activity levels which has resulted in their being less depressed.

This is called behavioral activation, which can apparently trigger the same effort-driven reward circuit involving the nucleus accumbens, the striatum, and the PFC that we discussed above.

Furthermore, ‘putting on a happy face’ is actually a good idea.

As Arden explains:

“Thus, when you force a smile or a frown, you’re triggering the feelings associated with happiness or sadness. By smiling or frowning you send messages to your subcortical and cortical areas that resonate with happy or sad feelings. So put on a happy face—it helps you to feel better!” ¹

Make it Actionable: Increase your activity levels and put on a happy face!

(2)  Humor Chemistry

Another way for how to improve your mood revolves around humor. Scientifically, it helps to reduce cortisol, which is a stress hormone, while at the same time increasing cells that help the immune system fight infections (NK cells). It also increases something called plasma cytokine gamma interferon levels which help switch on parts on our immune system.

As Arden says:

“If you are able to develop a sense of humor about yourself, you’ll find that incredibly liberating. It ensures that you don’t take your current situation and yourself too seriously. Laughing at yourself allows you to see yourself as part of a great whole.” ¹

Make it Actionable: Have a sense of humor and don’t take yourself too seriously!

(3)  Light Chemistry

According to Arden:

“Many depressed people keep the drapes drawn because they don’t want to let the outside world in. This is a bad strategy because it cuts them off from natural light and changes the biochemistry of the brain. Low levels of light have been associated with depression.” ¹

Basically, our retina sends signals to our brain about whether it is light or dark outside which then sends that data to the pineal gland. When it is dark, the pineal gland secretes melatonin, which is a hormone that makes us sleepy. Melatonin is very similar in structure to another hormone called serotonin, and when melatonin increases, it competes with serotonin, causing serotonin levels to decrease. Low levels of serotonin have been associated with depression.

Those who live in the Northeast United States may be familiar with something called seasonal affective disorder or SAD.  Those afflicted with SAD may notice they become more depressed during the winter months as the amount of daylight is reduced.

Make it Actionable: To leverage light chemistry, Arden advises us to: “…take advantage of the benefit of light chemistry, maximize the natural light you receive during the daytime so that you will help your brain chemistry promote good feelings. The emphasis is on natural light because you need a full spectrum of light.

(4)  Aerobic boosting

We have discussed the positive benefits of exercise countless times on this blog and it turns out it is another strategy you can employ for how to get in a good mood. There are several ways it can help boost your mood:

  It enhances the oxygenation of your blood, meaning that as blood is transported to your brain, it makes you feel both alert and calm.

  Additionally, it can increase your energy levels by decreasing the acidity in your brain.

  When you exercise, you increase the amount of norepinephrine that is produced thus speeding up your heart rate, which can boost your mood.

Make it actionable: Whether it is hitting the gym, going for a walk or run, taking the stairs or even raking the leaves – study after study has shown exercise to be an antidepressant.

(5)  Wiring positive thinking

The last way on how to improve your mood that we will discuss is wiring positive thinking.

According to Arden:

“There is a two-way street between your moods and your thoughts. This is why CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) is very effective in treating depression. The goal of CBT is to “correct” your dysfunctional thoughts so that you can change how you’re feeling. In CBT you repair your cognitive distortions. If you are depressed, you probably get bogged down by cognitive traps, or beliefs that promote negative moods. These cognitive traps are distortions of reality.” ¹

CBT therapists use a method called “cognitive restructuring” which is a way to train yourself to modify how you think.  The idea is that instead of considering limitations, you start to consider possibilities on a regular basis to rewire your brain. By focusing on possibilities rather than limitations, you begin to form new connections between neurons rather than using the well-used ones that reinforce those negative emotions.

Arden suggests several ways of thinking that can be used to avoid negative thinking and moods to rewire your brain:

(1)  Thinking in shades of gray: by considering all the possibilities rather than only those that are black and white extremes, you will let yourself adjust to reality somewhere in between.

(2)  Context-checking: this has you adjust your perceptions and opinions to the context at hand rather than some preconceived opinion.

(3)  Optimism: looking at things as opportunities in a glass-half-full sort of way.

(4)  Detaching: this has you detach yourself from whatever constant negative beliefs you have.

(5)  Externalizing problems: if something unfortunate happens, rather than looking at it as a reflection of your worth, simply look at it as a problem you need to solve instead.

As with every topic we have discussed on this blog, the key to success is taking action and practicing these methods often and consistently.

Is It Ever Beneficial to Be in a Pissed Off Mood?

While reading and doing research, I was wondering if it is ever beneficial to be in a bad mood.

An article on Inc.com referenced the work of Dr. Joe Forgas, a social psychologist at the University of New South Wales, who has identified some interesting benefits of being in a bad mood:

“…he notes our fleeting feelings can change the way we think. Sadness sharpens our attention, making us more focused and diligent, thus making our creative output more thoughtful and less prone to clichés.” ²

Hmm, I dunno?  I wonder if being in a bad mood will improve my writing. Being the experimenter and Prime Your Pump guinea pig that I am, perhaps I will take one for the team and decrease my activity levels, frown, take myself too seriously, close the curtains, and skip my workout today.  Or perhaps, I could just skip my morning coffee…

Either way, I’ll let you know how it goes…

Until next time, keep that good mood going, and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

P.S. Wanna know more? Check out the entire book.

Use It or Lose It

Five ways that we discussed for how to improve your mood by rewiring your brain include:

(1)  Priming Positive Moods
(2)  Humor Chemistry
(3)  Light Chemistry
(4)  Aerobic Boosting
(5)  Wiring positive thinking

When to Use It

Use these tips when you want to know how to improve your mood.

What Do You Think?

What do you think of these ways for how to improve your mood? Do you currently use any of them? Will you use any that you learned? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

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References

1 Rewire Your Brain: Think Your Way to a Better Life by John Arden

2 https://www.inc.com/linda-naiman/can-a-negative-mood-make-you-more-creative.htmlkip