9 healthy habits that can boost your mood
- Practice gratitude
- Give compliments
- Experience and “go with the flow”
- Savor the little moments
- Exercise
- Get enough sleep
- Choose foods that boost your mood
- Work towards meaningful goals
- Meaningful goals and why?
- Experience nature
- Jonah Paquette encourages us to be awestruck (YouTube video)
- Jonah wrote Awestruck. I own this book and took his course on it a few years ago.
- I definitely recommend the book if you are interested in learning about how experiencing awe in nature effects us and how we can incorporate this approach and knowledge in everyday life to boost our moods.
In what ways am I able to check that I’m taking care of myself effectively?
This is a question that I frequently get.
To know if you are taking care of yourself effectively you need to slow down and pause. Practicing being aware of yourself, which involves slowing down and noticing how you’re feeling emotionally and physically.
Questions like, am I feeling overwhelmed? Am I tired? Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? will help when you pause. Give yourself what you need.
Distress scale (free download on my counseling website)
Having awareness to how you’re feeling and how well you’re taking care of yourself is the first step.
Use this distress scale to help you become more aware of how you are doing. The scale is 0 to 10, where 0 is that you feel at peace and are completely calm, and 10 is distress that is so unbearable that you cannot function. Refer to the scale, as-needed.
Self-care assessment (free download)
The second thing that you can do is to assess what self-care activities you’re doing and how effectively.
Use this assessment to check-in with yourself to see how you’re doing with self-care. Self-care activities are the things that we do to maintain our mental, physical, spiritual, and professional well-being.
Need help with forming your habits?
These habits are also ones that I help the people I work with adopt to improve their mood. – I can assign homework, and we use worksheets. — like from Awestruck.
If you’ve been feeling low or stuck recently, send me an email to reach out. Let’s see if we’re a good fit to work together. It’s easy to get started working with me.
I’m licensed in PA as a professional counselor, but I coach endurance athletes nationwide. Coaching is a non-clinical service. When you reach out, let me know that you’re interested in coaching and working on building healthy habits.
Related content
The Ultramarathon Mindset Podcast with Eric Deeter: Cougars, mantras, and swearing (2022)
Strengths and Weaknesses Inventory Worksheet for Athletes
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