Do you feel sad and maybe unsatisfied? Do you instead, want to start feeling happy? The truth is that everyone wants to feel happy.
Unpleasant and difficult events affect how we feel. We cannot always control these events, but we can learn to avoid letting them affect how we feel. True happiness comes from within, and is not dependent on events or circumstances.
If you focus on the unpleasant events, and keep thinking of them, you will feel bad and unhappy. As you continue thinking of them, their adverse effect on you would grow. However, if you could direct your mind to other matters, negative thoughts and feelings would weaken, and more happiness would enter your life.
Below, you will find a few simple tips to help you stop feeling sad and start feeling happy. Some of the tips might not be new, but it is always useful to be reminded of them.
Stop Feeling Sad and Start Feeling Happy
1. Get Busy
Sadness often leads to passivity and to lack of desire to do anything. In this situation, you start thinking negative and unhappy thoughts, and if you don’t stop them, they would get stronger and increase the feelings of sadness.
However, if you are busy doing something that requires your full attention, you will not have the time to dwell on unhappiness and sad thoughts, and they would start losing their power over you.
Get busy with work, fixing something at home, learning something new, giving time to a hobby or doing anything that keeps you busy.
2. Try to Smile More Often
It does not make much sense to tell someone who is sad to smile. People who are sad, usually, do not smile. However, if you force yourself to smile, even if this is just moving your lips as if smiling, does something to you. It would affect how you feel, and can make you feel less sad and more happy.
Try smiling now for a moment or two, and examine how you feel. You might be surprised to discover that you are beginning to feel happier and better.
3. Watch a Funny Movie
Watching a funny movie can make you forget your problems, even if this is just for the duration of the movie. It makes you laugh, and therefore, at least temporarily, relieves you from the load you are carrying on your shoulders.
You might not want to watch a funny movie while sad and unhappy, and prefer to wallow in your negative thoughts and feelings. However, if you want to feel happy force yourself watch a funny movie, even if you don’t want to, either on TV at home, or better, outside at the cinema.
4. Expand Your Mind and Thoughts beyond Your Problems
Do not limit your thinking. Look at your life, at your problems, and at everything in your life from a broader perspective. Think whether what you have experienced and caused you unhappiness is worth the time and energy that you are spending on it. Direct your mind to possibilities, to solutions, and to new thoughts.
Try to detach yourself from what is causing you unhappiness, and strive to focus on the things that do make you feel happy.
This kind of thinking can help you see your life in a broader perspective, and realize how small and sometimes, unimportant your problems and difficulties are. This would of course, change how feel.
5. Read Inspiring quotes
What is in a quote? It is usually a sentence or a few sentences that contain wisdom, truth or inspiration. Reading quotes expands your awareness, lets you see life in a different way, and brings you inspiration and faith in yourself. With this mindset, you open the door to happiness.
You can find many quotes on many topics, if you search for them on the Internet. You can also find many quotes, here, at this website.
6. Exercise Your Body
Exercising your body brings more oxygen and life force into your body and into your mind, and fills you with energy. This will make you feel more confident, strong and happy.
Any sport is fine. You can walk, swim, play football or basketball, take a walk or go to the gym.
7. Eat a Good Meal
Food makes people feel happy. Do not misunderstand me. I am not telling you to eat every time you feel sad and unhappy. However, eating a good meal, not junk food, will make you feel happier and more relaxed.
Eating junk food might give you a good feeling for a moment or two, but then guilty conscience might start bothering you for eating it. On the other hand, a good a nourishing meal would relax your mind and negative feelings, without any guilty conscience.
8. Buy Yourself a Present
Go and buy yourself a present. It can be something small and not expensive, which you can easily afford buying. In this act, you signal to yourself that you are important, have self-esteem, and deserve to be happy.
9. Learn to Focus and Control Your Mind
I saved this tip to the end, since unlike the other tips, which are easier to carry out and the results are immediate, this one requires more work and time. However, the rewards are great and are not temporary. I refer to learning to focus your mind.
Why should you bother with learning to focus your mind? If you want to be in control of your thoughts and of your emotions, you need to develop at least a little degree of concentration. This skill, and it is a skill, would make it easier for you to reject negative thoughts, stop dwelling on painful memories, and keep away unhappy thoughts and feelings.
I hope you find these tips helpful. Don’t just read and then forget what you read. Reading is not enough. You need to act. Try these tips for a week or two, and see if they are helping you to stop feeling sad and start feeling happy.
