Feeling Down in the Dumps? Here Is How to Pull Yourself Out

Be back up and running within an hour after life beat you down.

Yesterday, I hit a low point. It was one of those days where nothing seems to go right. I overslept and got up super late, which kills my mood right in the morning whenever it happens. After this, it quickly spiraled downhill, like a big lump of snow falling off a mountain top, creating an avalanche on the way. One piece of bad news followed the other. By afternoon, I was drained, emotionally messed up and stressed, despite the fact that I hadn’t accomplished much during the day.

We all have days like these. Every now and then we feel like the world’s a big sinkhole filled with quicksand and we are the poor soul who happened to stumble into it. Now we are submerging in it, all our cries for help and prayers unheard.

Pulling yourself out of a deep hole can be quite difficult. And without the proper battle plan, it can be next to impossible. But with it, it becomes a piece of cake.

Within an hour after my low-spirited episode and debating my life choices, I was back up and running. So I decided to share with you the exact steps I have taken to pull myself out of my hole and get back on track.

Step one: Stop digging

As I have written before, the first rule of holes is to stop digging. If things are already going downhill, the last thing you want to do is to stress out even more and make things worse.

So if you find yourself in a hole, let everything be as it is, block an hour of time and disconnect from the world. Turn off your social media and other communications and focus on getting yourself out. That is your top priority right now and we don’t want anything to get in the way.

To stop swinging the metaphorical shovel you have to take a rather counterintuitive first step. You have to accept and give in to the negative emotions instead of fighting them. Not in a “boohoo, the world is bad and I am going to sulk in self-pity” way. But rather accept your emotions as they are. Look at the feeling, examine it, feel it. Let it flow through you. The more you are fighting a negative emotion, the more you suppress it, the stronger it will come back and lounge at you. Soon, you will feel the negativity leaving and the relief coming.

Now that you have tended to your emotions, sit back, take a couple of deep breaths, and calmly assess the situation as it is.

Distinguish facts from feelings. Yes, you might feel like your whole world comes crumbling down. But in reality, it just is some bad news that temporarily triggers a neurochemical response in your brain. Assessing the facts without interpreting them and panicking helps you shift from “Fuck my life, I’m not worth crap and nothing ever works” to “Today I received some bad news. This means that I have to spend some time stomaching them, but this is totally normal and everyone experiences this. Overall these are just a couple of hours out of the over 700 I get each month.”

Once you look at the cold facts, they quickly calm the heat of the emotional battle in your brain.

Step two: Pull yourself out

Alright, we have gone the first step — we stopped digging and making things worse. Now all that’s left to do is repair the damage done and pull ourselves out of the hole.

Do a brain dump

If your stomach is upset, your body tries to get rid of the bad food by making you vomit. It wants to get the bad stuff out to make you feel better and heal.

The same mechanism works for your brain, only that the vomiting is a much cleaner act — it involves nothing more than a piece of paper and a pen.

So yesterday, I pulled out a sheet of paper and started writing. I vomited my thoughts onto the paper. Everything that upset me, all my bad thoughts, fears, doubts and the anger I had. Get rid of it. Get the poison out. Dump everything that’s in your brain and that upsets you.

Decompress & destress

Stress potentiates negative emotions. Plus, your stress level is likely to be high anyway if you’re feeling down. So bring down your stress level. For me, that means pumping loud music for a while and dancing around. If that isn’t an option for you, one of these things might do.

The point here is not to achieve Zen-like calmness, but to cool down enough so you can think straight and carry on with the next steps.

Move that body

Mens sana in corpore sano — A healthy mind in a healthy body

— Latin proverb

I messaged a friend of mine yesterday, saying that “exercise is the cheat code for life”. Not only does it keep you fit and in shape, but it also alleviates anxiety, mild depression and stress. These effects are mostly attributed to the release of endorphins, the “feel-good-hormones” in your brain. You don’t have to run a marathon, but a bit of movement like some squats or pushups will help you get back to normal.

Take a shower & dress yourself up

This is one of the most effective steps at all. There is something about being clean and about putting effort into your appearance. It catapults you out of the pit of self-pity (pun intended) straight back on the right track.

Go and take a shower. Shave. Groom yourself. Do your hair. Dress up. Look at yourself in the mirror, all prepped and ready to go. Enjoy the feeling of I can conquer the world. You’re welcome.

Get your surroundings in order

Just as cleaning yourself gives you a mental boost, so does tidying up your surroundings. After I finished my grooming, I tended to my room. Tidying it up and putting everything where it belongs gives you a distraction-free space to work in. Plus, the act of being productive and organizing your surroundings puts you in the right headspace.

Get some fresh air

It’s easy to feel depressed, restricted and worthless if you are caged inside. So I went for a walk outside. The sunshine in your face will lighten your mood. The wind blowing will freshen you up. Having the rain fall on your skin makes you feel alive. Get out, explore and regenerate. You will come back fresh as a newborn babe.

Be grateful

After the refreshing stroll, I came back into my tidy room, all showered and freshly groomed. The feeling was amazing. I felt as if I could uproot trees. The perfect opportunity to become aware of this feeling and practice gratitude. So I sat down and thought about all the wonderful things that had happened to me in the last hour. Visualizing and revisiting these memories helps to reinforce the positive effects they have on your mind.

Don’t sulk, even if it’s tempting

Now that you know how to pull yourself out of a hole, let’s talk about what not to do. You want to avoid anything that gives you an opportunity to sulk and sink into self-pity.

I know that when you are down already, it’s easy to give up on yourself, crawl up into bed and start a scrolling marathon or Netflix binge. While it’s totally fine to relax and recharge every now and then, you want to avoid these behaviors like the plague when you are feeling down already.

This is for two reasons. First, this will get you nowhere. It is a low-consciousness escape. While it will make you feel good short-term because you are dodging your responsibilities, it distracts you from what’s important — getting your shit together. If you feel like crap already because your day is not going well, how will you feel about yourself if you added another two hours of bumming around?

Second, these behaviors can easily become a go-to escape mechanism. While I am not a big proponent of painting gloomy pictures, escape behaviors and mechanisms are a prime way into addiction.

Doing something is better than doing nothing

Look, I know life can be hard sometimes. I know that sometimes you feel like giving up. We all do. And that’s cool. Nobody can give 110% all the time. That’s how life works — it will beat you up without mercy every now and then. The important thing is that you have to get back up — especially when it gets hard. Every little step in the right direction is, well, a step in the right direction. Upwards. Out of the hole. That is why even if you only do one of the things I suggest, you will still have done the right thing.

So pull yourself together and take action, even if it is just a tiny little step. You owe it to yourself.

~ Moreno

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