5 Tips to cheer you up in less than the time it takes to say “Hullabalolooo”

You may not think it from looking at me, but I am a person that constantly slips into a downward spiral of thoughts.

In a way, it is normal to do so. Every day, millions of thoughts cross our brain. When one negative thought enters our subconsciousness, it sometimes feels great to “feel sorry for ourselves”. One negative thought leads to another, and quicker than we know it, we are spiraling into a deep abyss of sorrow.

The good thing is, it is possible for you to train yourself to recognize that this pattern of thought is happening. It is also possible to re-direct your thoughts into a more cheerful mode in less time than it takes to say “Hullabalolooo”.  

Say what?

Yes, you heard it right. Being silly is one of best way to get yourself out of negative thoughts. Let me share the techniques that work for me.

1. Think of a happy image

When you feel your brain going down this familiar path, force yourself to focus for a moment on a happy image. For me, I try to bring up the image of a fat, jolly Santa Claus with a twinkle in his eye. I close my eyes, and focus on making this image as sharp as I can. I focus on picturing the twinkle, how fat his tummy is, and how jolly his laughter is. After a few minutes on focusing on this image, I always feel myself getting much happier.

2. Chant a "spell" for yourself

Similar to the concept of a happy image, you can think up a word or phrase that have no meaning at all except that it sounds funny.

The word could be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, from Mary Poppins, if you can’t think of anything else.

Or it could be a totally imagined phrase like “Kawabunga Alibaba”.

Repeat it a few times to make sure it rolls well on your tongue. Then whenever you are feeling that downward spiral, force yourself to chant this phrase as fast as you can, for at least 3 times. It is your very own self-made “spell” to “exorcise” the negative thoughts.

3. Music to soothe the soul

As the saying goes, music can heal the wounds which medicine cannot touch. When you are sad or blue, play your favourite songs on spotify or youtube. A growing body of research attests that music therapy is more than a nice perk. There is evidence that listening to music reduces anxiety and agitation, and to some extent may even help to reduce physical symptoms such as pain or nausea!

4. Move!

OK, this is a bit cliché, but moving really helps. But when you just want a quick pick-me-up, sometimes it may not be so possible to put down everything and go for a 5 km run. Sometimes, I also get depressed when I am working in the office (they say office can be one of the most toxic places on earth… haha), and I cannot just tell my boss that I need to be excused so that I can do some yoga stretches. So, what do I do?

It feels silly to share this secret, but what I do is I excuse myself to go to the toilet. When I reach the toilet cubicle, I will do some stretching, fist clenching and booty shaking - whatever I can within the small confined space of the cubicle to get my body moving. Trust me, this works!

5. Compare yourself… against the worst person

This goes against the usual doctrine of popular positive psychology, but hey, I never claimed to be a real expert. This blog post only writes about the techniques that work for me.

When I am feeling depressed about myself, sometimes I compare myself against a person in a worst circumstance than me.  It could be someone I know that is out of job, not in touch with his family or is a toxic person that people really hate. I compare myself against this person, and feel a rush of gratitude that I am at least not in that state. I then think about the things that I have – such as friends or family, or a nice roof over my head – and I feel much better.

There you have it. 5 tips to cheer yourself up in less than 60 seconds!