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Cognitive restructuring is a method for changing thoughts. Because thoughts heavily influence and determine moods and emotion, changing the way that you think about things the way you appraise and make sense of events changes your moods. When you stop thinking in ways that make you sad, you end up feeling sad less often, in essence. Cognitive restructuring is a method for fundamentally undermining and altering the causes of your chronic negative moods and emotions. Practiced regularly and accurately, it enables people to experience their problem moods less frequently, and less intensely.
The method is best suited for preventing negative moods from occurring in the first place, or preventing negative moods from getting worse, however. In order for it to work, you need to be capable of thinking logically and rationally. It is very difficult to do that when you are emotional.
You must turn to other techniques for calming yourself down when you are feeling upset. For those seeking addiction treatment for themselves or a loved one, the MentalHelp. Our helpline is offered at no cost to you and with no obligation to enter into treatment. Where was the sense in such repetition? Brampton, , p. Deep depression is not a complete absence of all forms of significance though. Many sufferers report intense feelings of fear, dread, isolation, and loneliness. They still relate to the world in some way, but in a way that is quite different from what most of us take for granted most of the time.
Sufferers often describe the change as akin to having died. They have lost the feeling of being alive, a sense of being practically entwined with the world and emotionally related to others that everyday experience obliviously takes for granted:. People talk about the way disembodied spirits roam the world with no place to park themselves, but all I can think is that I am a dispirited body, and I'm sure there are plenty of other human mollusc shells roaming around waiting for some soul to fill them up.
Imagine […] only knowing that the sun is shining because you feel the ache of its awful heat and not because you know the joy of its light. Imagine always being in the dark. Wurtzel, , pp. It is not that one doesn't feel joy but that one cannot feel joy. Moods thus open up certain kinds of possibility and close down others.
This role is p. A mood, as Heidegger points out, has neither an internal nor an external phenomenology: When we experience something as a state of ourselves or as a state of the world, we are already in a mood. Hence it is a mistake to think that we can contemplate and describe the world in a neutral, detached fashion by simply discarding a subjective overlay. One's mood is not discarded; it is a context of intelligibility that continues to be presupposed by all experience and thought.
In a world devoid of all significance, an objective account of the structure and origin of the universe could be of no more worth than a comprehensive account of the precise configurations of all the grains of sand in a bucket.
There could be no motivation for formulating a scientific theory, no sense of it being of any potential interest or consequence. It is doubtful that scientific theories would even be intelligible to someone in such a mood. Without relevance, significance, purpose, without a sense of the world as a place that merits exploration and explanation, the possibility of seeking to understand anything would be absent.
Indeed, it is arguable that a kind of seeking is inextricable from the process of understanding. Hence a sense of what it is to understand something would be gone. One would be presented with a series of hollow claims that one might indifferently assent to or deny but which one could not fully grasp.
Just such a loss of intelligibility is often reported in severe depression. For example, Brampton remarks that she found herself unable to read: Background mood is not something that any experience, thought, or conceptualization can simply transcend. However, as the deeper moods are often phenomenologically inconspicuous, their role tends to be overlooked. Hence scientific and philosophical accounts of how we experience the world generally fail to incorporate a sense of being in the world that they obliviously take for granted.
A question still to be addressed is what moods actually consist of. Granted, we can describe them as playing a distinctive kind of phenomenological role but what kind of state could play that role? In the remainder of this chapter, I will suggest that moods are comprised of bodily feeling and that the apparent p. We might speak of the feeling of being in love, the feeling that all is well, the feeling that something is not true, the feeling of being at the beach on a hot, sunny day or feeling like one is on a rollercoaster.
One could maintain, as Nussbaum , p. Nussbaum is of course right that not all talk of feelings refers to bodily feelings. Nevertheless, it is a mistake to think of all bodily feelings as states that have an exclusively bodily phenomenology. The same feeling can be referred to as bodily in nature and also as a way of experiencing something other than the body. We do not perceive our bodies in complete isolation from how we perceive everything else, and then link the two kinds of perception together by means of some subsequent mental process.
Consider, for example, the sense of balance. Losing one's balance or feeling disorientated is not just a perception of one's body or of the world outside the body. It is a perception of the relationship between one's body and its surroundings. A feeling such as disorientation is a bodily feeling but it is not just an experience of the body. It could be understood as referring exclusively to feelings of the body, experiences where the body or a part of it is phenomenologically conspicuous in some way.
This is consistent with the pervasive tendency to think of bodily feelings as having an p. However, bodily feelings can also be conceived of as experiences where the body feels something, and here there is no commitment to the assumption that they are experiences of internal states. I suggest that what applies to a feeling of disorientation also applies to many if not all of the bodily feelings that are implicated in emotional states.
The feeling body is an aspect of the experience but it need not be the exclusive object of the experience. Indeed, it need not be an object of experience at all. A bodily feeling can be a way in which something other than the body is experienced. It can be that through which we experience something, an agent of perception rather than an object of perception. This conception of bodily feeling follows naturally from the increasingly widespread recognition amongst phenomenologists and others that we do not experience and understand the world primarily as detached spectators but through our practical, purposive, bodily involvement with it.
A background sense of interconnected bodily potentialities structures perception of one's surroundings:. The body is the vehicle of being in the world, and having a body is, for a living creature, to be intervolved with a definite environment, to identify oneself with certain projects and be continually committed to them. The body is not simply an object of experience that one is intimately associated with or perhaps even identical with. Bodily dispositions to act, recoil, immerse oneself in activity, or withdraw from it are reflected in what things are perceived as offering.
Hence perception of the body and perception of what is outside it cannot be disentangled. Much the same point is also made by J. Egoreception accompanies exteroception, like the other side of a coin. Perception has two poles, the subjective and the objective, and information is available to specify both. One perceives the environment and coperceives oneself.
For example, integral to experience of an object is the sense that it might be perceived from another angle, revealing its hidden aspects. Different emotions depend upon different kinds of significance, different ways in which things matter to us. Solomon's claim that some emotions incorporate kinaesthetic judgements is susceptible to much the same criticism.
Bodily feelings can involve a sense of disengagement and passivity as much as they can engagement and activity. It is with more difficulty that the words are detached from the undifferentiated ground which they constitute; they may tremble, quiver; their meaning can be derived only with effort. When one is concentrating on the words, the experience of eyestrain, the discomfort, is clearly there but it is experienced primarily as a way in which the words on the page appear.
Then, as one attends to the experience, there is a phenomenological shift. One becomes aware of a pain around one's eyes and, in so doing, disengages from the text. The object of experience shifts but the discomfort, although not previously an object of experience, was surely not wholly absent from the experience. Strasser , pp. A feeling of tiredness need not be first and foremost a feeling of the body. We can inhabit our tiredness, experiencing the world through it rather than scrutinizing p.
It can happen that someone who is extremely tired, perhaps for a prolonged period, remains curiously unaware of it. Even though the tiredness is not itself conspicuous in a case like this, it might well be phenomenologically deep, a shape that all experience takes on rather than an inconvenience that one actively tries to shake off. However, as Heidegger , pp. He refers to the onset of depression and to a feeling much deeper than mundane feelings, which came to encompass all experience and thought: It is not a localized experience but a way of being that transforms the range of possible emotional experience: Numerous other reports of painful feeling in depression make clear that such feelings are neither directed at the body in isolation from the world nor vice versa.
They are bodily feelings and, at the same time, ways of finding oneself in the world. For example, Tracy Thompson , p. It follows from this that the role of constituting a space of significant possibilities is not performed solely by these moods. Sometimes, background feelings shift only momentarily. In other cases, these feelings might be so consistent and enduring that we refer to them as character or personality traits rather than moods. Furthermore, the distinction between having an emotion and being in a mood is a useful one. It is important to recognize that, even though existential feelings amongst which I include deep moods and intentionally directed emotions play different phenomenological roles, the two aspects of experience are intimately related.
For example, a sudden change in deep mood is often brought about by an intense emotion or series of interrelated emotions. These emotions, although intense, might at first be specifically focused and thus not very deep. Sue Cataldi describes the process by reflecting upon how she felt when attacked on the street. The initial disorientation gives way to an awareness of danger. The terror is not felt within a situation; it is the situation p. When intense emotions culminate in deep mood changes, the process is essentially bodily in nature. For example, here is how the philosopher Havi Carel describes her experience of receiving a diagnosis of serious illness:.
Pain and fear struck like a physical blow. It is difficult to describe the physicality of bad news. I remember looking at the room and feeling confused: Make it stop, I thought. This is the wrong story. Someone come and fix it. The realization that everything was about to change, that a new era was about to begin, seared like burning oil on skin.
It crushed me with invisible force. It is difficult to describe the pain and fear that descended on me at that moment.
Now I cannot imagine my life without this pain and fear. What she conveys here is a way the body feels and, at the same time, a dramatic and ultimately enduring shift in the space of significant possibilities. How the body feels p. Emotions can be complicated, dynamic processes, which have an elaborate conceptual structure that often takes the form of an unfolding narrative.
As Peter Goldie suggests, an emotion is:. They can be influenced by emotions and thus by the conceptual appraisals that are integral to at least some emotions. But existential feelings are not themselves conceptual. They do not incorporate judgements or appraisals of any kind.
By implication, they do not incorporate any conceptual content. An existential feeling is a space of possibilities within which we experience, think, and act, as opposed to being an experience or thought content. Conceptual understanding is required for that. However, I doubt that this is so. Consider the experience of surprise.
In order to be surprised, one need not have conceptualized expectations about a situation. Rather, the anticipation of what is likely to happen can take the form of an unthinking, habitual, bodily engagement with the world Husserl, , Expectations are often only conceptualized after one has met with the unexpected. I see no reason why the same point cannot be applied more generally—we anticipate salient possibilities through our feeling bodies.
One might also question the relationship between existential feeling and thought. I have argued that deep moods and other existential feelings structure experience by constituting spaces of possibility. But do they similarly structure p. Of course, they have effects upon what we think and upon how well we think. But the relationship, it might be argued, is causal; background feelings do not make our thoughts intelligible.
Unlike emotion, thought does not have a phenomenology that presupposes existential feeling, the reason being that thought does not have a phenomenology at all. However, this kind of view is, I suggest, mistaken. When a native speaker hears a sentence spoken in his or her own language, their experience is quite different from that of someone who hears the same sentence but does not speak the language. Drawing on such examples, Galen Strawson e. The view that conceptual understanding and, by implication, the process of thinking have a phenomenology can be further supported by a consideration of alterations in the experience of thinking that are reported in various psychiatric illnesses.
If there were no phenomenology of thought, there could be no such changes. It also seems that these changes are, in every case, intimately associated with alterations in feeling. Patients suffering from depersonalization likewise complain of changes in how their thoughts are experienced, which seem to be bound up with anomalous feeling.
Hence I propose that experience and thought are both structured by a felt sense of belonging to a meaningful world, a world that matters in various different ways. This existential background, when it remains consistent over a period of time, is often referred to as a mood. Such moods, and existential feelings more generally, are responsible for what Solomon calls the meaning of life. But they are not judgements and they are not generalized emotions. Instead, they are bodily feelings and, at the same time, spaces of significant possibility.
Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression. The Cry of the Flesh. Emotion, Depth and Flesh: What you do with one, influences the other. One of the best ways to transform a bad mood is to make yourself laugh. Watch a funny movie, listen to some stand-up comedy, read some jokes, or spend time talking with a friend about a funny experience. Maybe all you need is for someone to start tickling you.
Maybe a little tickle is all you need to begin seeing things in their proper perspective. When in a bad mood, you will often find that you are narrowly focusing on things. You are blowing things out of proportion and often making something out of nothing. In fact, you could very well be focusing on all the small and insignificant things that really have no meaning in the greater scheme of your life.
You are simply lost in the details of your life experience and have lost sight of the bigger picture. Take time to reconnect with the things that have the most meaning and significance in your life. These are the things that you are enthusiastic and passionate about. Your life suddenly has meaning and purpose. Live from this place every day and you will never have time to be in a bad mood. To reconnect with this part of yourself, take some time to make a list.
Create a list of the following things:. Refer to this list on a daily basis whenever you are feeling a little moody. A fantastic way to overcome a bad mood is to reach out and help people in need. This could mean helping a friend, neighbor or co-worker. Or you might prefer to support a great cause or charity in your community by volunteering your time and energy. The act of giving up your time to help another person will immediately help you to forget about your own problems, and instead, focus you on more important things. Who knows, helping another person might help you put your mood into its proper context.
Curiosity takes you from a place of powerlessness to a place of empowerment. You go from being a victim of your mood and problems to being the director of your life. These questions present you with new perspectives, possibilities, and solutions that may help you work through your problems successfully. Curiosity will also make you feel better about yourself in the moment, because you are no longer wallowing in your bad mood, but rather doing something about it. Did you gain value from this article?
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These packages provide you with the ultimate visual reference library for all your personal development needs. Buck Are You Feeling Moody? Just maybe some of the following reasons are to blame: You are moody because you are trying to escape your problems. Instead of trying to solve them you are more inclined to try and ignore them or run away from them. You are moody because you are indulging in procrastination or perfectionism. You are moody because you are indulging in negative thoughts about failure, about mistakes that were made, about the criticism you received, or about the regrets you have about things you did or failed to do.
You are moody because you are feeling guilty about something you did or said. This guilt is eating you alive and causing you to lash out at other people for no reason. You are moody because you are feeling stuck. You are moody because your life seems out of control. Problems, events, and circumstances are getting the better of you and you seem to have no control over future outcomes. You are moody because your beliefs are being challenged. Someone challenged one or more of your core beliefs, and this has sent your emotions into a tailspin.
You are moody because you are in some way being held back from reaching your unconscious or conscious goals. You Have a Problem to Solve Being moody means just one thing: You have a problem to solve.
Have you considered the consequences of your mood and how it affects your life and those around you? The goals that you are unable to accomplish lie at the root of your problem. Maybe all you need is for someone to start tickling you. Emotions always occur in the context of moods. It is not just that things no longer make one feel happy; a sense of their even having the potential to do so is gone. However, the intentionality of emotion is inextricable from the phenomenology of emotion.
What problem am I facing? How will I solve this problem? How will solving this problem help me improve my mood? Improving Your Mood There is a five-step process you can use that will help you to work through your moody feelings in an effective and productive way. Why am I in a bad mood? What did I expect would happen? What is the root cause? Which of my beliefs have been challenged? What goals am I unable to accomplish? Here are some questions that might help you through this process: What were my underlying motives? What were my actual reasons for wanting to accomplish this?
Why are these reasons important?
What else was important here? What am I able to control? Am I able to control how I think about this?