Anyone who woke up this morning in a good mood deserves a medal. As the alarm chimed for the first time in two weeks and the winter’s chill made escaping the confines of your bed sheets unthinkable there must have been a nation-wide exhale of contempt for life, for today is a very dark day indeed.
January can be a tough month all told, with the festive cheer enjoyed in December evaporating leaving only the credit card debt used to finance it in its wake. But even this, the most gloomy of months, doesn’t account for the toil we Brits suffer year-round.
According to new research the average Brit will spend a year and eight months of their life in a bad mood, with each day seeing the average adult down in the dumps for a total of 41 minutes thanks to things such as a bad night’s sleep, technology problems, bad manners and the weather.
A lack of money, cold calls and poor manners also put people in a bad mood. Other causes can be put down to tiredness, feeling under the weather and fluctuating hormones due to PMS or the menopause, the A.Vogel Herbal Remedies study found.
But is it really worth it? A year and eight months of our lives seems like an awful lot of time to be feeling down in the dumps. It is also a considerable amount of effort! In that vein we have compiled the top ten bad mood breakers to help you beat the January blues, along with ten foods which have been proven to improve a terrible mood.
Bad mood breakers
- A cuddle
- Laughing with a friend
- Going for a walk
- Listening to music
- Chocolate
- A glass of wine/beer
- Having a nice meal
- A long hot bath
- An early night
- A lie in
Foods to break a bad mood
- Brazil nuts
- Oily fish
- Oats
- Bananas
- Lentils
- Chicken and turkey
- Spinach
- Cereal
- Dark chocolate
- Oysters