Navigating and Surviving Bad Days
How to manage and take responsibility for the occasional bad day
There are some days where you can have a bad moment and move on from it, and then there are other days where that same moment will push you over the edge and make you want to throw the whole day away. And the truth is, that is ok. It only becomes problematic when we find that most or many of our days feel this way. We all have the occasional bad day.
When we are having a bad day it is important for us to consider a few factors that may be contributing to how we're feeling:
How did you sleep?
Is your body nourished and hydrated?
What is happening in your environment and/or your life that you’re reacting or responding to?
How do you get through this moment without bringing other people down with you?
Sometimes our bad days don’t have anything to do with what is going on outside of us. It’s not about the day, or what anybody has done, it’s us. Sometimes it’s our hormones. Sometimes we are emotionally exhausted. Sometimes, we just wake up feeling grumpy. We have to be able to recognise when our energy has shifted, otherwise we’ll walk through life blaming other people.
We may also notice that there are certain circumstances, situations, or people that trigger our bad days. Maybe after interacting with certain people, having a certain kind of day at work, or a particularly challenging parenting moment, we feel off.
To preserve your relationships when you’re having a bad day you can:
Let people know how you’re feeling.
You can tell the people around you that you’re not in the best mood, or that you may be a little quiet.
Apologize quickly.
If you end up losing your temper, let people know you weren’t your best self, and acknowledge your behavior.
Reach out for support.
Often when you’re going through something, you think keeping to yourself is for the best, but isolation is not the answer.
My favorite thing to do when I’m having a bad day is to go to bed. I will say to myself, “This day is over,” and take myself to sleep. At that point, I’ve done all I can do that day, and the best thing I can do for myself is to bring the day to an end. If it’s too early in the day for me to call it quits, I love to turn on something familiar and funny. I’ll watch The Office, Golden Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, or some Adam Sandler movies. Sometimes I’ll even turn on a Hallmark Movie so I can see something steeped in kindness.
When we are having a bad day, we have to figure out how to bring ourselves back to ourselves without claiming other people in the wreckage. We have to find a way to pack some joy around the things in life that are beyond our control.
Journal Prompt
What are your bad day triggers?
What strategies do you use to ground yourself when you’re having a bad day?
What’s something you’ve had to apologize for doing or saying when you were having a bad day?
A Few Things That Caught My Attention This Week
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst, illustrated by Ray Cruz. You can find this book on Amazon and Bookshop.
The Longest Relationships of Our Lives, by Angela Chen in The Atlantic.
The Perfect Marriage, by Jeneva Rose. I’ve been reading a lot of fiction lately, and The Perfect Marriage immediately caught my attention. The storyline is incredibly gripping. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good page-turner. You can find it on Amazon and Bookshop.
Negative Thoughts About Aging Can Be Harmful. Here’s How to Reduce Them, by Emily Laber-Warren in The Washington Post.
Why Birds and Their Songs are Good for Our Mental Health, by Richard Sima in The Washington Post.
This was very helpful! Bad days are inevitable, but using tools to manage them is a straight up POWER move!
Also, I read The Perfect Marriage recently and thoroughly enjoyed it!
Love this, thank you!