Once in a while, I wake up inexplicably cranky. There’s nothing specifically wrong, per se. It’s just that, for whatever reason, everyone around me gets on my nerves. My husband will come into our home office and distract me at the exact moment I start writing effortlessly after struggling with writer’s block. My mom will call with some gossip about a person from high school I haven’t thought about (by choice) in 18 years. A friend will send me 10 photos of their baby that I just don’t feel like looking at (I’m terrible). My dog, it seems, is the only creature I can tolerate being around, and that’s because he’s perfect.
I hate when this happens because I know I’m in the wrong and yet it feels like everyone is hellbent on annoying me. Adjoa Smalls-Mantey, MD, a psychiatrist based in New York City, tells SELF there are lots of reasons why you might suddenly feel so irritated with the people around you—sleep deprivation, for example, can put you on edge, as can feeling stressed out about work or school. Other things that can mess with your mood include physical discomfort—maybe you’re in pain due to a chronic health condition, you have your period, or you’re hangry as hell—drinking alcohol, and skipping exercise for a few days when you’re used to working out daily.
All of these things can influence the amount of cortisol—the primary stress hormone—in your body, Dr. Smalls-Mantey says, and turn you into a real-life Scrooge. Here’s how to deal next time you’re feeling impossibly ornery.
Get familiar with your feelings.
When I’m peeved, the last thing I want to do is reflect on and accept how fundamentally frazzled I am, but this can actually help you perk up a bit, according to Tom McDonagh, PsyD, a clinical psychologist at Good Therapy SF in San Francisco. He likens this to mindfulness: “If you observe what you’re feeling and put a label on it—and keep reminding yourself that you’re feeling irritation—you can reduce the intensity of that emotion,” he says. This practice can quiet the emotional part of your brain (the amygdala) and activate the rational part (the prefrontal cortex), he explains.
In fact, when you accept your emotions for what they are and refrain from reacting or judging yourself for having them, even if they seriously suck, you actually suffer from them less, research shows. So, next time you snap at your partner or start crafting a passive-aggressive email to your manager, stop and put a name to your mood. Perhaps it’s irritation, sadness, or anger—whatever it is, identify the feeling and ask yourself how intense it is on a scale of 1 to 10. Your emotion “might spike at first, but eventually it should go down,” Dr. McDonagh says. Once you’re a bit calmer, you’ll be in a better headspace to manage your mood throughout the day.
Don’t assume every interaction is going to be horrible.
When I’m having one of these days, I’m miffed before anyone actually does anything to annoy me: I’ll see a text pop up on my phone and be like, Ugh, this is going to suck! without even seeing what the message is about. Rather than assuming your interactions with people are going to be dreadful, try to flip your POV and consider that they might be tolerable (who knows, they could even be positive!), Dr. Smalls-Mantey suggests.
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