Ep 72 – Qs to reflect on when experiencing mood swings
By Shweta
We all have our good days and our bad days! But do you often swing from one extreme to another that is extreme happiness and joy to complete sadness and depression rapidly? Then that can impact your regular day to day functioning severely.
Hello and welcome back to the Deep Dive series of the Being Meraklis podcast and I’m your host and self-awareness coach Shwetha Sivaraman helping you ask the right questions.
Have you experienced sudden mood shifts? Happy one moment and suddenly angry or frustrated or deeply sad in the next? If you’re a woman I don’t even need to ask the question. Chances are we’ve had PMS some point in your lives, if not every month like me, where your hormones take you for a lovely little joy ride across the wheel of emotions.
Mood shifts happen suddenly and without any apparent trigger and can wreck our schedules, leave us feeling drained and exhausted. And if this reoccurs frequently, and we have more bad days than the good ones, our experience of life can be deeply impacted as there’s no motivation or energy to do the things we desire, there’s no stability in experiences etc.
Before we go deeper here, I must give a caveat, if you’re experiencing chronic mood shifts frequently, it is a must that you check with a doctor or a psychologist to rule out illnesses, disorders, or hormonal imbalances. For others who’re aspiring to be more balanced than they are today, here are some things you can reflect on:
- Is there a pattern to my mood swings? While it may seem random and arbitrary, if you look close enough there will be patterns to mood swings. The trigger for a shift could be as simple as interacting with a specific person in your life to thinking about a specific situation at work or in life or dealing with something we find unpleasant.
- Is there something common when I have good days? And the corollary of course, is there something common to my bad days? Look back at the so called good days this week and ask yourself what did i consistently do or not do in those days. Did all your good days have some form of exercise? Good quality sleep? Or maybe you stuck to a schedule of exercise, journaling and meditation on those days? Or did you not have alcohol/excessive caffeine on those days? These can give you a good indication of other activities that support your good mood and you can try and accommodate more of that.
- How are your stress levels? Are you extremely stressed or worried about something at work or at home? Excessive levels of anxiety and stress can also lead to mood disorders? If that’s the case with you, explore how you can manage that stress? Maybe speak to your therapist or your coach to get a grip on that stress as you work towards your goals.
And, don’t let mood swings add to the list of your worries. Deepen your awareness, expand your self-knowledge, and get better at self-regulation. Stability is the foundation of living a good life.
Deep dive on these aspects the next time you experience failure and find answers within! If you’d like more 1:1 support with me as your Coach, reach out to me for a 30 min discovery session and let’s explore if self-awareness coaching can help you draw patterns and build a stable foundation to living a good life.