5 Ways Not Feel Meh

I bought an UP band a couple of months ago. This is a fun little gadget that I wear on my wrist. It tracks my activity level, calories, sleep pattern, and mood.

I consider myself to be a positive person. Optimistic. Seeing the bright side. I was surprised, however, when my UP band app asked me how I felt, how often I would have to honestly answer, meh. 

It’s easy to feel meh. Not up. Not down. Just indifferent. Apethetic. No matter how great life is, we can all fall into the lull of feeling, well, nothing. We get caught up in work, patterns, habits, and fears. I’m here to tell you that there’s a danger to feeling meh. Just like that frog in the pot of water that sits there as the temperature is turned up slowly until it’s boiled to death. Nothing kills your spirit more than the gradual and continuous malaise of feeling meh.

After charting my mood for a week, I decided to stage a mood intervention on myself. After some trial and error, I came up with a list of mood boosters to use whenever I started to feel meh. Here’s what I came up with:

1. CHANGE YOUR ROUTINE

I have a love/hate relationship with routines. There’s a part of me, like a baby or a dog, that thrives on routines. A routine is the only way I get my workout in first thing in the morning. Routine is the only way that I get to bed at a reasonable hour instead of staying up late and paying for it the next day. But there’s also the bad side of routines. They create ruts. They allow you to mindlessly move through your day without giving much thought to what you’re going to do next. Here’s how I found a happy medium. I continued my routine on a big scale but I changed the details. I still work out first thing in the morning but I change the workout. I still write every day, but I sit somewhere different while I do it. I still walk my dog, but we go a different route.

2. LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE

I laugh. A lot. Laughter is an amazing life force. It’s a healer. It floods your body with joy until you feel warm and loved and in tune with the beauty that is our Universe. Your body doesn’t know the difference between real laughter and fake laughter. Which means, you get the same benefit from faking it. (The same cannot be said for faking other things.) So now when I feel meh, I start fake laughing and keep laughing for at least five minutes. Fake or not, laughter kicks meh’s ass every time.

3. MEDITATE

Imagine meh as a gray, jellyfish like substance that hovers over your heart area and blocks access to your spirit. When I meditate, I envision breaking up that substance and seeing the light of my soul radiating through my body to the crown of my head. Visualizing this while quieting the mind is a sure fire way to feel enlightened and connected to your inner joy.

4. LEARN SOMETHING NEW

Challenging yourself by learning something new like how to play a musical instrument or how to speak a different language is a great way to feel engaged with life. Boosting the frequency of your brain waves by focusing on something new will boost you well above the meh level. I recently took up the Blues harmonica. I’m not great yet, but I sure have fun practicing.

5. DO SOMETHING RHYTHMIC

I read an article that said that the happiest people regularly engage in rhythmic activities. Think swimming, skiing, sailing, and drumming. The theory is that there is a rhythm to the Universe – a harmonious frequency that we can tap into. Once we connect to the Universe’s rhythm, we feel connected to a bigger purpose. Sex fits into this category too. So if swimming, skiing, and sailing aren’t your cup of tea, feel free to get busy between the sheets as often as possible.

Feeling engaged with life and not feeling meh is a practice. Sure, some people are born with rays of sun shining through their ass, but the rest of us have to practice the art of feeling alive and engaged. We have to make the choice to feel happy, to feel alive, to feel a part of something bigger.

Who knows, with enough practice, you, too, could get up every day with sun shining through your ass. And there’s nothing meh about that.

YOUR FUN, SEXY, SPIRITUAL HOMEWORK

• Read about UP bands here.
• Want to know more about the benefits of laughter? Click here.