Everyone wants to be happy and yet it often seems incredibly elusive. We’d love to go through life feeling positive, but as so often happens, things get on top of us, and we don’t feel like it.

Worse still, how we feel can affect our eating habits. Getting miserable while on a diet is a surefire way to ensure it ends.

The purpose of this post is to try to explain this strange conundrum. We know individually that we want to be happy, but we can’t get there. This article explains why this sort of thing happens and what we can do about it. After all, we want to live a life we can enjoy, not one spent in misery.

But before we begin, it’s worth noting that sadness is a natural part of life. Everyone goes through it, even the most enlightened beings. The best we can hope for is a life that’s a happy experience most of the time, not just some of it.

Why Do So Many Of Us Struggle With Mood?

Here are some of the reasons why so many of us struggle to control our moods and feel positive about our lives.

We Have A Feeling We Need More

Having a constant gnawing feeling that you need more is one of the most insidious human emotions. It trains your mind to constantly imagine that happiness is just out of reach because you don’t have exactly what you want right now.

Having the feeling that you need more is unhealthy because it denies you the opportunity to be grateful for what’s already in your life. Even if you’re coming from a place of deprivation and poverty, unhappiness will occur if you constantly have a sense that additional material items will somehow change your state. They may do, but only a bit. Most people quickly adapt to new circumstances and feel exactly the same as they did before.

We Have High Expectations

Another common problem is that we have high expectations. We go through life believing it needs to be perfect and struggling emotionally whenever something goes wrong.

For instance, suppose you have high expectations from your relationships but they aren’t perfect. You’re going to feel robbed and wonder why your experience isn’t as good as it could be.

Again, the trick is to go through life without expectations – or desiring ways you think it “ought” to be. Instead, let reality do what it wants and be a casual observer.

We Have Unmanaged Trauma Or Pain

Another common cause of mood issues is unmanaged trauma or pain. Isolated, lonely, or mentally ill people are at far higher risk of mood issues that affect their ability to function. People can repeat the same thought patterns in their minds, reliving traumatic experiences and going through the same negative emotions repeatedly.

How To Be Happy And Really Get What You Want From Life

So what can you do to be happy most of the time and avoid constant struggles with mood? Well, it turns out you have some options.

Know That You’re Not Alone

The first step is to know that you’re not alone. No matter what you’re going through, it is also something affecting another person somewhere in the world. You’re not broken or fundamentally different from everyone else.

Practice Self-Care

The next step is to start practising self-care. You’re far more likely to feel great if you get enough sleep, eat right, and go out for regular exercise. People who engage in healthy lifestyle behaviours are more likely to feel good most of the time because of lower inflammation and better sleep-wake cycles.

Experiment With New Approaches

Lifestyle is the bedrock of how you improve your mood, but you can also experiment with other approaches. Changing your biochemistry with various supplements can improve how you feel and enhance cognition.

Take CBD, for instance. The hemp derivative has special properties that make your body and brain more sensitive to anandamide, a feel-good chemical your mind releases during various activities, including meditation.

Don’t be afraid to strike out and try something new. Eventually, you’ll find something that works, be it sports, acupuncture, or spending more time socializing.

Develop Coping Skills

Another approach you can take to becoming happy and getting what you want from life is to develop new coping mechanisms. Dealing with stress and anxiety requires patience and being kind to yourself, something you can’t rush. While the idea of coping might seem like putting a bandaid over the problem and forgetting about it, doing it properly can retrain your brain. Over time, you may find that your baseline happiness level rises and you feel generally better about the world.

Naturally, the techniques you choose should be the ones that work for you. Meditation is great for some people while taking time out works for others.

Fill Your Life With More Rewarding Activities

You can also enhance your quality of life significantly by engaging more in rewarding activities that bring you joy. The things you do should add to your energy, not take away from it.

Of course, many people with long working weeks can sometimes lose sight of the idea of fun. Every day winds up feeling like drudgery, with obligations to go to work, and so on.

But that’s the problem doing rewarding activities should solve. Going out on your bicycle or taking your spouse to a fancy restaurant is an excellent way to deal with general malaise.

Challenge Your Negative Thoughts

Another cool and relatively new approach to being happy and free from mood swings is challenging your negative thoughts. Actively asking yourself why you’re having these responses to life is a good way to get your mind out of the habit of focusing on the negative.

Say, for instance, you’re communicating something negative about yourself, such as telling yourself that you’re “lazy.” Instead of focusing on that, ask why your mind would even pose such questions in the first place.

What’s driving it? Once you know the answer, you can then chart your psychological history and see what is provoking it.