"Why am I in a bad mood?" The 3 most frequent reasons.

Mood swings can lead us to always have a bad face. These are their causes.

Sudden mood swings can be a source of discomfort that affect all aspects of our life.. They facilitate the emergence of arguments, distract and, of course, are unpleasant for those who experience them directly.

In addition, an added factor of discomfort is the fact of not knowing very well from where the bad mood emanates. When someone talks about the bad face we have in these situations, the answers we give about it are, "I don't know where it comes from, the answers we give about it are almost always insufficient.. For example, if someone complains that we have become angry when we have been asked a simple request, we will probably answer something like "you are always asking me for help".

The causes of bad moods

Despite the little logic that seems to exist in the reasons why someone thinks they get angry when they are in a bad mood, the truth is that there are real factors that explain a good part of these emotional states. Our mind is not independent of our body, so both the material state of our nervous system and our habits have effects on the way we think and feel. The following are the most important influencing factors.

Lack of sleep

Lack of sleep has a major influence on how we think and feel. When we sleep too little or with frequent interruptions, our brain does not fully recover, our brain does not fully recover, and this means that it has to face day-to-day tasks with very limited resources and in a bad way. and in a bad way. It must be taken into account that this set of organs is always active, and is therefore exposed to a great deal of wear and tear. The moments in which we sleep are stages in which this activation becomes of a different type, thus making possible the maintenance and recovery of these cellular tissues.

The result of this is, of course, that we tend to think worse and have a lot of difficulty in managing our attention well. In addition, this causes us to become frustrated and feel bad, which in turn makes it easier for us to reach the threshold of moodiness very quickly.. By the time the time comes in the day when someone asks us for something, we have already gone through a good number of small daily failures, and so we react badly to the need to put our brain to work again.

Thus, complaints are the way we try to turn into reasonable arguments something that is really a cry for help, a request for more time to rest.

2. Long-term stress

Stress is, at the same time, the perfect breeding ground for bad moods to appear.

In fact, it is rare that these anxiety levels maintained for days are experienced with a good face, as if this psychological discomfort were an uplifting sacrifice that is assumed in favor of a greater good. It almost always translates into temper tantrums and leads us to adopt a more cynical and pessimistic style of thinking.. Somehow, we remain biased and interpret everything in a negative way.

The reason for this is very similar to the case of lack of sleep. Continued stress is a consequence of a neuroendocrine system that needs rest and "disengage" from a series of tasks and ideas that capture our focus for too long, whether we want it to or not. This causes our thinking to go into a loop, a phenomenon known as rumination..

• You can learn more about rumination by reading this article: "Rumination: the annoying vicious circle of thinking".

3. Vital pessimism caused by a philosophy of life

There is a type of bad mood that is deeper and less circumstantial than that generated by stress and lack of sleep: the one that is part of the philosophy of life itself, of the way we have learned to interpret our experiences..

This is what from the clinical psychology of the cognitive-behavioral current is approached through what is known as cognitive restructuring.. The idea is to modify the way in which we interpret reality consciously or unconsciously.

Normally, people with this kind of bad mood read their life through a mental schema that predisposes them towards pessimism. It is their habit, just like brushing their teeth every morning or having toast with jam for breakfast.

For example, your achievements will always be interpreted as the fruit of luck or the help of others, while failures will be understood as a consequence of your real limitations. That is, the good will be attributed to external factors, and the bad will be attributed to the essence of oneself, something that (theoretically) cannot be changed. This process is influenced by what is known as "locus of control": the way in which we attribute what happens to us to personal or external characteristics..

Changing habits

This type of cause of moodiness is the most difficult to change, because it requires a commitment to personal change in the medium and long term (although moodiness caused by lack of sleep can also be very difficult to change if it is the result of a sleep disorder). Normally, this vital pessimism cannot be solved just by reading books, but it is necessary to change one's own habits and ways of doing things.It is necessary to change one's own habits and ways of doing things.

So, to go from "why am I in a bad mood" to "why do I feel so good if I am not particularly fortunate" the solution is, paradoxically, to start believing that we are fortunate because we really see that there is no reason to think otherwise. Getting rid of artificial worries, feeling motivated and transforming our lives into exciting projects are one part of this plan. The other part, of course, is having the basic necessities to live with dignity, which will allow us to have the autonomy to direct our actions to actions that pursue authentic goals.

Bibliographical references:

• Ardila, R. (2004). Psychology in the Future. Madrid: Pirámide.
• Gadenne, V. (2006). Filosofía de la psicología. Spain: Herder.
• Pink, Daniel H. (2010). Las sorprendente verdad sobre qué nos motiva (1a ed. edición). Barcelona: Centro Libros.
• Ryan, R. M.; Deci, E. L. (2000). «Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being». American psychologist 55   
• Triglia, Adrián; Regader, Bertrand; García-Allen, Jonathan (2016). Psicológicamente hablando. Paidós.