5 Steps to Bounce Back From a Bad Day

A bad day starts when you spill coffee everywhere on your way to work. Then you space out about the important tasks you had to get done. The icing on the cake? Your boss cancels a presentation you spent all yesterday preparing for. Bottom line: Today sucked.

Even if you love your job, an occasional bad day is par for the course. It can be hard to shake grouchiness when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, are annoyed by at work, or distracted by world events or relationship drama.

The secret to recovering from a bad day is learning how to move forward despite it. How you respond can mean the difference between a quick recovery and a full-blown funk.

Here are 5 steps to help get you back on track so you can come back stronger tomorrow:

The only constant is change.

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Step 1: Embrace your bad day

You’re human, and like the rest of us, you’re bound to make mistakes or have moments where you’re not performing at 100 percent. As much as your inner perfectionist may be freaking out, forgive yourself. Give yourself permission to feel bad (for a little while at least).

Release any anger, guilt, or self-blame so that you can move on. Take a breather and walk around the block. Scribble out your frustrations in a journal. Call your mom or best friend. There’s no shame in crying in the bathroom, either!  

Step 2: Change your mindset

Once you’ve moved through the sorrow, shift your mood by asking yourself, “How do I want to feel right now instead?” Calm? Joyful? Strong? Consciously generate positive emotion so that you can get back to work with a fresh perspective.

Watch for ways you may also be blowing things out of proportion (“I’m not good enough. I always screw up” or “Nothing ever goes according to plan”). Unhelpful thinking is common, but you can unhook from it by reframing your perspective. To do so, first identify those automatic negative thoughts, then tweak your self-talk to be more balanced and realistic.

Step 3: Recalibrate mentally and physically

As you may know, bad days affect both the body and mind. Stress shuts down many normal functions, which is why you may feel anxious or rushed and experience symptoms like tunnel vision or shallow breathing when things are going badly.

Try bringing blood, oxygen, and calm back into your system with a grounding practice, stretching, or a few jumping jacks.

Step 4: Treat yourself — the healthy way

Don’t confuse self-care with self-sabotage. Skip drinking the day away at happy hour. Steer clear of numbing out through food, TV, or another substance or bad tendency. Focus on what restores you and makes you genuinely feel good, even in the tiniest way. That may be giving a calling a friend, going to bed an hour earlier, or saying “no” to a networking event so you don’t overextend yourself.

Step 5: Leave it behind

Emotions are contagious (including negative ones) and when work sucks, unhappiness can follow us home. Draw a boundary with an evening routine to signal the shift and bring closure to a bad workday.

At home, speak up and let your family, roommates, or maybe your pets know you’re having a rough day. Request space to decompress if you do need it, but resist the urge to isolate. Connection with others, even virtually, is an important component of happiness. It helps us realize that bad days are universal and also serves as a much-needed source of support and advice.

No one is perfect. Life rarely works out exactly as planned. Instead of beating yourself up when a crummy day happens, expect them. And remember, you get to decide how you respond when bad days happen. Will you let it derail you? Or will you choose to see it as a tiny bump in the road on the way to achieving your goals?

Ironically, a bad day can be a hidden gift — it’s an opportunity to show to yourself exactly how resilient you are. You have the capacity to do hard things, so go show today who’s boss.

This article originally appeared on unstuck.com and was written By Melody Wilding.

11 Ways to Stay Energized All Day

Stuck Moment: It’s 3 pm and you’re down for the count. You’re tired, hungry, and cranky — longing for a venti-size, two-sugar latte. Sigh. Once again, the rest of this workday is going to be an unproductive drag.

But it doesn’t have to be. All that’s required are some small diet and exercise fine-tuning to sharpen that remarkable instrument you call your body. Because what you feed it and how you care for it affects the physical and mental factors that contribute to productivity: Mood. Confidence. Concentration. Energy. Memory. Your immune system.

Even better, these tweaks to your daily habits are so easy to implement that they can quickly become second nature — building a positive and lasting impact on what you can get done. Let’s get started.

Go easy on your digestive system. Digestion is work for your body. After you eat, increased blood flows to your stomach and intestines for the energy-hungry task of breaking food down — energy which then isn’t available for other kinds of work. Like brain work. On average, if you eat a mixed diet of carbs, proteins, and fats, 5% to 15% of the calories (a.k.a. energy) you take in are used for digestion. To compare, the brain uses about 20%.

While some foods, like fats and alcohol, take extra work to digest, others, such as a pastry or white toast with jam, break down easily to glucose (the sugar that fuels brain and muscles). You get a quick burst of energy (yay!). But as soon as 15 minutes later, you’ll crash (oh no!) and need another sugar-fix. Why? Because your brain needs glucose delivered in a steady supply to keep it running at its best.

The upshot: Eat the right foods, in the right amounts so that the energy produced isn’t “eaten” right back up by your stomach. And eat to control the release of glucose into your system to avoid the blood sugar roller coaster.

Here are five easy ways to do that:

1. Your morning meal helps set your blood sugar pattern for the day. What you want: fiber, slow-burning carbs, some fat, and some protein. Try a shake (soy, almond, or low-fat milk) with fresh or frozen fruit. Or an omelet with veggies and multi-grain toast.
2. Choose foods low on the glycemic index, which means that they burn slowly, giving your brain that nice even flow of energy. Choose toast with whole grains over a white bagel. A handful of nuts and dried fruit over a cookie. Here is a helpful chart listing high, medium, and low-glycemic foods.
3. Avoid heavy meals. That three-martini bistro lunch you see on Mad Men? Terrible for productivity. Instead, order salads, veggies, a high protein-to-carb ratio such as a baked potato with tuna or a light turkey sandwich. Go big on volume (to help you stay full) but judicious on calories (to help you stay perky).
4. If you do opt for fast-burning carbs, counteract them with fiber-rich foods — even a snack-size portion of carrot sticks can slow the release of sugar into your blood stream. Fiber also helps you stay full longer, so you don’t get distracted by cravings. Use this chart to check the fiber content of common grains, proteins, fruits and vegetables. (Berries and lentils are big winners in the fiber department.)
5. Avoid foods that you know make you feel sluggish or bloated. Gluten, dairy, and soy are common culprits.

Get into the focus and memory zone. We all know the feeling when our mind wanders and nothing sticks. You scan the same paragraph over and over. And just when you finally feel like you’ve got it and flip the page, whoosh! It’s gone.

The ability to concentrate and retain information, like your energy level, depends on how you tune your instrument. Studies show that diet and exercise choices not only affect mental alertness, but also memory formation. Fortunately, it doesn’t require a diet overhaul. There’s lots of easy stuff that you can do right now to make today (and tomorrow) work better.

1. Get in a half hour of low to moderate intensity aerobic workout. No need to cross-fit or marathon-train to get brain-boosting benefits. Instead of carpooling, take a brisk walk to work. Or jump on a bike. Or get on the elliptical, where you can review an important brief while your blood gets pumping. Exercise and learning are the perfect multi-tasking companions; working out during or just before a demanding learning task has been shown to improve memory or brain performance. 
2. Stay hydrated. A parched system can tire you and cause headaches, making it hard to concentrate. You know the drill: eight eight-ounce glasses of water throughout the day. And avoid the double-whammy of sodas and alcohol when you need to get stuff done: They dehydrate you and funk up your blood sugar and digestion.
3. In addition to plenty of water, eight foods that help you focus are blueberries, green tea, avocados, leafy green vegetables, fatty fish, dark chocolate, flax seeds, and nuts.

Tend to your immune system. On average, we get two to five colds a year. But studies show that it’s possible to halve your chances of getting sick with some simple choices.

1. Just 20 minutes of light to moderate exercise (enough to break a sweat) five days a week will boost your immune system. If you do catch a bug, researchers found that regular exercise can reduce the length and severity.
2. Eat lots of fruit, especially citrus, during cold season. The vitamin and mineral benefits boost your immune systems, and Vitamin C can actually help reduce the duration of a cold by a day.
3. Avoid suppressing your immune system with sugar and alcohol. These indulgences make you more vulnerable to bugs and can slow recovery.
4. Sleep well because when your sleep is out of sync with your schedule, your immune system suffers. When ready for bed, shut off screens — TV, smart phones, tablets, computers — and dim lights to cue your body for rest.

Boost your body to boost your mood. Confidence, stress, and happiness levels are hugely influenced by chemical and hormonal fluctuations in the body — i.e., diet and exercise. And they, of course, affect your productivity. These three actions will pump up your mood to power through your to-do list:

1. If you’re a non-morning person who needs to function in the A.M., eating breakfast regularly helps you avoid becoming tired and cranky. Eat something light — not too much fat, not too many fast-burning carbs — such as a shake with almond or soy milk and fresh or frozen fruit. And don’t eat until you’re fully alert, which is when your body is ready to start digesting.
2. Regulate your coffee intake. While caffeine can jolt you awake, too much at the wrong time, like early morning on a empty stomach, can kick you into an adrenalin overload, stressing your system, and leaving you with the jitters or mood swings. However, an afternoon coffee (go easy on the sugar) is a good offset to the slowness caused by a heavy lunch.
3. Finally, there are so many benefits to exercise that there’s really no reason not to. For instance, just 20 minutes of walking or other mild workout will boost endorphins and other chemicals that give you a feeling of euphoria, help your body and mind reset, and leave you feeling clearer and fresher.

This article originally appeared on unstuck.com and was written by Unstuck

How to Cope When The Holidays Are a Time of Grief

The holidays might be anything but happy when you’re going through grief, heartbreak, or disappointment. Just as festive decorations and music that are meant to spark joy can turn into reminders of your loss or frustration, the end of the year can also generally be a lonely, challenging time.

Although there’s no magic switch to instantly recover from pain, grief is a valuable, healthy process. It puts your resilience to the test. You discover strengths you didn’t know you had and you learn that you can feel sadness without getting stuck in it. Most of all, you unearth opportunities to improve your relationships and well-being as well as prioritize what matters most.  

While there’s no right or wrong way to grieve, the strategies below can help you deal with the loneliness of loss during holidays in some of its different forms.  

You feel grief for a lost loved one

The holidays will be different now, so decide which holiday traditions you want to keep to honor someone and which ones you might want to change. You might also create new rituals to honor a memory, like making a donation in their name or playing holiday music they enjoyed.

Be open to offers of help from siblings, relatives, and friends. Scale back on gifts and decorating if it feels too painful. It’s okay to take things one day at a time and say no if you feel too overwhelmed.

You’re recovering from a job loss

Layoffs are common around the holidays and losing your job suddenly can be traumatic, particularly as you prepare to gather with friends and family. Even though you may find yourself vacillating between strong emotions like shock, sadness, and anger, try not to get bogged in defeatist thinking.

Rewrite the negative stories playing in your mind that it’s your fault or that you’ll be broke forever. Focus on what you can control, like starting small and sending one email a day to someone in your network. A job loss can actually be a clean slate that allows you to pursue a new direction (maybe changing careers or starting a business?), so hone your skill at spotting opportunities. Take advantage of the holidays to reflect on your values and plan for the year ahead.

You’re getting over a breakup

December is the most popular time for couples to split. The holiday spirit of togetherness only magnifies the loneliness of singledom. Instead of focusing on a lost relationship, appreciate the love that does surround you. Keep plans to see friends and family, but have a kind-but-firm responseprepared to set a boundary when people ask about your relationship status. Writing a goodbye letter to your ex (that you don’t send) is also a great way to find closure after breaking up.  

Remember to be a good partner to yourself, too. Follow through on personal goals like getting to the gym or cooking nutritious meals on weekdays. It’s a great way to build confidence during emotionally rocky times.

A happy holiday may seem out of reach if you’re hurting right now. There’s no shame in feeling awful for a little while. Cry, journal, create — take whatever action you need to find peace including seeking professional help. But don’t pretend like your grief isn’t real. Shock, sadness, and anger are valid emotions. Allowing yourself to move through the natural healing process — while hard — is the key to moving forward and enjoying yourself this holiday season.

This article originally appeared on unstuck.com and was written by Melody Wilding 

Calcium Sensor: Exciting Technology for Disease Detection

Key processes in the body are controlled by the concentration of calcium in and around cells. A team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Helmholtz Zentrum München have developed the first sensor molecule that is able to visualize calcium in living animals with the help of a radiation-free imaging technique known as optoacoustics. The method does not require the cells to be genetically modified and involves no radiation exposure.

Calcium waves -- a new sensor converts light to sound to visualize calcium fluxes in the body.Credit: B. van Rossum, G. Westmeyer / Technical University of Munich

Calcium is an important messenger in the body. In nerve cells, for example, calcium ions determine whether signals are relayed to other nerve cells. And whether a muscle contracts or relaxes depends on the concentration of calcium in the muscle cells. This is also true of the most vital muscle in our body -- the heart.

"Because calcium plays such an important role in essential organs such as the heart and brain, it would be interesting to be able to observe how calcium concentrations change deep within living tissues and in this way to improve our understanding of disease processes. Our sensor molecule is a small first step in this direction," says Gil Gregor Westmeyer, head of the study and Professor of Molecular Imaging at TUM and Research Group Leader at Helmholtz Zentrum München. In the study, which was published in in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Professor Thorsten Bach of the TUM's Department of Chemistry was also involved. The researchers have already tested their molecule in the heart tissue and brains of living zebra fish larvae.

Calcium measurements also possible in deep tissue

The sensor can be measured using a relatively new, non-invasive imaging method known as optoacoustics, which makes it suitable for use in living animals -- and later possibly also in humans. The method is based on ultrasound technology, which is harmless for humans and uses no radiation. Laser pulses heat up the photoabsorbing sensor molecule in tissue. This causes the molecule to expand briefly, resulting in the generation of ultrasound signals. The signals are then sensed by ultrasound detectors and are translated into three-dimensional images.

As light passes through tissue, it is scattered. For this reason, images under a light microscope become blurred at depths of less than a millimeter. This highlights another advantage of optoacoustics: ultrasound undergoes very little scattering, producing sharp images even at depths of several centimeters. This is particularly useful for examining the brain, because existing methods only penetrate a few millimeters below the brain surface. But the brain has such a complex three-dimensional structure with various functional areas that the surface only makes up a small part of it. The researchers therefore aim to use the new sensor to measure calcium changes deep inside living tissue. They have already achieved results in the brains of zebrafish larvae.

Nontoxic and radiation-free

Additionally, the scientists have designed the sensor molecule so that it is easily taken up by living cells. Moreover, it is harmless to tissues and works based on a color change: as soon as the sensor binds to calcium, its color changes which in turn changes the light-induced optoacoustic signal.

Many imaging methods for visualizing calcium changes that are currently available require genetically modified cells. They are programmed, for example, to fluoresce whenever the calcium concentration in the cell changes. The problem with this, of course, is that it is not possible to carry out such genetic interventions in humans.

The new sensor overcomes this limitation, the scientists say. In the future, the researchers plan to refine the properties of the molecule further, allowing the sensor signals to be measured in even deeper tissue layers. To this end, the team headed by Gil Gregor Westmeyer must generate further variants of the molecule that absorb light of a longer wavelength than cannot be perceived by the human eye.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Technical University of Munich (TUM). 

Journal Reference:

1. Sheryl Roberts, Markus Seeger, Yuanyuan Jiang, Anurag Mishra, Felix Sigmund, Anja Stelzl, Antonella Lauri, Panagiotis Symvoulidis, Hannes Rolbieski, Matthias Preller, X. Luís Deán-Ben, Daniel Razansky, Tanja Orschmann, Sabrina C. Desbordes, Paul Vetschera, Thorsten Bach, Vasilis Ntziachristos, Gil G. Westmeyer. Calcium Sensor for Photoacoustic Imaging. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2017; DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b03064

Technical University of Munich (TUM). "Visible signals from brain and heart: Imaging: New sensor visualizes calcium in living animals." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 30 November 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171130112358.htm>.