Sometimes happiness feels impossible, not because life is terrible, but because your brain’s caught in a fog and can’t quite lift itself out.
Thankfully, you don’t always need a massive breakthrough or perfect situation to feel better. There are tiny, slightly odd tricks that actually work. They might not fix everything—wouldn’t that be nice?—but they do change your state just enough to also change your perspective. If you’re feeling low, bored, or stuck in a weird headspace, here are a bunch of strange-but-effective ways to make yourself feel a little more human again.
1. Walk like someone who’s in a good mood.
This sounds ridiculous, but your body posture feeds back into your brain. If you walk with your shoulders back, head up, and a bit of bounce in your step, your brain starts to believe something good must be happening. You don’t need to fake joy—just move with a bit more intention than usual. Even a few minutes of walking like that can lift your mood, purely because your brain’s trying to match your body’s vibe.
2. Do a task badly on purpose.
If you’re frozen by perfectionism or pressure, try doing something terribly. Wash dishes at half-speed. Draw a wonky stick figure. Fold laundry wrong. The point isn’t to ruin your day. It’s to remind yourself that not everything has to be a performance. This takes the edge off and gets you moving again. You’ll usually find that once you start, the pressure drops, and you end up doing it properly anyway, without all the stress attached.
3. Pretend you’re giving advice to someone else.
When you’re spiralling, try stepping outside your own head. Imagine a friend came to you with the exact problem you’re facing—what would you tell them? Chances are, you’d be kinder, more realistic, and way less harsh. That little mental change creates distance from your inner critic and helps you tap into logic, care, and calmness. It’s like becoming your own support system, just sneakily.
4. Talk to yourself out loud (like, really talk).
Yes, it feels a bit mad, but talking to yourself in full sentences out loud helps break the loop of anxious or low thoughts swirling silently in your head. It makes your thoughts slower, more deliberate, and easier to challenge. You don’t need a big speech—just hearing yourself say, “Okay, I’m overwhelmed, but I’ve handled worse” can do more than you’d expect.
5. Look at baby animal photos for 60 seconds.
Not five minutes of scrolling. Just one solid minute of puppies, ducklings, or baby goats wearing pyjamas. It sounds silly, but cuteness overload triggers a release of feel-good hormones almost instantly. Even if it doesn’t turn your day around, it can be enough to lift the weight off your chest a little, and reset your brain into something softer, sillier, and less stuck.
6. Change your socks (seriously).
It’s a weirdly satisfying sensory reset. If your mood’s off, and you can’t figure out why, try putting on fresh socks, even if they’re just regular ones. It gives your brain a small sense of control and comfort. Kind of like saying, “Right, we’re starting over now.” Sounds minor, but it actually works surprisingly often.
7. Put a ridiculous song on and commit to dancing for 30 seconds.
Not a moody indie track. Not your gym playlist. Something completely stupid, like a cheesy ’90s bop or cartoon theme tune. Then just move, like no one’s watching (because they’re not). Your brain can’t hold onto serious thoughts while your body’s flailing to “Cotton Eye Joe.” It cuts through tension and replaces it with something your nervous system can actually laugh at.
8. Pretend your day is being filmed for a documentary.
Imagine you’re the subject of a feel-good documentary about resilience or creativity. It sounds ridiculous, but it makes you more aware of your actions, and can help you move with a bit more intention. Suddenly, your tea break becomes a wholesome montage, and your afternoon walk is part of your big “turnaround moment.” That little narrative change makes ordinary things feel kind of charming.
9. Do a fake yawn until you actually yawn.
Yawning resets your nervous system and helps regulate stress. If you fake-yawn a few times in a row, your body usually starts doing the real thing, and it’s weirdly calming. This can interrupt anxious thinking, reduce physical tension, and send the message that maybe, just maybe, you’re not in danger—you’re just a bit fried and need a second.
10. Make something completely useless.
We spend so much time trying to be productive that we forget how good it feels to make stuff just for fun. So grab some paper and doodle nonsense. Build a weird snack tower. Reorganise your bookshelf by colour instead of logic. Doing something pointless gives your brain space to breathe. It moves you from performance mode to play mode, which is where a lot of lightness lives.
11. Smile while clenching a pen between your teeth.
It sounds like something out of a strange experiment, and it is. This trick works because your brain associates those facial muscles with real smiling, which can trigger a mini mood lift. You don’t have to be feeling it—just doing the action alone can give your mood a nudge. It’s low effort, low dignity, but strangely effective.
12. Sit somewhere new, even if it’s just the other side of the room.
Changing physical space, even slightly, can break the mental loop you’re stuck in. Sit on the floor. Move to a different chair. Work from the corner you never use. This change tricks your brain into feeling like something’s changed, which creates a tiny opening for a new mood, a new thought, or just enough freshness to keep going.
13. Narrate what you’re doing like a cooking show host.
Whether you’re making toast, brushing your teeth, or feeding your dog, pretend you’re presenting it to an audience. Throw in some flair, maybe an accent. This gives a light-hearted spin to your day and gets you out of autopilot. It might feel ridiculous, but that’s the point—it breaks the dullness and makes life feel a bit sillier, which helps.
14. Say “today isn’t ruined, it’s just wobbly.”
Language shapes perspective. Instead of deciding the day’s a write-off because you had a bad moment, frame it as wobbly—not broken, just a little off-track. This makes space for a reset. It gives you permission to try again without the pressure to fix everything. You’re not failing; you’re just recalibrating.
15. Do one thing slightly out of character.
It doesn’t have to be something wild, just different. Wear something louder than usual, take a different route home, listen to a genre you never touch. It jolts your brain into alert mode. That surprise element tells your mind, “Hey, we’re alive!” in a gentle, harmless way. And sometimes, that’s all it takes to change your emotional state just enough to feel lighter.
