4 Scientifically-Proven Techniques to Overcome Sadness

We all go through sadness. We undergo ups and downs, and we all have our very personal way to deal with negative feelings.

I personally put myself into an emotionless state when I need to keep a cool head.

Sadness might be waiting for you at the next corner, so prepare yourself. This article will teach you four easy yet powerful techniques to overcome sadness.

1. Ask the Right Questions

Instead of burrying yourself into sadness, determine why you are feeling bad.

To do so, you must ask the right questions.

• What was I expecting?

• What is the real problem?

• To which extent is this situation so bad?

• What has hurt me exactly?

• Am I hiding what I feel?

If you feel bad, answer these questions with pure honesty.

Do not lie to people. More than anything, do not lie to yourself, and do not pretend everything is alright when it is not.

The goal is to find the underlying reasons of your sadness.

Try to consider every possibility. You sometimes feel sad for seemingly stupid things. But what matters to you, needs to be taken care of.

Once you understand why sadness has settled, you are able to overcome it.

2. Escape the Sad Negative Loop, and Enter the Happy Positive One

When you feel sad, you can't stop thinking about it in the twinkling of an eye. But you should prevent yourself from overthinking and making it worse. Otherwise you'll get stuck in the negative loop.

The process is thereafter:

You make your sadness even stronger and harder to overcome as you think about it.

In some way, you are your own enemy.

You have to reverse the process so you do not lose yourself. To do so, you practice the habit of positive thinking.

This is what you must achieve:

In other words, you have to do activities and think about things that make you feel good. Even if you think your world is falling apart, remember there are and will always be memories, moments, and people that make you feel happy.

You should:

• Spend time with your friends.

• Watch series.

• Learn a new skill.

• Play games.

• Think about something else.

3. Be Positive and Rational

It is neither the first nor the last time you feel sad. You will get over it in one way or another.

You will suffer from bad situations again and again. Life is made of many ups, and several downs. These bad moments are obstacles you must overcome to get tougher, and summon the best version of yourself.

Think positive, sadness is a good thing because it makes every little spark you feel much more intense.

Compare your life to a game. There are rules by which you would like to play, and there are other people who would like to play by other rules. It might make you feel sad, but that's the game. And it is nothing short of a disaster.

Move on and pave your own path.

4. Tweak Your Memory Using Your Imagination

This technique comes from Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

The principle is to:

1. Dive deep into your memory and focus on the cause of your sadness.

2. Visualize the cause of your sadness (a person, a moment, a place, etc).

3. Close your eyes, relax, and play with the cause of your sadness using your imagination (changing colors, shapes, perspectives, physical attributes, etc).

The goal is to gradually approach and feel accustomed to the cause of your sadness until you accept and get over it.

By playing with it using your imagination you can tweak every detail to make it more acceptable and less hurtful.

For your brain, thinking about a past experience equates to living it again.

If you turn a sad moment into a warm and joyful one, you'll easily step out of your current sadness.

When Will It Be Over?

You know your sadness is gone when you surprisingly find yourself thinking about it and feeling nothing.

All good things come to an end. Bad things too.

Get to the heart of your sadness. Do not try to avoid it, and do not try to forget it either.

You'd better hurt yourself once and for all rather than to keep something rotting inside you until it backfires.