How to combat mood swings and stay productive during uncertain times

Utilize your calendar and block time for self care

Do you often rush through or even (accidentally) skip your meals because you feel short on time? Block a 30–60 minutes on your calendar for meal time! Personally, I plan literally everything on my calendar, for example, time for practicing Ukulele, showering, making arts, exercising, etc. When I do things that are planned, I feel more at peace because I know exactly how much time I have for a certain activity, and also, I know that I have planned time for other important things. Other than planning things out, I also keep track on how I am actually keeping up with my schedule. This does not mean that you have to feel anxious that you accidentally spend too much time on chatting with your friends, or watching shows. This simply gives you an insight about how you can better plan out your next day or next week. For example, you might realize that half hour is not enough for you to work on something, which in reality often takes one hour for you to do. Unlike a to-do list, time blocking could give you a rough concept of how much time that each of an activity might actually take. With a to-do list, you might often find yourself wanting to do so many things in a day but with so little time, and you might end a day feeling confused about your productivity.

Some tips about time blocking and planning self care on your calendar:

• Color code calendar events. For example, I use one color for “work” related stuff and one color for “life” related stuff. It makes it easy to examine how “balanced” my work vs life. It is important to sustain that balance as it gives you energy to be productive and focused. Personally, I found that a balanced lifestyle helps keep my mood at a certain level where I can be productive instead of sinking into deep depression. In my opinion, neutral mood is good enough, and I don’t need to feel constantly happy.
• Pick a day to do weekly planning and adjust your activities every (other) day. I find it helpful to track things on the calendar, because it gives me a sense of achievement seeing how much time I’ve spent on taking care of myself and doing meaningful work.
• It’s ok to have blank time slots when you don’t plan anything. The slots are the moments to breathe and do nothing at all. You don’t need to have a full calendar.
• Utilize time blocking for building new healthy habit(s). Once you start tracking things on the calendar, it is very easy to see what you’ve done throughout the week. Once you start making progress on your new habit(s) for one or two days, it is tempting to continue making the mark and see them reflecting on your calendar.

What are some of the self care that I could do?

One thing I learnt throughout the past few years is that it is important to recognize your mood swings. I’d spoilt myself to follow wherever my mood goes — if it went south, I went south. As you may know, some women suffer from terrible PMS monthly. PMS symptoms are believed to be related to a change in both sex hormone and serotonin levels that can cause mood swings, anxiety, and irritability. However, there are something you can do to mitigate symptoms caused by physical changes. Although it is important to take time to grieve, recognizing your mood can help you take quick actions to mitigate the greater effect(s) that you do not want. So, what can you do when you realize your mood is going south?

Use scents for a perfect distraction & as a moment to reset your mood

I like to assign different scents with different space. For example, I assign my work space with an “espresso” scented candle and my bedroom space with a “fresh linen” scented candle. To start a day for working, I’d light up the “espresso” candle to prepare my body and my mood to get into my “working mode”. It’s similar to what coffee does for some people to get into the mode. And when I light up “fresh linen” candle, I know it’s time to relax. Of course, I also use many different scents for relaxation throughout the day as needed, such as lavender, tee tree, etc.

Odor information is stored in long-term memory and has strong connections to emotional memory. Once you associate the scent with particular tasks (your body does this for you over time), you can easily get into the mood and feel prepared to be absorbed into whatever tasks ahead of you, or the space has to offer. This serves as a perfect moment for you to reset your mood, when you find you could use a nice distraction.

Reduce or schedule caffeine intake if you suffer from constant anxiety or insomnia as a coffee drinker

Do you have a habit of drinking coffee, tea or caffeinated drinks throughout the day and often don’t sleep well? Poor quality of sleep affects our wellbeing and might cause anxiety, because our short-term and long-term health and all our performance depends on the quality of our sleep. Try not to have caffeinated drinks after 12PM. Caffeine can stay in the body for a long time. If you drink coffee at 12 noon, by 6 pm, half of the caffeine in your body will not be digested, and by midnight, a quarter will be left. Therefore, drink coffee as early as possible to avoid it from affecting your sleep. If it’s hard for you to cut coffee or tea, or you simply don’t like drinking water, you could change your beverage choices to herbal tea when it passes 12pm.

Do what you enjoy regularly

There are many more other self cares that you could do to combat mood swings. What I find helpful is to do them regularly by building them into a habit. Instead of waiting until I notice my mood has gone down, I find it’s much easier to maintain the mood above bad mood, by doing things that contribute to both a balanced psychological and physical state.

Final thoughts

I feel extremely privileged to be writing this piece while sitting in my apartment, during this pandemic. Not so many people have time to combat their mood swings right now as they fight for life. It is still important though for those who are looking for ways to deal with anxiety, to take care of yourself, because it would essentially help you gather more energy to stay productive and potentially achieve more things, such as helping others. I simply wanted to share what has been helpful for me personally, and I hope they could be helpful for you too.