SUDDEN MOOD SWINGS: 8 TIPS TO TREAT THEM - ARTE - 2025

The mood swings or mood state are emotional highs and lows, so a person experiences several different emotions in a short period of time. For example, you can go from experiencing joy to feeling sad, suddenly and sometimes without a clear cause to justify it.

These mood swings can negatively interfere in the life of the person who suffers from it, especially in the social sphere. It also manifests itself in the academic or work sphere and can occur in men, women, children, adolescents and the elderly.

Normally, this instability of the mood has been attributed to a greater degree to the female gender - due to hormonal change in certain stages, such as menopause or menstruation - and, although it seems that hormonal changes can produce greater instability of the mood, the truth is that it also it occurs in men.

Causes of mood swings

The causes of mood swings are many, and it is sometimes difficult to determine the specific factors that cause them. However, there are some common causes that facilitate sudden mood swings, such as:

Menopause

Menopause constitutes, for most women, a period of instability and hormonal, psychological and psychosocial changes.

All these changes cause, on many occasions, sudden mood swings to occur among women who are going through this vital stage.

Eating disorder

An unbalanced diet, characterized by periods of starvation and binge eating, in addition to other inappropriate compensatory behaviors, is also often accompanied by mood and mood swings.

In fact, when people suddenly feel sad or anxious, they usually turn to food for some comfort.

Some personality disorders (borderline, histrionic)

Borderline and histrionic personality disorders are characterized by accentuated emotional and affective instability. Social relationships are often turbulent and unstable, like romantic relationships.

People who suffer from any of these disorders do not usually maintain friendships or romantic partners for a long period of time. This emotional instability also usually manifests itself in mood and humor.

Premenstrual syndrome

Although all girls do not suffer the consequences of the so-called premenstrual syndrome, the reality is that many of them do experience emotional changes in the days before menstruation.

This syndrome, despite the hormonal influence, seems to also be due to the social learning that girls have throughout their lives.

Sadness and irritability are characteristics of premenstrual syndrome, and it is common for the person who suffers from it to have conflicts with others - for reasons that normally would not cause it.

Adolescence

Adolescence is a time of great change, challenges, and insecurities. Therefore, it is normal that at this stage of the life cycle, people have greater mood swings and that they experience an emotional roller coaster in the face of any adversity.

In addition, it is also a period in which hormonal changes can have a decisive influence on the adolescent's mood.

These are just a few examples of sudden mood swings.

However, as we have already mentioned, in other circumstances it is not so easy to determine the causes that cause it.

How to deal with mood swings?

Either way, for you to learn to deal with these mood swings, we bring you these 8 tips that will be of great help:

1. Learn to recognize your mood swings

Mood swings have characteristic physiological indicators, so with a little practice, you can easily recognize them from the start. For example, in a state of anger or rage, your heart beats faster, your breathing becomes more agitated and you experience a state of muscle tension.

In these cases, it is advisable that you detect this change in mood quickly so that you can avoid conflicts and emotional outbursts.

One way to do this is to retreat to another room and do some deep breathing exercises to normalize your heart rate and breathing levels.

After this exercise, you will be able to think more clearly and will be more willing to listen and understand the point of view of these people.

On the contrary, when faced with moods such as sadness, your body reacts more slowly to what is happening around it, you speak less and negative thoughts assail you.

In this case, doing some nice activity can be of great help, especially if you do it with a friend or family member.

As you can see, different strategies are needed depending on the emotion experienced, so the first step you must carry out is to detect the emotion in question.

Knowing how to anticipate its consequences will help you act on the emotion you feel and avoid its negative consequences.

2. Do not transfer problems from one area of ​​your life to another

Surely many of the mood swings you have suffered are due to insignificant causes that you have moved from one area of ​​your life to another. For example, if you have had a bad day at work, you may pass your problems on to your partner, friends or family.

In the same way, it could happen that, due to conflicts with your partner or family, you have difficulty concentrating at work or study. This is a feature that is frequently found among people who have mood swings or mood swings.

Therefore, we recommend that you try, as far as possible, to distinguish the problems that you have in the different areas of your life, so that new problems are not generated.

Learn to control these negative emotions, with the rest of the advice that we provide here, so that they do not harm you in other areas of your life.

3. Control the hours of sleep

One habit that can cause many mood and mood imbalances is having an irregular sleep schedule.

For this reason, you should start to sleep about 8 hours a day - without interruptions during these hours of sleep - so that your body gets used to having a stable nighttime schedule.

To facilitate this process of adapting to sleep, you can follow these guidelines:

Not having distracting stimuli in the bedroom. Many people try to fight insomnia by watching television, accessing new technologies or reading a book. If these activities are more attractive to you than going to sleep, you will be interfering with your body's sleep preparation process.

Do not eat large amounts of food at dinner, as heavy digestion will negatively affect your night's sleep.

Take care of the physical conditions of your bedroom. If the room is too bright or hot or cold, you should try changing these features to make it easier for you to fall asleep.

4. Reduce the consumption of alcohol and tobacco

If you are a smoker or consume alcohol on a regular basis, you should know the effects they have on your mood - in addition to the already known adverse effects on physical health.

Numerous studies have revealed the existence of a relationship between negative emotions experienced and the desire to consume alcohol and other substances, such as tobacco.

In this type of study, it has been found that people carry out an increase in the consumption of alcohol and other substances with the aim of increasing their mood, but, frequently, the opposite effect is obtained.

In this way, you enter a vicious circle that you can only get out of if you seek new methods to combat negative mood.

For this reason, if you usually smoke or drink alcohol, you should consider reducing these habits so that they do not influence your mood swings –and they do not enhance negative emotions-.

5. Eat a balanced diet

As in the case of tobacco and alcohol consumption, it may happen that you try to seek emotional comfort in food, after experiencing mood or mood swings.

And, in the same way, you can enter a vicious circle by trying to improve your mood through food and obtaining the opposite result.

Normally, when a large amount of food is eaten due to emotional distress, unpleasant feelings such as shame or guilt are experienced.

Therefore, avoid resorting to food in these situations and change this habit to more adaptive ones, such as going to the movies, going for a walk, having coffee with a friend, etc.

6. Write about your emotions

It seems that writing has a liberating power that allows you to face your emotions, rather than deny or suppress them. It is a liberating effect that has been shown through numerous studies.

For example, Klein and Boals (2001) found that writing about stressful events reduced intrusive and avoidant thoughts, so that the working memory capacity had more resources to use in other mental activities.

In other words, the writing technique can bring you benefits to better manage your emotions, while you can have a better performance in other tasks - work or academic.

For the technique to have the desired effect, you have to write about the events that occur in your life and about the emotions you experience, as freely and deeply as possible.

This technique will increase your well-being and will enable you to face conflictive personal situations that cause mood swings.

7. Seek support from family and friends

Surely your mood swings have led to more than one conflict in your closest environment or have caused you to end a romantic relationship.

Sometimes, it can happen that you do not feel understood by the people around you, since they do not know how to put themselves in your shoes and they do not show how sensitive they should be from your point of view.

With regard to this issue, there are two aspects that you should modify:

In the first place, it is recommended that you talk with your family, friends and partner - if you have one - and explain your situation to them, so that they can understand you and have more patience and empathy with you.

On the other hand, try to put into practice the advice that we provide you here to control your emotions, so that you can reduce the confrontations and conflicts that you usually have with the people around you.

8. Do physical exercise

It is widely demonstrated that the practice of physical exercise has great benefits in relation to psychological well-being - in addition to the physical one. By doing sports regularly, you will be able to increase positive emotions, so you will feel in a better state of mind.

In addition, it is a good emotional regulation strategy, so you can be able to calm sudden changes in mood or mood.

Regarding the type of physical exercise, you must take into account the rhythm of life you lead, in order to make a good choice.

For example, if you are a person with a sedentary lifestyle, the ideal is that you start little by little to establish small healthy habits, such as walking or riding a bicycle.

The important thing is that you make physical exercise a habit, instead of doing it only sporadically.

References

1. Bermúdez, MP, Álvarez, IT, & Sánchez, A. (2003). Analysis of the relationship between emotional intelligence, emotional stability and psychological well-being. Universitas Psychologica, 2 (1), 27-32.
2. de Cetina, CT (2006). Symptoms in menopause. Journal of Endocrinology and Nutrition, 14 (3), 141-148.
3. Jiménez Torres, MG, Martínez, MP, Miró, E., & Sánchez, AI (2012). Relationship between perceived stress and negative mood: differences according to coping style.
4. López-Mato, A., Illa, G., Boullosa, O., Márquez, C., & Vieitez, A. (2000). Premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Chilean journal of neuro-psychiatry, 38 (3), 187-195.