What To Do When You Wake Up Depressed and Feel Bad In The Morning

Do you ever wake up and feel like you just don’t want to get out of bed? Whether you’re dreading the day ahead or feel too tired or sad to want to move, the energy and emotions you feel first thing in the morning can often dictate the course of the entire day.

When you wake up depressed, you need to take time to put yourself into the right state of mind, before you begin your day. No matter how bad you feel in the morning, you always have the ability to set your day off on the right foot.Fortunately, you always have the ability to set your day off on the right foot.

In this post I’ll show you how.

Why Do You Feel Bad In The Morning?

The way you feel when you wake up in the morning is always connected to the habits of thought and energy you have developed in your life.

If you consistently think negative or anxious thoughts, you will create tension in your body that does not allow your mind to rest fully when you sleep. Your dreams will likely reflect the fears and negative feelings you hold, which means that when you wake up, the remnants of these dreams will still be present in your consciousness – even if you can’t remember what those dreams were.

What you think, how you feel, and what you experience, always matches.

You have two primary opportunities to reset these thoughts, and shift the pattern of energy and emotion you experience. The first is in the evening before you go to sleep, and the second is first thing in the morning when you wake up.

When you sleep, you stop the train of thoughts that had been passing through your mind throughout the day. This gives you an opportunity to change the direction of those thoughts. The best way to do this is to practice getting a peaceful night’s sleep, so you are less disturbed by your dreams and can rest more fully.

Since what you think about before you go to sleep has a powerful impact over how well you rest, make sure you take time in the evening to decompress and relax. Don’t watch violent tv before bed, and don’t work on anything that makes you feel stressed. Instead, use the hour before bed to wind down from the day, and begin to calm your mind.

This is the first step, but if you’ve already woken up depressed and feeling bad in the morning, there are still several tools you can use.

What To Do When You Wake Up Feeling Sad or Depressed

No matter how well you prepare for bed in the evening, some mornings you just wake up feeling really bad. What matters is not how you feel the second you open your eyes, but how you choose to respond to that feeling.

The most important thing you can do, every single morning, is to decide that you are going to prioritize feeling good. When you make it a habit to do whatever it takes to feel good in the morning, you set a positive intention for the day, and start a chain of events that will lead you into having a much better day than if you continue to feel tired, grumpy, or sad.

If you choose to prioritize feeling good every day, it becomes a habit and gets easier to do. You’ll find it won’t take long before you turn those dreaded morning blues into a happier and more satisfying life.

Here are a few things to try.

Listen to a Meditation or Motivational Recording

I take the first half hour of my morning to one of two things: either I spend time meditating in silence or I listen to an inspirational recording, such as an Abraham Hicks rampage or this Louise Hay morning gratitude meditation.

I do this every single day, regardless of how I feel when I wake up. On the days that feel harder, I often can’t stop thinking while meditating, and thus use one of the guided recordings to help calm my mind. This is an incredibly powerful habit to develop, and I cannot overstate the importance of it.

Repeat Positive Affirmations

Another great technique you can use is to repeat affirmations to yourself. You can do this in any number of ways, from keeping a daily affirmation journal to taking a few moments to recount the things you are grateful for in your life.

While the technique may sound silly, it is incredibly effective. Affirmations work because they use repeated thought patterns to reform your beliefs, through a process known as autosuggestion. As you gradually reprogram your beliefs, you gain more control over how you feel, and find it becomes easier and easier to release negative thoughts and begin your day in a better frame of mind.

Read a Peaceful Book

Lastly, take some time to read.

One of the biggest obstacles to improving your state of mind is that when we’re in a bad mood, we tend to stay focused on how badly we feel. Reading is a great way to dissolve negative energy because it re-focuses your mind away from your bad mood. This is true regardless of what topic you read about: a well written book will absorb your attention and cause you to forget your worries.

To take this practice to the next level and really focus on your personal development, read a book that discusses an area you want to improve about yourself. If you spend a few minutes every day focused on self-improvement, you will find the benefits compound over time, and you’ll soon find you’re able to make changes to your habits to begin leading the life you want.

You can browse our list of recommended spiritual books to find one that fits your needs.

While these practices do take some time, using your first 30 minutes to an hour every day to make sure you feel good is the best investment of time you could ever hope for. There are many, many benefits

For more ideas on how to improve the way you feel in the morning, check out this list of happiness hacks, which can help you get into a better mood, any time of day, or check out our course teaching the energy of joy, and how to become happier, every day.