When nothing is going your way, it can feel impossible to turn things around – but it really can be done.
I recently had one of ‘those days’. After a hectic day, I got home, rummaged through my bag and couldn’t find my keys. I trudged back to the car to get them – and dropped my lunch box, which smashed on the ground. I cleaned up as quickly as I could and headed back to the house, so frazzled I didn’t notice a car coming. The driver yelled at me, and I apologised a million times.
Can this day get any worse?
My mind raced ahead: maybe I’d choke on my dinner or slip in the shower that night and hit my head. I wasn’t convinced my evening could be saved.
This downward spiral of doom is something we all experience. But are we making it worse for ourselves? And do we have the power to turn our day around, or are we doomed once the spiral starts? Psychologist, therapist and adjunct professor Patrice Le Goy, PhD; psychologist Matthew Leahy, PhD; and neuropsychologist Sanam Hafeez, PsyD, explain what’s really going on.
It turns out the spiral is real – but it’s also partly of our own making. “The first bad thing may happen to us,” says Leahy. “But then our brain starts helping build the case that the whole day is ruined.” It doesn’t have to be, though.
Read on for some surprisingly simple ways to lift your mood and make things much better – and how to recognise when it’s time to call it a day.
Is there a scientific reason why some days are so awful?
Believe it or not, there is. A day that feels like it’s spiralling out of control comes down to two things: how your brain is wired to spot threats, and what happens chemically once it decides something counts as one.
Le Goy points to what’s known as negativity bias. “Bad days can spiral because we often give more attention to negative things than we do to positive ones,” she says. We evolved this way to protect ourselves. “Negative experiences are more likely to feel threatening, and so to stay ‘safe’, we have to be vigilant in recognising these threats.” On top of that, we tend to zero in on anything that supports our new theory that everything’s a disaster – which can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. That mindset can colour our mood and our behaviour, unwittingly setting us up for more negative encounters.
But it’s about more than just perspective. “The amygdala is heavily involved in sounding the alarm,” Hafeez says. “If your brain decides there is a threat, it signals areas such as the hypothalamus to get the body ready to respond. Your heart may beat faster, your muscles tense and your attention can narrow towards whatever seems wrong.” Once that response kicks in, she explains, “it can become harder for the prefrontal cortex – the part that helps with reasoning, perspective and self-control – to have as much influence over your reaction.”
That alarm also sends cortisol surging, setting off a chain reaction of chemicals that send inflammatory signals through the brain. At the same time, cortisol dampens GABA, the neurotransmitter that helps keep you calm. With your calming chemical suppressed and inflammatory signals firing, your brain gets stuck in a heightened, reactive state.
This feedback loop is why one bad moment rarely stays just one bad moment – it keeps feeding itself. It’s also why, as Hafeez puts it, “the third annoying thing that happens at 4pm can feel much worse than it would have if it happened first thing in the morning”, and why something you’d normally shrug off can suddenly feel like the last straw.
What are the science-backed ways to recover from a bad day?
Sleep is one of the most powerful resets there is, but you don’t have to wait until tomorrow to feel better. “A bad morning can still become a decent afternoon because the brain and body are constantly responding to what is happening in the present,” says Hafeez. “There isn’t a specific neurological point where the brain decides the entire day is ruined. Even after hours of stress, the nervous system can begin calming down when it gets signals that the immediate threat or problem has passed.”
During my own disastrous evening, as well as mentally listing everything else that could go wrong, I found myself laughing as I pictured myself as a slapstick comedian – think Mr Bean or Kramer from Seinfeld – with each mishap reimagined as a perfectly choreographed, graceful (if goofy!) routine. As it turns out, I’d stumbled on a proven way to pull myself out of the spiral. It’s just one of several things you can do to pause and break the inflammation loop when you feel your day heading south.
1. Build self-awareness and reflection
“When we are able to pause and stay present, we can stop a bad moment from becoming a bad day,” says Le Goy. She believes this pause is the single most important tool you have in the moment. “When we find ourselves spiralling, it is often because we are jumping ahead and making assumptions that the rest of the day will be as bad as this particular moment. When we take a beat, we can decide how we want to move forward, rather than being swept away on the negative emotion wave.”
A 2021 review in the journal Translational Psychiatry found a strong link between anxiety and depression and an inability to see thoughts and feelings as passing mental events rather than absolute truths. Recasting my run of disasters as a comedy sketch in my mind helped break my own spiral.
Being realistic helps too. Don’t expect to do a complete U-turn and suddenly have a brilliant day – your mind won’t buy what it doesn’t already believe. Instead, aim for a neutral day, one where you feel back in control. Part of that is not making things worse: naming what’s really happening (“I’m wound up right now”) rather than turning it into a verdict (“Everything is going wrong”) stops one rough moment snowballing into a ruined day.
2. Try mindfulness practices like journalling or meditation
Recognising what’s happening and naming it can help break the spiral. Saying out loud or writing down “I’m having a bad day” can give you the breathing space you need to step back from the negativity. “I feel like I’m a mess today” lands very differently from “I’m a mess”.
The research supports this. A 2022 study found that five weekly 30-minute mindfulness sessions significantly lowered blood cortisol levels and perceived stress in nursing students. Another study showed that a mindfulness retreat led to bigger drops in cortisol and inflammatory markers than in a comparison group who simply went on holiday with no structured practice. Rest alone didn’t make much difference – structured mindfulness did.
3. Change your physical environment
“If everything is irritating you, leave the room and do something random,” says Hafeez – even if it’s just wandering around the shops or going for a drive with the music turned up. “A change of scenery can make the bad part of the day feel like it belongs to an earlier chapter rather than the rest of your day.” Even moving to another room can be enough to interrupt the spiral.
A 2023 study put this idea to the test. One hundred people took a 30-minute walk in either a natural or an urban setting, and both groups enjoyed significant, equal improvements in mood. Positive feelings rose and negative feelings fell – and, surprisingly, there was no real difference between the nature walkers and the city walkers. The takeaway? Getting outside and moving your body seems to lift your mood whatever the scenery, which suggests the change of setting itself may be doing most of the work.
4. Get up and move
Moving your body helps pull you out of threat mode, even if it’s only for a few minutes – a walk around the block, a few star jumps or anything else that changes your physical state. “Get up and move, and get that stress hormone cortisol out of the body,” Leahy says. “You don’t need a workout. A brisk walk, stretching or doing something physically active can help move your attention out of your head and back into your body.”
Why does it work? According to Hafeez, movement gives the body “somewhere to put the energy that comes with a stress response and can help shift attention away from the stressful event”.
A 2021 study backed this up. Eighty-three young men did 30 minutes of treadmill exercise at different intensities, then tackled a stressful task 45 minutes later. The harder they’d exercised, the faster their bodies settled afterwards: those who’d worked out vigorously recovered in about 81 minutes, compared with 91 minutes for the light-exercise group.
5. Get into nature
“Nature is one I recommend a lot, and the science on this grows by the day,” Leahy says. “Being outside gives your attention somewhere else to go. Even noticing the sky, trees, weather or something beautiful around you can create some psychological distance from the problem. We don’t have to live in a nature reserve to get this benefit.”
Time outdoors has a physical upside too. Sunlight, protein-rich food and, eventually, sleep all help your brain top up the dopamine and serotonin it needs, rather than simply papering over a low mood.
6. Reset your breathing
Slowing your breathing down – and making your out-breath longer than your in-breath – is one of the few ways you can directly influence your stress response. Doing it for even a minute can signal to your body that the emergency is over.
Hafeez explains the science: “Slow breathing with a longer exhale can reduce physiological arousal and encourage the parasympathetic, or ‘rest and recover’, side of the nervous system to take over.” She’s referring to a 2023 Stanford University study in which 111 people spent five minutes a day for a month practising one of several techniques: cyclic sighing (breathing with long exhales), other breathing patterns or meditation. The breathing groups outperformed the meditation group on mood improvement by about a third. What’s more, the cyclic-sighing group kept breathing more slowly throughout the day – not just during their five minutes of practice – so the calming effect lasted long after the exercise itself.
Although these are separate tips, they all work as deliberate circuit-breakers that stop the spiral before it gets worse. Le Goy sums up why they’re effective: “All of these practices help us build resilience. When we build resilience, we can learn to manage life’s ups and downs without letting them hijack our emotions.”
What’s the most important thing you can do?
Catch yourself in the moment, before the feeling sets into a verdict on the whole day. “Notice what the brain is doing,” Leahy says. “Don’t make a global judgement while you’re still emotionally activated. Instead of saying, ‘Today is awful,’ try, ‘The last 20 minutes were awful.’ That sounds almost ridiculously simple, but psychologically, it matters.”
That reframe is more than a nice idea. A 2022 review of 99 studies found that people who reframe stressful situations, rather than catastrophising, tend to be happier and less anxious and depressed. And it’s a skill you can learn quickly: even a week of practice led to measurable improvements in how people managed their emotions.
What’s the worst thing you can do in the moment?
Ironically, trying too hard to feel better. The experts all point to the same trap: rushing to shut down a bad feeling instead of letting it sit for a minute.
Leahy says the real damage often comes from what we tell ourselves about being upset in the first place. “Sometimes it’s OK to just have a few hard moments,” he says. People start monitoring themselves, asking questions like “Why am I still upset? Shouldn’t I be over this?” Whenever he hears a patient say “should”, he challenges it. “That’s just the brain talking at you again,” he says. The aim isn’t to force yourself to feel good – it’s to remind yourself that you’ll carry on with your day while the feeling settles.
Le Goy agrees. Rushing to declare yourself ‘over it’ robs you of the chance to actually sit with the feeling and recover from it.
When should you just throw in the towel for the day?
When you’ve checked in with yourself and realised you’ve got no fight left, that’s your cue to stop trying to rescue the day and simply let it end. At the same time, remember it’s not the end of the world. “You can acknowledge and accept that you had a tough day without deciding that you are accepting a tough life,” Le Goy says. “The most important thing is taking time to check in with ourselves to see where we are in that moment, while acknowledging that we can make a different decision the next day or when we have the energy to do so.”
“Some evenings, the most productive thing you can do is stop trying to rescue the day,” says Leahy. His advice is almost disappointingly simple: read a book, have an early night and remind yourself you’ll start afresh tomorrow. You could also have something to eat, take a shower, step outside for a few minutes or spend time with someone you like. “Do something familiar and predictable,” he advises. Most important of all, get some sleep rather than staying up late replaying the day in your head.
The evening is also a good time to notice how you’re talking to yourself. “Self-talk is so powerful,” Le Goy says. “We often believe what we hear over and over, whether from other people or from ourselves.” Her test: would you say this to a close friend? “If not, it’s time to rethink that internal dialogue.”
Either way, you don’t have to fix all of the day’s problems before bed. As Leahy puts it: “Tomorrow does not need you to solve today at 11.30 at night.”
Find out the 12 surprisingly powerful health benefits of being nicer to yourself
