Five Ways to Make Yourself Feel Better

Way one: Drink more water. Water helps maintain homeostasis. It keeps everything nice and balanced, the way it needs to be. The brain works more efficiently when there's more water in the body. Water also spikes metabolism, so water is a two-fer, in that it helps both the body and the mind feel better. When the body feels better, it usually follows that you feel better emotionally.

Way two: Meditation. Meditating to clear your mind of any influence and distraction can be a very important tool in preventing yourself from going insane in today's hectic world. Meditation is proven to reduce stress levels, and the more stressed you are, the more cortisol your body produces. Cortisol is a hormone produced by the adrenal cortex that increases blood pressure, blood sugar levels, may cause infertility in women, and suppresses the immune system. These things are generally a bad thing. Meditating, logically, reduces cortisol production, and that can help your blood pressure, sugar, immune system, and fertility. Plus, meditation rarely takes more than a few minutes to do.

Way three: Count your blessings. The reasons for this are sort of along the lines that make meditation important to your well-being. Counting your blessings can help instill a feeling of happiness or gratefulness; this may release endorphins. Endorphins make your happy. Happy people just don't kill their husbands. Pardon the Legally Blonde reference.

Way four: Know that you can improve and evolve as a person. With today's emphasis on self-improvement and almost total lack of the improving of the self, it's easy to subscribe to the well-publicized idea that you are nothing. You are something; you are you, and you can improve.

Way five: Write out a list of everything you've accomplished from the beginning of your life to the present. It doesn't matter how small or big the accomplishment is. The point is to flatter yourself, somewhat. It's easy to get down in the dumps, and it's often hard to pick yourself back up when you're down and think you're out. This one helps most people get right back up.