Having one of those days when it seems like everything that could go wrong, did?  You needn’t give in to grouchiness or despair.  Here are six suggestions to help turn your day around.
1. Be mindful of your feelings.
What feelings are beneath your stress and frustration: anger, sadness, anxiety, resentment?
Research shows that knowing and naming your feelings is helpful and soothing.  Once you’ve identified your feelings, write them down or talk them out with someone you trust.
2. Get up and move.
In order to shake off a bad day, you need to be active.  Sitting still gives your feelings time to fester.
Exercise and activity produce endorphins and serotonin.  Just 20 minutes of physical activity will increase these natural mood-lifters and give a noticeable boost to your day.  You don’t have to spend hours in the gym to enjoy the benefits of exercise.  Play fetch with your dog, walk outside with a friend at lunch, take a bike ride through the park.
3. Do something you love.
Distraction can be a blessing. Watch a favorite movie, listen to music, work on a craft project, plan a vacation.  If your passion involves physical exertion (hiking, running, kayaking, etc.), all the better.
Avoid judging yourself or having strict standards.  Enjoy the experience.  Try to lose yourself in it.
If you can’t completely set the anger, depression or anxiety aside, don’t worry. Taking positive action even when your heart isn’t in it will benefit you.  Doing what you love reduces cognitive dissonance and helps to lift your mood.  Acting as if you feel better can translate into actually feeling better.
4. Do a mindset makeover.
Take a deep breath and reassure yourself that having a bad day is part of living on the planet. Consider the whole picture.  Do you always feel this way?  Will you feel this way for five minutes, five hours, five months or five years?  Put things in perspective.  Use positive self-talk and itemize the benefits around you and within you.  Look at the whole picture not only your current irritations.
5. Connect with others.
It helps to close a bad day by getting out of yourself and helping someone else.  Volunteer, or offer someone a kind gesture.  Help a family member with a task, or play with a pet.  When you’re feeling kind, loving and grateful, it’s difficult to hold onto sadness, anger and resentment.
6. Rest up.
The best thing to do at the very end of a difficult day?  Get to bed at a decent hour and turn off/limit your use of cell phones, computers and tablets for the last hour before bedtime.  Getting seven to eight hours of good quality sleep is one of the best ways to recover from a bad day.  A good night’s sleep will help put it all in perspective. And you can start fresh the next day.

Disappointment comes to everyone. Adults have learned through repeated exposure that when people or activities may sometimes let us down, we can keep such things in perspective and find ways to overcome our dashed hopes.
But for children, disappointment can come in numerous forms. Even a seemingly minor hurt can often seem like such a complete disaster that the child truly has a difficult time accepting and dealing with it. And, in many cases, such as when a beloved pet dies or a close friend moves away, the hurt can be very real and deep and won't disappear easily.
While responding to childhood disappointments can seem difficult, there are good ways to do it. 
You can make a child feel less sad, avoid more serious emotional issues, and, when you respond well, help open communication that can strengthen the child/parent/teacher relationship.
How do you begin to respond to a child's disappointment?

• Listening is step one. Don't minimize or discount the story your child has to tell, even if it seems trivial to you. It's very real to your child, and a responses such as, "That's no big deal," or, "You'll forget about it by tomorrow," or, "Big boys don't cry," only serve to convince your child that the feelings are invalid; that you don't really understand or even care.
• Don't hurry in with a pleasant experience or reward to make the hurt go away. This can establish flawed coping patterns that carry over into adulthood and can present very real future problems.
• Talk "with" your child, rather than "to" her or him. Don't begin an interrogation when something seems wrong but instead tell him or her in a gentle way that you've noticed they're unhappy and encourage them to tell you what has happened.
• Don't be judgmental about what is being reported but instead offer sympathy and understanding. Let your child know you empathize because you've suffered your own disappointments. Don't try to top your child's story, but instead listen and sympathize. Just being able to share can do much to minimize the hurt.

In some cases, being a good listener may not be enough. If you notice a persistent change in behavior over time, and if your child is refusing to talk about what's wrong, it may be appropriate to seek help from a trained professional counselor who specializes in childhood issues. Your child's school counselor is always a good place to start.
​Adapted from American Counseling Association’s Counseling Corner Blog.