When You've Got Those Rainy Day Blues

This is how my week started...




Hard to tell but it was raining cats and dogs.
 

A typical Pacific Northwest summer rain is coming down, it's grey and dreary and that's the direction my mood ends up going too. 

The house is dark and even the skylights can't lighten the mood in the room.   Nothing feels joyful on a day like this...  Why does the weather seem to affect my mood this way?

  I read an article  on the affects of weather on our mood which basically said it's really all in our head and that "We can and should take proactive steps to strengthen the brain's system against weather-driven mood changes."  They suggested reading a good novel.  Great!  But I'd just finished "Inferno" by Dan Brown which was a really great read and now I have to go through the process of finding another book that can hold my interest.  Not an easy task!

Exercise, which I did but it was like torture getting through, although I did feel better afterward.  How about listening to uplifting music?  On a day like this I tend to like music that follows my mood... something with a slight bit of melancholy.  Like Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again:

 

A little sad, but it's a really great song!

You know...  in my experiences with rainy day blues (and we get ALOT of rainy days here) I found that it's best to just... ride it out.  Go with the melancholy, let it wash over you like the rain.  Look at the rain, go outside and smell it, it's really quite beautiful...

 It makes everything fresh and clean and if you take a deep breath you'll feel it too!  Go inside and if you've found that great novel grab a soft blanket and wrap yourself in it with a nice hot cup of coffee and lose yourself in the story!  Sometimes we have to just take care of ourselves when our mood is low... it's kind of like taking medicine when you have a cold, if you deal with the symptoms you'll find that it's not so hard to ride it out.  And if you just look ahead...

You'll see that the sun is right around the corner!  (Thank you God for that!)

  Have a fantastic week everyone, come rain or shine!!