Your Mood is Contagious

Yup, it's true! Your mood is contagious, and that could be a good thing or it could be a downer for others.

When you're in a good mood, it spreads onto others. It is a very powerful thing how your good mood can bring someone else up in spirits, and can calm their nerves or at the very least, make others feel good. 

If you've ever received a compliment that a room has brightened up when you walked in to it, you have reason to feel proud. When you are regularly in a good mood, people admire you and generally like being around you. 

On the other hand, a bad mood or an perception of being in a bad mood, has a strong detrimental effect on others, in regards to their morale, general happiness and motivation.  It can even damage their relationship with you, if your bad mood is persistent. Nobody likes being around a crabby miserable person. 

If you noticed, I mentioned a few lines ago that even a "perception" that someone is in a bad mood can have the same effect on others, as someone really being in one. A person may be in a great mood, but his or her face or mannerisms may contradict that.

I've had so many experiences where I was in a great mood, feeling happy and motivated, only to come in contact with someone in a bad mood and my whole mood changed for the worse. Most of those times were in a work setting, but they have also happened in social settings. I have deleted many people out of my life because they were consistently negative and brought me down, rather than bring me up.

Nowadays, we have Facebook, where we're exposed to posts representing the gamut of moods from positive (good and motivated) all the way to negative (angry, bitter, critical or a general "feeling sorry for oneself.") You can choose to be uplifted by the positive posts or be sucked into the negative posts and be ultimately brought down yourself. 

So with all that in mind, we all need to be aware how our mood affects others. If you are in a bad mood, maybe you can give yourself some time to improve your mood before interacting with someone else. Take a look in the mirror and try to look at yourself as someone else may see you. Do you look like you are in a bad mood?

If you are a social media frequent poster, perhaps you can think twice before spreading some "bad mood" energy to the social universe. Let yourself cool down, take a deep breath, go for a walk or just stay away from social media for a a few minutes until your mood turns around. If you are in a good mood, by all means, post something uplifting for others. Energy does, in fact, attract like energy.

Personally, I stay away from the negative energy of bad moods and complaining as much as possible. I also do my best to always present a positive exterior even if I may be struggling with something inside at the moment. Because of how others have brought me down in the past and ruined my day, I made a conscious effort long ago, to not do that to others. 

Lastly, believe it or not, people who you don't think see your posts on social media, whether positive or negative, certainly do see them. They may be the so called "lurkers" who never comment or "like" your posts but believe it or not, if you ask someone who are the people who post negative posts on social media, they can rattle off a list of names. I myself can! 

So to summarize, be aware of your mood and also the moods of others because they are definitely contagious. Imagine the world if the people you came in contact with were generally more happy!