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Understanding the Role of Environment in Mood Swings and the Changes You Can Make For Healing

understanding the role of environment in mood swings and the changes you can make for healing

“Your environment does matter, plants can’t grow in toxic soil.”

- Nichola Stephenson

In 2022, 28.4% of Delawareans with less than a $25,000 income experienced depression, which often leads to mood swings. Across all income demographics, this was the highest percentage reported. It makes sense. A person’s income is a part of their environment, and any aspect of it significantly impacts their mental health. So, if someone can’t make enough money to support their family, it leads to mental health concerns, like mood swings, which make it challenging to accomplish their daily responsibilities. 

At SUN Behavioral Health Delaware, we aim to inform patients and their families about the things that impact a person’s mental health. By understanding the role of the environment in mood swings, many of our patients find healing and stabilization in their lives. Today, we are going to explore this topic. 

The Factors That Make Up Your Environment

Your environment has a significant role in your overall mental health. With that said, you might wonder what makes up your environment. Several factors and elements in your life are reflected in this. Your environment is anything that is around you. Below, we discuss 4 of those factors in depth.

People – These are anyone in your life, such as parents, partners, children, roommates, friends, coworkers, employers, and strangers you interact with daily. These are the ones you communicate with most days, and they positively or negatively influence your life. 

Familiarity – These things in your life remind you of other things from the past. They may be a conflict with your partner, a disorganized desk, photos of your grandmother, your mother’s old kitchen table, or an outing with friends. Anything that reminds you of positive or negative experiences that happened in your life. 

Senses – The five senses are sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. These are significant aspects of your environment because they are how you observe everything about it. How is the lighting in the room you are sitting in? What sounds do you hear? What color is the wall in front of you? What’s the temperature of the room? These and more are essential questions when examining your environment and how it plays a role in your mental health. 

Aesthetics – Associated with your senses, aesthetics are unique to you. These aspects of your environment are personally meaningful to you and what you enjoy. For some, a pleasing aesthetic might be a tidy, light blue room with everything in its place. For someone else, it might be having peaceful music playing in the background at home or spending time outside in nature. Not having these aspects in your life makes you feel on edge and unsafe. 

the factors that make up your enviroment

What Are Mood Swings?

Emotions and moods are normal and healthy, and knowing that anyone can have mood swings is essential. Mood swings are defined as any sudden change in the way someone feels. These changes are positive, negative, or something in between. Mood swings are impacted by several factors, such as missing a meal or playing with your baby niece or nephew. While mood swings can be a typical experience for people, if they happen frequently or impact your ability to live, talk with your doctor as soon as possible. There are several possible physical and mental health causes to why mood swings might be happening. Some of these include:

Your Environment’s Impact on Your Mood

As briefly mentioned, your environment has a significant impact on your mood. Below is a chart that shows each of the 4 environmental elements discussed above and their positive and negative influences on your mood.

Element of Environment

People

  • Positive Influence Examples: You have an excellent day interacting with friends or coworkers with no conflict. Your family encourages your mental health journey. These people make you feel loved and supported. 
  • Negative Influence Examples: You got into a moderate or significant disagreement with your partner. Your best friend encourages the use of substances or alcohol as a way to cope with mental health concerns. These people make you feel self-doubt and unsupported. 

Familiarity

  • Positive Influence Examples: Looking through your grandmother’s old photo album makes you feel connected to her. An outing with friends reminds you of positive memories and boosts your mood. 
  • Negative Influence Examples: A minor conflict with your partner reminds you of a difficult relationship that made you feel alone and scared. Those emotions carry into the present. Fear or anger arise after seeing your child’s toy lying on the floor in the living room because it reminds you of a negative memory from your past. 

Senses

  • Positive Influence Examples: Your favorite song brings you happiness and makes you want to move around joyfully. The smell of your favorite dinner cooking in the oven boosts your mood and makes you excited for your partner to call the family to eat.
  • Negative Influence Examples: A cold, dark room in the winter makes you feel unmotivated and like you want to stay in bed all day. A couple arguing in the park makes you feel on edge as you walk past them.

Aesthetics

  • Positive Influence Examples: Your old stuffed dog sitting on the shelf in your living room brings you a sense of calm and comfort whenever you look at it. Your organized desk makes you feel in control and confident to complete your work.
  • Negative Influence Examples: Your cluttered closet makes you feel overwhelmed and leads to depression, anxiety, and a lack of motivation to do anything about it. A family heirloom accidentally gets damaged, leading to sadness, anger, disappointment, or distrust.

How Your Environment Increases Mood Swings

While some aspects of your environment are within your control, not everything is. The weather, traumatic events, the choices of others, present circumstances, and non-traumatic past events are all aspects of your environment that you can’t control. This doesn’t mean they don’t still impact your life and mood. 

For example, you woke up today excited and happy, ready to tackle the day after a restful night. As you walk through the door to a dark, 40-degree, cloudy morning in Delaware, your mood suddenly falls to depression, or you become unmotivated to accomplish your daily tasks. You can’t control the weather, but it still influences your mood.

These things that you can’t control result in possible mood swings. Suppose you have regularly experienced these uncontrollable environmental factors in the past or present. In that case, it puts you at a higher risk of experiencing frequent mood swings.

3 Ways to Create an Environment That Minimizes Mood Swings

You cannot control some elements of your environment, but there are many ways to create one that will minimize mood swings. Below are 3 of those.

Declutter and organize your space – A messy home or office increases anxiety. It makes you feel overwhelmed and trapped in your environment. You may feel like you don’t have control over your life or emotions. However, organizing your environment creates a peaceful aesthetic that brings calm and enjoyment. This also reduces stress levels and feelings of depression. 

Create a daily schedule – Mental health conditions like depression and anxiety make it difficult for people to keep up with their daily routines. This results in someone feeling like they don’t have a structure in their life or that they are feeling like they can’t control their life. Sticking with a consistent schedule, even as simple as eating at a specific time during the day, creates a sense of control and stability, improving their mood and regulating how their body responds to stressful situations. 

Find time to practice relaxation techniques – Regular practice helps people respond better to stressful situations and circumstances beyond their control. If someone cuts you off in traffic, take a deep breath for 7 counts, hold it for 4, and release it for 8. It will calm your anxiety or anger about another person’s actions. 

The Best Way to Manage and Treat Mood Swings

If mood swings are a regular occurrence in your life and they are impacting your ability to accomplish the things you want to do, talk with your doctor about receiving treatment for them. As mentioned earlier, several conditions result in someone being more likely to experience mood swings. Your doctor will thoroughly assess to rule out any physical conditions contributing to your mood swings and treat those if necessary. 

If a mental health condition is contributing to your mood swings, attending mental health treatment is the best way to find healing. During treatment, you will be exposed to tools such as therapy and medications that will provide you with stabilization and techniques to minimize the impact mood swings have on your life. These include learning how to create a healthy environment that is safe and secure. These tools will provide you with things to do when the uncontrollable elements of your environment occur that will make it easier to take back control of your emotions. 

what are mood swings

Mental Health Treatment Is Available in Georgetown, DE

Taking that first step towards healing often feels terrifying and uncertain. If mood swings have been a regular part of your life for several years, you may be concerned about what not having them will look like. However, receiving a no-cost care assessment will introduce you to caring professionals who can help.  

At SUN Behavioral Health Delaware, we solve unmet needs in Georgetown. Mood swings are sometimes caused by co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders. We treat both conditions together to reduce complications, which increases mood stability. To learn more about how mental health treatment helps manage mood swings, contact us at 302-604-5600 today. 

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