Feel Better Fast: The 5 Things That Shift Your Mood Instantly

Today on the Mel Robbins Podcast, 5 simple things that shift your mood instantly and make you feel better now. Okay, before we jump into this extraordinary episode, my team was showing me something that brought up a lot of emotion. 58% of you who watch the Mel Robbins Podcast here on YouTube are not subscribers. It would make me feel so supported, seen, and grateful if you would subscribe. If that subscribe button is lit up, it means you're not a subscriber. Will you help me achieve my goal of getting that number to 50%? It's free. That way you're not going to miss a thing. And most importantly, it's one way that you can tell me and the team here at the Mel Robbins Podcast that you love all the content that we're putting here on YouTube for free. This episode is going to be one of your all-time favorites. I can just feel it. So let's jump into it. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I'm really glad that you're here today because it's always an honor to spend this time together and to be with you. And if you're a new listener or somebody shared this episode with you, I just want to take a moment and welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Now we're going to be talking about how to feel better fast. And the fact that you hit play on an episode that has that title tells me that you've been dealing with a lot. And I can say that with a lot of confidence because something recently happened and it blew me away. So I was flying home to see my folks in Michigan and I had a little bit of spare time and I decided, okay, I'm just going to post a question on the stories on Instagram. And the question was super simple. It was just, what do you need help with right now? And then something happened that was Shocking. Over half a million people responded. Let me just read you some of the words that kept coming up over and over and over again. Anxious, irritated, tired, stuck, flat. Oh my God, flat. That's how I was feeling last week. Sluggish, fried, self-critical. I was so shocked by how many of you responded and how consistent the words were that you were using to describe what you needed help with. And I was like, okay, we gotta do something about this because you deserve to feel better and you can feel better. And so here's what my team and I did. We went through all of these responses and we've analyzed what are the top 5 feelings that are showing up right now the most in your life. And then we dug back into the experts that have appeared on the Mel Robbins Podcast, looking for the best advice to help you reset this feeling. And so we're gonna go through the 5 most common feelings. The first being just feeling tired, flat, sluggish. Oh my gosh. The second one is feeling stuck, like you're stuck in a funk or you're stuck in a bad mood. The third was brain fried. You're overstimulated. You're not sure how to like, get the energy or the focus back. You just kind of feel blah in the brain. The fourth one was just tired. Tired of being responsible for everything, holding it all together, being so hard on yourself. And the fifth feeling was really heavy. And here's the deal. The advice that you're about to hear is so powerful and simple, and you can use it as soon as you're done listening. And in fact, the last piece of expert advice that I'm gonna share with you today is just downright magical. It's one of my most favorite tools that has ever been shared on this podcast. So let's start with the first feeling that so many of you told me that you're dealing with, and that's just that you're exhausted. You feel flat, you feel sluggish, like you don't feel like yourself. You know, this is that period in your life where you're just like, God, how do I get my mojo back? Like, I'm tired of being tired. This is so relatable. This was me yesterday. I just hit the wall at work yesterday. And then I remembered this advice from Dr. Wendy Suzuki, because what Dr. Suzuki is about to tell you is that the fastest way to change how you feel is to change what your body is doing. She says that one of the simplest tools for helping you shift out of that sluggish blah feeling and get some energy moving again is to get yourself moving again, and it only takes 10 minutes. And before you hear what she has to say, I want to explain who Dr. Suzuki is. Dr. Suzuki is a world-renowned neuroscientist and the Dean of the College of Arts and Science at New York University. She's known for her groundbreaking research on memory, brain plasticity, and the simple things you can do every day to improve your focus, learning, memory, and brain power. She's also pioneering research on how moving your how moving your body can improve your brain health. And the advice she's about to give you, I took this advice yesterday here at work in our Boston studios in between tapings, and oh my God, it changed everything. Here is Dr. Wendy Suzuki talking about what happens to your mood when you take a simple 10-minute walk.

Every single time you move your body, you are releasing literally a flood of neurochemicals in your brain. That is the physical thing that happens. And I'm not talking about run a marathon. I'm talking about even taking a walk. A 10-minute walk gets that flood of neurochemicals going. Is it different if you do get your heart rate up? Yes, it is. But the power starts with a 10-minute walk. The neurochemical flood A flood starts with a 10-minute walk. What is in that flood of neurochemicals? Dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline, endorphins, growth factors. The first 3, dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline, what's that gonna—

it's gonna make you feel great.

Well, you've just given your brain this flood of neurochemicals that I like to call a neurochemical bubble bath for your brain. And I love that image because if you move regularly, think of it as a regular bubble bath for your brain. These neurochemicals that are making you feel good, the growth factors go to your hippocampus. That is what's growing those brand new hippocampal cells. The power of exercise comes from that neurochemical bubble bath.

I love that image. I love the image of being outside for just a 10-minute walk, every one of us, can find 10 minutes, and you can imagine that flood happening. And I also, I personally am a bath person. So when you say bubbles and the, like a bath in my brain and bubbles are fluffy, and I don't know that I wanted a body part to be big and fluffy, but now I do want a big and fluffy brain, that a 10-minute walk at a minimum causes that flood of really positive chemicals. And this goes back to what you were saying, which is neuroplasticity and growing your brain works in the positive.

Yes.

And not doing these things, I suppose, works in the negative.

Well, you know, the negative comes from the most common negative brain plasticity drivers, very familiar to all of us. Stress, chronic stress, chronic anxiety are two things that will, that will cause retraction.

So is the flood of all of those, like, superpower— do you call them chemicals, or what are they called?

Neurochemicals, neurotransmitters.

Gotcha. So does the flood of all those neurochemicals relieve anxiety? Is that why taking a 10-minute walk if you're feeling anxious can make you feel better? It's because of the release of the neurochemicals?

Yes.

Yeah.

The most common drugs that one gets prescribed for depression or anxiety are releasing forms of noradrenaline and dopamine and serotonin. So this is a natural way to get that. It's free. You don't even have to change your clothes. So that, that is just the magical power of moving your body for your brain.

I love that. How does exercise improve focus?

Improved focus is the most common positive effect that has been reported from studies of exercise on the brain. Easiest to find, improved focus. We know it's affecting the prefrontal cortex, um, and the mechanism of that and what exactly is happening is less clear than some of the other brain areas. We think that growth factors are also involved and that it involves not growth of new brain cells in the prefrontal cortex, but new synapses. You get an immediate positive effect of focus from that same 10-minute walk. And with long-term regular exercise, your baseline levels of focus and attention go up. And that's where you expect to get, you know, real physical change in your brain.

Wow.

I personally notice an increase in energy, which I always find to be weird because I'm usually dragging myself to the gym or dragging myself out of bed to go on a walk or a hike.

Yeah.

But when I'm done, even though I'm tired, I feel this boost of energy. Can you explain why exercise increases your energy?

One of my favorite findings is in groups that were assigned the exercise condition, um, the motivation to exercise increased in them. So more exercise improves motivation to exercise. And the, the energy piece that you're talking about is likely due to the flood of dopamine and serotonin that go to your brain. Do you feel more energized when you're happy and when the reward that you get with dopamine?

Yes.

You are. So I'm gonna say that it's probably most likely due to, uh, those same neurochemicals we've been talking about.

And here's what I'm gonna say: it freaking works. Because yesterday I was so sluggish, so burnt out, so tired, I did not feel like myself. And then I'm like, hold on a second, I just need to take a 10-minute walk outside, and then I'm gonna get that Bubble Bath she's talking about and this bad mood is gonna shake out of my body, and I'm gonna walk back into work feeling like a completely different person. The research works. And here's what I'm gonna say. I get it. If you're feeling sluggish, if you're tired, if everything feels like too much, just like it did for me yesterday, even the thought of taking a walk feels like too much. I didn't wanna do it yesterday. In fact, it wasn't even like really something that I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go for a walk. The executive producer of the podcast, Tracy, said, you know, "You really should go for a walk." And I'm like, "You're right." 'Cause Dr. Wendy Suzuki says that just 10 minutes gives you that bubble bath in your brain. 10 minutes is all you need to get the benefits. 10 minutes and that neurochemical, oh my gosh, of dopamine and serotonin, she explained it better than I can, and she's the one that researches this stuff. 10 minutes is all you need to start pulling yourself outta that sluggish, blah, ugh feeling. And what happens after 10 minutes? Well, I'll tell you what happened for me, and this is gonna happen for you. You'll feel a little more focused, a little more capable, a little more energized. And here's the best part. You don't have to wait until the end of the day. Whenever you feel like you've been run over by life, just push yourself out of that chair and go take a walk. It'll give you the benefit of all this research. And I will tell you, because I did this personally, you're gonna feel 100 times better. And since Dr. Suzuki is so incredible, I'm gonna have her stick around for the second most common thing that so many of you wrote in and described about how you're feeling right now. And one of you in particular used the words, "I'm stuck in a fog right now." You know, "I'm in such a funk that I can't even see my way out." And so that's a little bit different than just kind of being tired and sluggish during the day. Like when you feel like you've been stuck in the fog, it's almost like you're dragging in your whole life as you're trying to walk through shoulder-deep water. Oh my gosh. And maybe that's where you are. You're getting through the day. You're showing up at work. You're answering the texts. You're making the dinner. You're getting through it. But everything about life right now just feels kind of muted. The things that you normally enjoy, they just don't hit the same. Small tasks feel oddly hard. Your brain just feels like it's working on a lower gear, and it's probably affecting your sleep. It's probably affecting how you feel about the people that you're around. You get irritated. You can't explain what's wrong. You're not yourself and you haven't been yourself, and yet you're still getting through the day and through your classes and doing what you need to do, but my gosh, it's almost like you're watching life through a dirty window. And the advice that Dr. Suzuki is about to give you is not going to fix the big problems. But what it does instantly— oh my gosh, what it does instantly is it's something you can do every morning that snaps your brain and body with a jolt. And that may sound abrupt, but you're gonna understand when you hear this advice that a really great way to quickly clean the window and see things more clearly, to snap yourself into the present moment, is take a cold shower. Dr. Suzuki's gonna explain the science, but when you step into a cold shower, holy cow, it's like boom, your adrenaline turns on. Whoa, your nervous system wakes up. And all of that flooding that happens in your body just clears away the gunk and allows you to shift your mood instantly. Now, for the last month, I'm going to confess something to you. I've been experiencing this. And so every single morning I take a cold shower. I start with a warm shower because I got to wash my hair, and I'm not that brutal. I'm not stepping into an ice-cold shower as the first thing. I got to kind of ease my way into it. I take shower. And then you know what I do? I just crank that thing all the way back to cold, and then I brace for impact. And when that cold water hits you, it's literally as if you can feel the sludge moving from the top of your head down to your ankles. I can only stand it for about 20 seconds, and then I got to step out. But those 20 seconds are good enough to completely 100% shift the state of my body and my mood. So let's listen to Dr. Wendy Suzuki talking about this simple tool.

What I love to do to supercharge that, that adrenaline boost every morning is hot-cold contrast showers. So I do my regular hot shower, but at the end I push it all the way to maximum cold and boost. Okay, it was hard the first time I did it.

It's really—

but once, once you get used to it, that's a natural adrenaline boost and that is I need that. If I forget, I go back into the shower.

No.

I do. I do go back into the shower to get it if I forget it, because you need to be up. You need to be ready for that day. And that, together with exercise, are really powerful ways to get that energy up.

So, Dr. Suzuki, I wanna stop you right there, because that is a second huge free takeaway.

Mm-hmm.

We talked about the 10-minute walk.

Yes.

We have talked about this flood of neurochemicals that you can get by moving your body. Now you are talking about a habit that you have as a neuroscientist where you end every shower by spinning the dial from that amazing, steamy, awesome, warm shower. Oh, I love that feeling.

Don't you?

You start to feel a little tired. You're like, oh, do I really wanna get outta the shower? And then Dr. Suzuki's like, "Brrr." And she turns it up cold and now she's stirring it in freezing cold water. How? How long do you stand there?

Yeah.

And do you actually let it hit your head, or do you cheat like I do and you hit a shoulder?

So, I let it hit everywhere, but I'm— now I'm used to it. The first time, it was only a tiny little shower.

I was like, "Oh, that's enough." But you get used to it.

And now, now it's longer. I could do it much, much longer. And now I'm much more sensitive because different places you take showers have different coldness of the water. So yeah, I like it when places are really cold so I could really test myself because the colder it is, the bigger adrenaline boost that you get. And so now I'm sensitive to what that feels like in me. So the cold doesn't bother me. What I'm kind of addicted to is the adrenaline that comes with it.

So for the person listening, if they wanted to try this.

Yeah.

And they're going to do it today or first thing tomorrow morning and you turn the shower to cold.

Yes.

How long would you want them to try to stay in there? And what does it feel like when that adrenaline rush hits? Because I think when you do it the first time, your immediate reaction is, "Get out of the shower." Right, right. Is that what you're waiting to feel? Or is it the get out of the shower thing, and then you stay for a second or two to feel this, like, "Ah!" hit your body? Like, what are you looking for so the person listening can try this at home?

Yeah. So it is a shock, as everybody imagined the very first time. And so you do feel shocked and you want to kind of try to stay as long as you could handle it. But, but if you felt the shock, that's, that's the point. Get out, you know, dry yourself off. That is going to last. I'm going to say easy the rest of the morning. You are going to feel that adrenaline. I mean, that's why I do it. If it only lasted for 2 seconds, I wouldn't bother. To do it. I do it because this is a boost of physiological adrenaline that is natural from this cold. And, and it stays in your system. And I feel the energy difference when I do that.

I do too. It absolutely works. And here's the thing, like, if you're going through a period of your life that's super challenging and you don't have an option to just go out of office and take a week, 2 weeks off and just regroup, this tool is an incredible way to support yourself in getting up, in shifting your mood, in shifting your body state so that you get this boost of energy and you can move through your day. And I love what she said about the fact that this is a natural adrenaline boost, because one of the things that we also do, you know, when you're in these periods is you drink like 3 extra cups of coffee or you have a Diet Coke or you're popping pumping yourself up with caffeine and all this other stuff, and then you can't fall asleep. Doing this natural adrenaline boost to tap into the energy that's in there that life has been tamping down is so effective. And I know you may be thinking, well, Mel, this sounds just way too simple. Have you ever tried a cold shower? Because you wouldn't be saying this sounds too simple if you've tried a cold shower. I promise you, if you feel crappy, flat, drained, sluggish, or just blah, just step into the shower. Instant mood boost. I really want you to try this, and I'm willing to place a bet that this is gonna work for you too. And it will also probably work for someone else in your life that's not feeling like themselves right now. Now we're gonna move on to the third feeling that kept coming up over and over and over again from you and your fellow listeners, which is You know what I need help with, Mel? My brain is fried. I know this feeling. I always explain this like the drawbridge is not closing. You know how on a drawbridge both sides go up and then as it comes down, the sides connect? When my brain is fried, whether it's because I've worked too much or I've been pushing myself too hard, I've been going through something, It's almost like the drawbridge can't close. I can't connect the dots. I start a sentence. I can't finish the sentence. I have a thought, then I forget the thought. Make the appointment. I forget the appointment. I forget that it's my husband's birthday. I drop the ball on a deadline. You start to go like, what is wrong with me? Is this hormones? Is this life? Is this just my brain? Is this like something going on with my memory? Well, it turns out that feeling mentally fried is what happens when your brain has been taking in too much for too long. Does that sound like you? You're juggling too many things. You got too many open tabs. You've got too many people needing something from you. Too much scrolling, which is input. Too much reacting, which is input. Too much worrying, which is input. Too much trying to keep up, which is input. And at some point, your brain's just like, okay, we're done here. We're done here. And what happens is your attention starts to get weaker and suddenly the simplest things feel hard, or you're rereading the same thing 5 times. Or here's my favorite one. How many times have you walked in a room and you're like, I—

wait, what?

What was I— why am I coming in here? And then you walk out and then you go, oh, oh, that's right. I needed to get the scissors. And then you go back in and you get halfway across the room and you go, wait a minute, what am I looking for again? Or this is another thing that happens for me. This is, this is signal number one that Mel Robbins has reached peak brain capacity. I get irritated over the tiniest things, or I get upset with the nicest people, and then I feel terrible. And it's the worst. It's the worst when you're Poor brain is fried. It's just been trying so hard to do everything and to file it all away and to keep you organized. Oh my gosh, that brain of yours. Wow. It's been working on overtime. And look, you can tell yourself all you want, focus, try harder, get it together. But maybe you don't need to focus harder. Maybe you need to change what your brain is looking at. Isn't that kind of an interesting thought? I mean, let me say that again. You may not need to try harder. In fact, you shouldn't. Maybe you just need to change your focus for a second. And this piece of advice comes from Dr. Adam Alter. Dr. Alter is a renowned researcher and professor at NYU's Stern School of Business. He earned his PhD in psychology from Princeton, and a major part of his research focuses on how the environment around you shapes how you think, how you behave, and how you feel. Dr. Alter's gonna explain how simply changing what you're looking at immediately changes how you feel. You know, there's that famous— I think it's a Wayne Dwyer quote— when you change the way you look at the world, the world you look at changes. And Dr. Adam Alter is here to teach you that there's specific things to look at and focus on that fundamentally change the way you feel in your body and the way your brain is able to work. So let's take a listen to what he said when he was here on the Mel Robbins Podcast.

A lot of my work focuses on, on how these different cues shape how we think, feel, and behave, and our welfare, our well-being. A lot of the focus for me recently is what happens when you go as far from screens as possible to natural environments, which we all sort of have the, I think, general sense that that's good for us. It's good to be in a natural environment. But the effects there are among the most profound I've ever seen in any research that just spending a bit of time near a body of running water or hearing wind rustle through trees, that they have a huge effect on your welfare and it's worth doing.

What effect does it have on your welfare?

So one thing about the way we live our lives today in the modern era is that we are constantly sapped. Our attention is sapped. We're asked to pay huge amounts of very focused attention all the time. Whether we're looking at screens, whether we're having extended work conversations, whether we're doing work. And so by the end of the day, you're kind of depleted, depleted, depleted. If you wear one of those watches that tracks your body battery, you see it just kind of goes down and down and down. And that's, that's a good metaphor for the way we live our lives. It sums it up pretty well. The thing about nature is that apart from actually being asleep, being in a natural environment is replenishing. It basically turns that dial upside down. And so your, your your energy starts to climb again. So it gives you back a lot of what, what is sapped by that very focused attention. Because when you're in a natural environment, your attention is still grabbed by things. You might hear a bird, you might hear the running water, you might look at trees, whatever it might be, looking at the ocean. But that kind of less focused attention is really restorative. And there's actually a whole body of research called attention restoration therapy that focuses on exactly this idea that being in natural environments is one of the best forms of medicine we have.

So let's unpack that. I think you said something about attention therapy.

Attention restoration therapy.

What is that?

Yeah, it's, it's basically this idea that your attention is constantly being sapped. It's being taken away. And the kind of attention you have in a natural environment, which is not demanding, it's replenishing.

It's true.

It restores you. It brings you back. It gives you something that you don't have. I think the single most profound example of this for me was a study that was done at a hospital. Hospital on people who were recovering from surgery, and they were randomly assigned to different rooms. And some of the rooms looked out at a natural environment, a beautiful green lawn, some trees. And some of the rooms, just where they happened to be in the building, did not have that view. They were looking out at another part of the building. And they wanted to track how these people recovered from identical surgeries depending on which room they happened to be assigned to. And they found they needed like half as much pain medication. They spent 3 days fewer in hospital recovering. Just looking out at that natural environment was the best form of medicine there was. So it's true, you know, I run maybe 4 or 5 days a week and I try to do it outside when I can. And I know on some level that just feels good, but there's a huge amount of science behind that as well.

So what do you recommend for us to put into our lives? Because we've had neuroscientists, medical doctors, sleep experts come on the show and talk about, the importance of getting natural light first thing in the morning.

Right.

We've also had someone talk about if you're kind of burnt out and you are having one of those moments where you just feel your energy draining, even looking off at the distance out the window can help you restore your energy. What are some of the, the takeaways or the science-backed things that people can implement in their lives to tap into this research?

Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is I ran yesterday in a forest and it was wonderful. And there was running water, there were all these ingredients and it was incredibly restorative. But as a runner, my instinct is to just keep going, which is how we live our lives, right? You're doing something and you wanna keep going till it ends, till you finish doing it, till you can check it off. And I had to push myself to stop for 5 minutes to sit on a rock and just let the water go by. And that was by far the most restorative, wonderful part of the day. And I think there's something to that, this idea of purposely stopping yourself. So I would say whether you're in a big city or whether you're not in a big city, find a little patch of natural environment. And by the way, if you're in an apartment in a big urban environment and you don't have that option, even little trees, little plants that you have in the apartment, the sound of a little fountain that you have with running water, that stands in for that experience too, is just spend, say, 5 minutes a day doing absolutely nothing but taking in, drinking in, that natural environment, even if it's a tiny one in your apartment. If you can get out, all the better. But it's very important to do that, I think, as a sort of daily practice.

Even just hearing him say the sound of running water. I mean, doesn't that just make you go, "Ah, the sound of running water." water. I want to underline that term that Dr. Adler just said: attention restoration therapy. Dr. Alter's research has proven how attention restoration therapy works. Spending time in nature or simply being around greenery or, oh my gosh, the sound of running water, It can help restore your focus and shift your mind from tired to calm or even energized. And if you really stop and think about it, you can embrace the truth of that. And as I think about that, like the sound of running water, I wonder if why it works is because the sound of running water makes me think of moments of time where I'm like laying by a river. It reminds your mind that life isn't always this freaking chaotic and nutso, that there are parts of you that experience moments of calm, moments of peace. And you can use this technique that he's taught you in order to tap into that when you're feeling like you're fried. And I know that, you know, a lot of people around the world listen to this show. And they live in large cities, and maybe you live in a big city, or maybe you're listening and you work in an office, or you have the kind of job where you're inside all day or on your feet taking care of people all day. I really want you to pay attention to this particular technique because it's gonna be especially helpful to you. Because you know that feeling when you finally step outside and take your first real breath of fresh air all day. And you're like, "Oh my gosh, I feel like I just escaped from the crypt. Oh, okay, I'm outta there. We're free, people." In fact, you know, I told you I took a walk yesterday. That's for real. And I went outside and I was with my sister-in-law Christine, who's our Chief Operating Officer. And I turned to her and I just said, This is incredible. We should make this mandatory every single day. There are people walking around. We got an ice cream cone in the middle of the day. There was a blue sky. The breeze was blowing. And just noticing those things, it shifts something in you. So why wait until your brain is completely fried? Use the research to feel better every single day. And if you are fried, like I have been feeling fried. Use this research to feel better every single day. When I step back in from that walk and— so we're combining Dr. Suzuki's 10-minute walk research here along with Dr. Alter's research where you really want to notice. Don't go out there and stare at your phone. Step outside and notice. I was a fundamentally different Mel Robbins when I came back into the office. The fog was lifted. I felt more energized. My mood was different. And the rest of the day was different. This is such an easy thing to try. See, life is hard, but making yourself feel a little better doesn't have to be hard. Or you could just put a beautiful plant on your desk or buy some fresh flowers at the grocery store and Put them in a little jar next to your computer. This one's my personal favorite. I love, love, love fresh flowers. I always have one right on the windowsill by my computer. Open the window, take out your headphones when you're walking to work and listen. And I mean, really listen. Listen to the birds, to the rain, Listen to the wind. Listen to the kids laughing as you walk past that playground—whatever is around you listen because when your brain is overloaded, you just need to give your brain something else to focus on—not the phone call, the screen, the emails, the text, the meeting—the na-na-nay nay nana nananana! Something different, something new. Now we're gonna talk about the fourth thing that you can do to feel better fast. And this one addresses something that I saw in so many of your fellow listeners responding to that question, "What do you need help with right now?" And what you need help with is you're tired of being so serious all the time. You're tired of being responsible for everyone and holding everything together. And more than anything else, you're just sick and tired of being hard on yourself. You look in the mirror and you start putting yourself down. And even when you accomplish something, you're so quick to move the goalpost and move on to what's next and not even savor the thing that you just did right. Come on. What is going on with you and me? Not everything has to be that deep, for crying out loud. When do we all get so frickin' serious? No wonder we're all exhausted. We're constantly beating the hell out of ourselves. I mean, you'd never talk to your kids like that, right? So why do you talk to yourself like that? And there's a shift that you need to make. You need to stop waiting for somebody else to pick you back up. You need to stop waiting for someone in your life to come along and hype you up. Do you deserve that? Of course you do. We all deserve to be told that you're doing a good job. But you also need to become your own cheerleader. You need to remind yourself that not everything is that deep. Not everything is worth your attention, for crying out loud. And by gosh, you're doing a darn good job at the things you are doing. That the person that looks at you and says, I got you, you're amazing, look how far you come, that person needs to be you. You need to remind yourself you're allowed to have fun, because if we're not having fun, of course everything's going to feel heavy. You're allowed to wake up and think, what kind of shenanigans are we going to get into today? In fact, you need to remind yourself that you've got to get into some more shenanigans and trouble. And the one person that could probably do that in a way that makes you laugh, as she does, is none other than Chelsea Handler. Chelsea is hilarious. I mean, obviously she's one of the most successful comedians of all time, but underneath all that humor India Cutler is something really powerful. She has learned how to have her own back. And when I read her New York Times bestselling book, I'll Have What She's Having, there's one passage that I couldn't help but cry reading because she wrote about becoming for herself what she had spent her entire life trying to be for everyone else, how to become her own best friend, her own cheerleader, her own best listener. Here is Chelsea Handler on the Mel Robbins Podcast reading that passage from her book to you, and then you're gonna hear us unpack what that actually means and how you can become that best friend for yourself too.

I became for myself what I've tried to be for every important person in my life: my own best friend, my own cheerleader, my own listener, my mother, my sister. I became my own daughter.

How do you do that for yourself?

You have to love yourself and you have to wake up every single day and say— I know you high-five yourself in the mirror every day. I wake up every single day, I look in the mirror and I say, what kind of shenanigans are we going to get up to today? You beautiful human being.

You literally say that? I say that.

Yes. I mean, there are mornings I don't say it, but I say— I said it this morning. I say to myself all the time, you're amazing. If I see a mirror, I'm like, you're amazing. Look what you've done. You're incredible. Like, who the fuck else is going to tell us that every day? We have to. And we all as women and to the woman that is listening to this, you know, to— we have to make sure that we remind ourselves every day of our intrinsic and innate value.

We are so valuable.

Just by the nature of us being here is value. And we can add so much value to so many people's lives. And it doesn't matter if you're a famous person or you're a public person. You have the ability to do that as a private person with a quieter life. Every time you see a new person on the street, you can smile at them with love in your eyes. You can see somebody going through a hard time at the airport and come over and be like, do you need help? "Can I help you?" The person that's working in the airport bathroom, to smile and say, "How are you doing? Are you having a good day?" I always think that's easy to do when you're in a good mood. But when you're in a bad mood, to extend your generosity when you don't fucking feel like it, that's like next level.

I just love Chelsea. And there are two things, did you notice, that she was teaching you? The first is, number one, you have to become the person who has your own back. Not once in a while. Not only when things are going well. Every. Single. Day. You have to be the one who looks in the mirror and says, "I got you. I got you. You're doing better than you think. I mean, look at how far you've come. You are amazing." And look, I know that feels kind of weird and cringy and awkward, but do it anyway because Do you wanna spend your whole life saying the opposite to yourself? Hoping that someone else is gonna just kind of waltz in and tell you the things that you deserve to hear? Don't do that. Remind yourself, tell yourself the things you wanna hear. And the second thing that I wanna make sure that you really take away from this, because it's just as powerful, when you're stuck, in a bad mood. Stop making the entire world about your bad mood. Look up. Ask somebody for help. Help someone else. Notice someone. Smile at someone. Help someone. Hold the door open for someone. Ask someone else, "Are you okay?" Because the fastest way out of your own head is to put some love into the world around you. The fastest way to stop marinating in your own bad mood is to look around and see if you can help someone else. And I really want you to try both of these suggestions. I want you to look in the mirror. I want you to tell yourself, "I got you. I see you. We got this." You're doing a great job. And I want you, when you catch yourself in a bad mood, do not turn the entire world into a bad mood. Get outta your head and see what you can do for somebody else. It'll shift your mood immediately. And that brings me to the fifth and final feeling I saw over and over and over again. And my favorite piece of advice and the tool that you're gonna get, which is one of my favorite things that have ever been shared on the Mel Robbins Podcast. And the fifth feeling is heavy because you're feeling scared. You feel uncertain. You feel sad about the future. I mean, some of your fellow listeners wrote in, "What would you tell someone who's lost their focus and their vision for their own life?" Someone else wrote, "I'm completely lost. I don't know what I'm meant to do in my life." or even where to start. I'm feeling called to change. I'm so unhappy though, and I don't even know how to begin. I want to succeed, but I don't know how, and it's stressing me out. How can I find myself again? One of the things that really struck me is how many of you want change. You want a sense of direction, but you don't know where to start. And I think a lot of times when you get stuck in a chapter of your life or you get stuck thinking about how bad you feel, All you're doing is spinning in place, 'cause all you see is where you're standing. And that's why it's so easy to start to convince yourself that you don't know where to start. But maybe the real question isn't, where do I start? Maybe the real question is, where am I going? That brings me to the final expert I wanna introduce you to, because without a destination in mind, it's really hard to step up to the starting line. Of course you don't know how to start because you don't know where you're going. And without having a final destination that you can envision, it's impossible to create a set of directions from where you are to where you wanna go next. And that brings me to India Cutler. The final expert from the Mel Robbins Podcast that I am so excited for you to listen to, because Dr. Martha Beck has an extraordinary tool that is backed by science. She has been using this for decades to help you right now envision where you want to go in the future. Dr. Martha Beck is one of the most respected life coaches in the world. She holds 3 degrees from Harvard, is a 6-time New York Times bestselling author, and is famously known as Oprah's life coach. Dr. Martha Beck has an extraordinarily powerful exercise that she calls the ideal day. And the reason why I wanted you to experience this exercise live right now is because it is the tool based on research that not only helps you step up to and over the starting line, by the time you are done with this exercise, you will have a clear picture of a future that really makes you come alive. And Dr. Martha Beck is going to walk you through this simple exercise where you just close your eyes and you picture one perfect ideal day. And I want you to do it with me right now. Don't overthink it. Don't question. Don't ask yourself, how's it all gonna happen? I want you to just take a deep breath and listen. Let your intuition Answer. Let your senses come alive. Here is Dr. Martha Beck walking you through the ideal day exercise.

The ideal day. It's really simple. And now we're at— you're grounded in your body. This is the track. We have to follow the track. This is how you track forward. How far would you like to go in the future? We're gonna do time travel. So you— I don't do hypotheticals. I wanna know what you're gonna do.

I immediately thought a decade, 10 years. Okay.

Think about, you don't have to say it, think about the age you'll be and the age your husband, your children will be. Sort of move your mind forward like a calendar. Now, here are the instructions. Your life is absolutely what it was meant to be. Every expression of your greatest joy. And your greatest fulfillment. You're gonna wake up on a day that is an ordinary day in a perfect life, in an ideal life. So what I'm gonna do is I'll prompt you with a few things, and I want you to let your senses answer these questions, not your mind. So your mind can't time travel. It will tell you it can, but it can't. Only the body can time travel. And this is how it goes. You wake up. On this morning, and you don't even open your eyes, you listen. What do you hear on this day, an ordinary day in your perfect life in 2034?

What do you hear? I hear waves. Mm-hmm. And I hear little kids laughing.

Ah, okay. So smell the air. Don't open your eyes yet. What do you smell? Salt. Mm. I'm seeing a theme here. All right. Open your eyes. Look at the sheets. What color are they? White. Look at the floor. What does it look like?

Wood? Carpet? Yeah, it's a wide planked wood floor that's sort of— It's kind of— It's not shiny. It's like worn.

Cool. Look over across from you in the bed. Who's there, if anyone? Loaded question. Okay, great.

Look at the room.

What do you see? The whole room.

It's very, like, just kind of modern and unfussy and beautiful.

And are there photographs on the walls?

No, there was like a painting or a photograph.

Okay. What does it look like?

It's, um, it was like a big beach scene.

Ah, this theme is strong here.

It's very strong. All right.

Are there windows in the room? Uh, there's one. Okay. Get up and go to the window and look out. Okay. What do you see? Your life is perfect. What do you see? The ocean. Okay. It could also be like the Alps and the Sahara. Like, you can see anything. There are no rules here.

Okay. It's just imagination.

Yeah, but you see the ocean. Mm-hmm. Um, is it like a tropical ocean or is it northern? It's sort of northern. Okay. Rocky or just sandy?

Don't think it's just the ocean. Cool.

All right. So you go into your bathroom. Uh-huh. It's the perfect bathroom. Look at the design of the everything in the bathroom and then look at yourself in the mirror and you are your healthiest. Most radiant, physically fit self. Take that in. You are looking fabulous. Yes. And so you do your morning stuff, take a shower or whatever. Then you go to your closet and open the door. This is very important. The clothes in your closet reflect everything you do in your perfect life because you have to wear different things. Like, so I always ask people, look at the shoes. What kinds of shoes do you have?

Oh, they're all like flip-flops and Birkenstocks.

There's no like strappy sandals with stiletto heels? Absolutely nothing. Nope. Hiking boots?

Not at this house.

Oh, you have more than one house. See how that came in? This is fabulous. So this is your beach house. Yes. Clearly. And you do not do formal wear.

No. At the beach house.

Mm-mm. So, what you're gonna do now, Chris is still in the bed, maybe you go into the kitchen, and you walk through this house. As you walk through the house, see if there are pictures of events that have happened. Like, right now, I can see a picture behind you of a wonderful family trip to the ocean. Look for the pictures that have been taken in the years between 2024 and 2034. Uh, two weddings? Awesome. Yeah. Cool.

Um, well, um, grandbabies.

Oh, good. Is it their laughter you can hear? Yeah. Oh, I thought so. I love it. I love that. Can you feel that you are creating this future as we go through this? You are out of anxiety and into imagination, and the tears in your eyes tell me It's real. Yeah. You're finding your purpose right now. And the things that bring tears to your eyes are the real purpose. Forget career, forget money, forget all that bullshit. When you're dying, it's the pictures of your grandkids you're gonna look at. Like, it's the hugs they give you. It's stuff that society says isn't valuable because there's no money attached to it. That's bullshit. When I walk people through this, We go through the whole day. Who's in the kitchen? Who's— And walk all the way. I won't do it now because it would take the whole session. But you go through the whole morning and see— I'll ask you, what do you do in the mornings?

Well, you know what's interesting is I walk the beach. I have a big thing of water. I practice yoga. I read on the porch. Who's there? I'm just hanging with my family and my parents. Aww. That's— Can you feel how free that is? Yeah.

Like, because you've done so much in the world that says, you know, "Be a lawyer, be that." All that stuff that was harsh and cruel and sort of tried to knock the sentimentality out of you. It was beautiful. Pushing you away from your purpose and into fear, into anxiety. Because when we leave the track of our joy, a natural response is to be terrified. And then we get stuck in that spiral and we can't come back. But when you begin to create, which you just did with your senses and your imagination, not verbal mind, don't be counting things and measuring how it's going to happen. No, that's all left hemisphere thinking. Senses and joy.

That's how you track your future.

And as you track it, you create it.

I wanted to ask you about the senses. Yeah. Because what happens when you tap into that creativity and you really navigate through a day like that using only senses? 'Cause I did catch myself at times, and I'm sure as you were listening, and you were imagining your ideal day, you caught yourself thinking too.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And it takes you out of the feel. Yeah. Why do the senses matter, and why do they help you unlock your sense of purpose and joy and tap into this creativity?

I'm so glad you asked. And again, I don't want to get all science-y here. No, please. But the left hemisphere of the brain, which is glorified by our society, That left hemisphere is what talks and counts and measures time and thinks of problems and tries to, like, get what it wants. And it's very fear-based. So it gets stuck in anxiety. When you go to the senses, if I asked you, you know, imagine the taste of lemon, immediately the right hemisphere would start to light up. The senses and our sense of being in place activate the right hemisphere. And so does imagination. So, and creativity, like, sums it all up. So any artist is just in the present moment, very much in contact with what we're making and not stuck in fear at all. The interesting thing is that after you come out of a session of that, because your right hemisphere doesn't track time and you go back into the verbal left hemisphere, it will say, well, that was nothing. That didn't even happen. There was no time. I don't know what you were doing. What is that about? So when you say, you know, I say, oh yeah, bliss and white light and everything, and you're like, uh, how does that add up? It's the right hemisphere that gives us our sense of meaning, our sense of connection, our sense of joy. And the mind that goes, ah, no, that actually is a completely different part of the brain. But as I said, anxiety shuts down creativity, but creativity shuts down anxiety. So while you were doing the ideal day, how anxious were you?

Zero. Yeah. Nothing. Yep. Just pure feeling. Yeah.

Some scientists, some psychologists set out to discover why we, of all species on Earth, there's a certain proportion of us that take our own lives on purpose. No other animal does that, that we know of. And the answer to why we do that is language. Because of the way we think in language and time, we can construct a future that is so painful to live with that it outweighs our fear of death. A structure made of nothing but words and thoughts can torture us until we want to die. And I lived that way for about 32 years. And then I decided I was going to live in that—

the awareness of that light. I love that last sentence. "I decided I was going to live in the awareness of that light." Incredible. And you know what's so powerful about that exercise is that when you open your eyes, you're still in your present life. But the picture in your mind has changed. And when the picture in your mind changes, how you feel right now changes too. And that's exactly what Dr. Martha Beck means when she says, in this ideal day, you are out of anxiety and into imagination. Because you've stopped questioning. How's this ever gonna work? I can't start. I don't know what to do. I da da da da da. And instead you start asking, what do I hear? What do I smell? Who is beside me? What do I see? What photographs are around me? Who's laughing? It helps you to stop feeding the fear and drop into your senses and create a different future. And that was the whole point of this episode, to help you to feel different. Just 5 simple things that you can do to shift how you feel, to shift your mood, to clear away the weight, any single time you need to. And I just wanna say, I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you for taking this time for yourself and listening to something that's gonna make you feel better because you deserve to feel better. And while life may feel very complicated, the things that you can do right now are pretty simple. And while things may feel very hard, it is kind of easy to make yourself feel just a little bit better. Even in those moments when you don't feel like yourself, that stronger, clearer, and more energized version of you, you're still in there. And these 5 tools help you tap back into that. And in case no one else tells you today, as your friend, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. And there is no doubt in my mind that if you do these simple things to make yourself feel better in your day-to-day life, your life will in fact get better. All right. I'll see you in the very next episode. I'm going to welcome you in the moment you hit play. All right. Thank you for watching all the way to the end on YouTube. Thank you for sharing this with people in your life who are feeling tired and heavy and deserve to feel a little bit better. And I know you want to watch another video, and I know you're thinking, all right, Mel, what episode should we watch next? Oh, you're going to love this episode of the Mel Robbins Podcast. I'll welcome you in the moment I hit play.