5 Ways To Pull It Together When The Funk Is F*cking You Up

Something happened. Maybe nothing happened. But something did change: you.

There’s this feeling, a certain type of sadness that follows you around. You go to your job; you do your work; you see your friends, but you can’t shake it.

Every day is just as hard as the last, if not harder, because you’re reminded of how you got here.

Sometimes, it feels like you have to remind yourself to breathe, to move. And you know if you didn’t, you’d be fine just sleeping until you couldn’t feel anything.

You’re trapped. The sadness isn’t necessarily around you; it’s not in the people you see or the activities you do, it’s within you. And that’s the hardest thing: realizing you can’t run away from it.

You have two choices: let it take you over until you disappear, or deal with it.

Here are some things to do when you decide to fight the funk:

Stay away from your bed.

Our natural instinct when we’re feeling out of sorts is to climb into bed, disappear beneath the covers and close our eyes until the pain subsides — or we fall asleep.

These daily “lie downs” don’t revitalize you, or even make things more bearable. As you lie down masked by the darkness, all you’re reminded of is how low you feel.

Instead of waiting to drown under the weight of your depression, put some clothes on and get out of the house.

Do something proactive that reminds you of how productive you can be in a day.

Put yourself together.

Stay away from the grey sweatpants and oversized college t-shirt that make you look like a contestant on "The Biggest Loser."

Regardless of what happened to make you feel this way — a breakup, school, a job, no job, family, just life in general — remember that you’re beautiful and you should dress like you believe that.

Put some makeup on, do your hair differently or wear your favorite outfit, anything that might make you feel a little better about yourself.

While it’s true that just because you’re put together on the outside doesn’t mean you’re all right on the inside, maybe that little boost you get from seeing yourself looking fine might seep its way into the rest of you.

Surround yourself with family and friends.

They can be annoying enough on your best day, but in the end, the people who care and know you best will be there when they’re needed.

You don’t even have to talk to them if you don’t want; just being in the same room, knowing you have people who are ready to listen when you’re ready to talk is enough.

When things are going wrong, we all have the tendency to isolate ourselves and claim our sadness for ourselves, but that will only make your misery build until it breaks you.

And when you break -- you will -- you’ll wish you hadn’t pushed everyone away.

Listen to upbeat music.

You say you’re tired of feeling that if it weren't for all your emotions, you’d be able to deal with the disappointment of everything. But, who really wants to go through life feeling numb?

Stop playing Adele, Sam Smith and old-school Ne-Yo on repeat. It’s not good for your heart, and it’ll just make you feel worse.

Play something that makes you want to dance like Stevie Wonder or Robin Thicke, and turn up the volume until you feel the music vibrating through you.

Then, try to stop yourself from feeling something. You won’t be able to.

Try something new.

You’ve noticed the things that used to make you happy don’t really have an effect on you anymore. So, do something that might spark some excitement inside you.

It doesn’t have to be anything extreme, just something new to you.

Maybe that means getting a clichéd haircut after a bad experience to get rid of all that baggage and dead weight.

Or sign up for a kickboxing class to release some of your pent-up anger.

Yeah you’ll still hurt at first, but after a while, you’ll find something that makes you feel worthwhile and inspired again.

And the feeling that brought you to that point will eventually fade.