Home Page - Mood Matters - Depression awareness for young people.

Moods

We all experience a range of moods - 'good' and 'bad', which are part of our everyday lives.

What are moods?

What moods should we expect?

Why do we have moods?

'Bad' moods can be healthy...

When 'sad' moods are more than 'bad' moods...

What are moods?

Moods are a quick way of talking about loads of different feelings. Being in a 'bad' mood could mean feeling angry, rejected, lonely, bored or upset. A 'good' mood could mean feeling happy, interested, excited, contented or loved.

What moods should we expect?[^ top]

Everyone feels lots of different moods. Some can make us feel 'bad' like sadness, fear or anger, or 'good', like happiness, excitement or love. Moods are usually about what is happening around us or how we are feeling about ourselves...

- When someone we really fancy asks us out we could feel excited and attractive (and maybe a bit nervous!)
- When someone has a go at us and won't listen to what we are saying we could feel angry or frustrated.
- If we feel that we are good at a certain subject at school or a certain job at work we could feel confident and interested.
- If we fall out with a close friend we could feel sad or 'depressed'

Why do we have moods?[^ top]

There are 7 main feelings that we all have to feel. These feelings are like messages telling us that things are good, or that something needs to change. Click on the images to see the message...

Sadness - Tells us that we believe something important for us is missing or lost or that we are not getting on as well as we feel we should be.

Anger - Tells us that we or someone/something we care about is being treated unfairly in some way.

Happiness - Tells us we feel we are getting on well and we feel safe.

Disgust - Tells us when we think something is wrong or unfair.

Fear - Tells us that there is something happening, or going to happen, that we feel is dangerous or uncertain.

Surprise - Tells us that we have learnt something new.

Love - Tells us that we really care about another person or that another person cares and accepts us.

If we learn to stop and read these messages they can help us make good decisions on how to deal with feelings in a good way.

'Bad' moods can be healthy...[^ top]

We can probably think of times when 'bad' moods have helped us - some examples could be:

- When someone close to us dies, the sadness we feel helps us show our love for him/her.
- When there is danger, fear can help us be more alert and help us avoid it.
- When we are wrongly accused, anger can help us stand up for ourselves.

'Bad' moods are an important part of everyday life. Learn to recognise moods (good and bad!) and try to understand why you have these feelings so you can figure out the best way of sorting things out. Talking to other people is a good idea - they can help us see things differently and help stop us getting 'stuck' with a feeling, or they could give us advice on what helps them.

When 'sad' moods are more than 'bad' moods...[^ top]

Everyone feels sad from time to time, usually because of what's happening around us or how we are feeling about ourselves. These feelings of sadness usually last a short time - maybe a couple of hours or maybe even a few days.

If your sadness...

- lasts longer (maybe a few weeks or more)
- feels over the top
- affects the way you think and act
- won't seem to go away

...it may be that you may have depression.

"I didn't feel right. I was so sad all the time. I found school really difficult. I found it difficult to talk to people and I lost my confidence."

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