How to Be Mellow

Changing Your Perspective

Empower yourself to change what you can change. Part of being mellow is knowing when you should actually change something that is gnawing at you. If you're irritated by a co-worker and do nothing to address it, then yeah, you are unlikely to feel mellow when you're at work. If your closet door is driving you crazy but you don't try to fix it, then you won't be feeling mellow for very long. The important thing is to approach the fixable problems in life with calm and resolve. Ask yourself about which things in life are causing you to not be mellow. Work to find a way to solve or address the problems that you are able to deal with.

Stop freaking out about the things you can't change. Along with changing the things you can change, in order to truly be mellow, you have to be able to learn to accept the things you cannot change. You can address a problematic co-worker to discuss issues you've been having, but you may not be able to change the fact that you hate the weather in the place where you live or that you have to live with siblings who pester you. Learn to recognize when a situation is out of your control and accept it with a calm mind. Let's say your new boss is driving you crazy, but you really love your job. If you try to resolve the issue and fail, then you have to learn to focus on the parts of your job that you love in spite of being annoyed by your boss.

Don't hold a grudge. If you're the kind of person who doesn't know how to forgive and forget, then you are guaranteed to be less mellow. If one of your friends or family members has truly upset you, you have to work on being able to talk about it and to move past it, even if you haven't completely forgiven the person. If you walk around holding a grudge, then you are guaranteed to be in an angry, riled-up state instead of facing the day with calm and peace. If you spend so much time obsessing over being mad at people who rejected you or fuming over people who have harmed you, then you will never be able to mellow out. Sure, it can help to talk about how someone has hurt you. But if you keep talking about it to everyone within earshot, you're only going to work yourself up into a frenzy.

Keep a journal. Keeping a journal can help you feel in touch with your thoughts and ready to face new challenges. Making a goal of writing in your journal at least a few times a week can help you check in with yourself and feel like you are in touch with your mental state. Doing so also helps you establish a healthy routine and gives you time to slow down and accept whatever the day has thrown at you. If you don't take a moment to breathe or relax as you write down your thoughts, then you will not be feeling mellow any time soon. Use your journal as a place for honesty and a reservation of judgment. Write down what you're thinking and feeling without fear or lies and you'll be on your way to feeling more at peace.

Learn to take it one step at a time. A lot of people don't feel mellow because their wheels are always turning, trying to play out every move of life like it's a chess game. Let's say you're a writer who is deciding whether to be a librarian or to go to graduate school. Instead of planning out the next ten years of your life, wondering if you'll ever be able to publish a book, just do what feels right to you during that particular stage of your life. Focus on whatever you're doing right now and think about your next move without worrying about the next ten moves you'll have to make. If you learn to live in the present and to fully immerse yourself in what you're working on now, you'll be much more likely to succeed at what you're doing than if you're constantly wondering about where this step will lead you.

Taking Action

Take 15-minute walks every day. Taking walks has been proven to relieve stress and to help you stop worrying about all of the things that are bothering you. If you make a goal of taking just one or two 15-minute walks per day, then you can help yourself get some fresh air, be out in the sunshine, and to make an effort to break your usual habits or routine. If you're feeling overwhelmed or angry and not sure how to proceed, taking a walk to clear your head can have a powerful positive effect on your mental state. Sometimes all you need is a change of scenery. Just being out in the world, seeing trees, people, and others going about their days can make you feel more peaceful.

Exercise more. Exercising will also make you feel more mellow, and more in control of your mind and body. Just making a habit of exercising for 30 minutes a day or as many times as you can a week can help you have a lifestyle that makes you feel more calm and at peace. Any form of exercise will help you focus on your body and relieve some of the anxious energy you've been carrying around, though every person has a different form of exercise that can be best suited to his needs, such as yoga or hiking. You can even make exercise a part of your daily life, if you're short on time. Instead of driving to the grocery store, take a 15-minute walk there. Instead of taking the elevator to work, take the stairs. These little efforts at activity do add up.

Spend time in nature. Being out in nature can help you feel more calm and at peace, and can give you a sense that most of your problems really aren't that big of a deal. It's hard to worry about your upcoming project or job interview when you're walking through the woods or standing on top of a mountain. If you're in a more urban environment, visit a public garden or a lake just to get a taste of nature. It's more important than you think when it comes to mellowing out. If you find a hiking, swimming, or biking buddy, then you'll be even more motivated to spend time in nature.

Listen to soothing music. Listening to classical music, jazz, or other music that makes you feel more calm and mellow can have a big impact on your inner and outer state. Try to minimize the death metal or other music that gets you riled up and turn to more calming sounds. You can go to concerts or just experience this music in your own home or car, especially when you're feeling stressed out. If you just plug in for a few minutes and listen to mellow music, you'll find that your mind and body will relax more easily. If you're in the middle of a heated argument, you can even excuse yourself and spend a few minutes listening to calming music before you return to the conversation.

Rest with your eyes closed to calm down. Sometimes, all you need to do is to take a few minutes of time out. If you're feeling really overwhelmed and not mellow at all, just lie down or sit down, close your eyes, and try not to move your body for a few minutes. Shut down your mind and focus on the sounds around you, and see if you can even fall into a light sleep for a few minutes. Try this for 15-20 minutes. You don't want to end up taking a long, hour-plus nap and wake up feeling groggy or worse than usual. If you feel anxious because you're tired and don't feel capable of dealing with a lot of your problems, making a power nap a part of your routine can help you feel more mellow.

Laugh more. Making laughter a bigger part of your routine will definitely make you feel more relaxed and at ease, and thereby more mellow. You may feel like you don't have time for laughter, or that laughing isn't "serious" enough, but you should really make an effort to spend time around people who make you laugh, watching comedies, or just to do things that get you out of a serious frame of mind. Get silly with your friends and dress up in goofy costumes, dance for no reason, run around in the rain, or do whatever you can to shake yourself out of your stressed-out funk and to crack up more. Making a goal toward laughing more is something you can do today and start right now. Even if you're just watching a cat do something ridiculous on YouTube, you'll still be headed in the right direction.

Minimize your caffeine intake. It's a known fact that caffeine can make you feel more anxious and less at peace. Though drinking coffee, tea, or a soda can definitely give you the burst of energy you may be looking for, if you drink too much of it, or drink it too late in the day, then you are likely to feel more jittery and less mellow than you may want. Ask yourself how much caffeine you regularly drink and slowly work to cut this number in half — if not eliminate your caffeine intake completely. It goes without saying that if you want to be mellow, you should avoid those energy drinks at all costs. They will give you a quick high and then will make you crash and feel anxious.

Having a More Mellow Lifestyle

Hang out with more mellow people. One way to instantly make your life more mellow is to hang out with more people who have a mellow mindset. Being around people who are calm can soothe you and make you feel more at peace. Seek out people who have a more zen approach to life and try to emulate them. If you're close with them, ask them what makes them tick and talk to them about how they approach their lives. Though it's unlikely that you'll be able to act exactly like these people all of a sudden, it will be possible for you to pick up some tricks from them, and to mellow out just by hanging out with them. In addition to hanging out with more mellow people, you should also try to weed out the people who cause you unnecessary stress or anxiety. Though you shouldn't drop your high-strung friends completely, you should think about spending less time with people who rile you up. That being said, you should know that there's a different between being mellow and being indifferent or just not caring that much. If you have friends who really don't care one way or the other because they don't have too many goals or ambitions, then they are not necessarily being mellow. It's important to be motivated and to want to achieve something in life, even if what you want is happiness or inner peace — being mellow just means having a more healthy mindset while you go about your day.

Keep your space clean. Another way to make yourself feel more mellow is to pay more attention to how you keep your space. Keeping a clean desk, a made bed, and a room that is free of clutter can have a positive impact on your mental state. Taking the time to put everything in order at the end of your day, even if you only take 10-15 minutes, can have a big impact on how you approach your day and how much you feel that you have on your plate. Make a concerted effort to keep your space in order and you'll be surprised by how much more mellow you feel. Of course you'll feel frazzled if you wake up and your desk is scattered with paperwork, or if you spend half an hour trying to find the shirt you wanted to wear. Keeping your space clean will make your life feel more balanced. You may think that you don't have the time to keep your space clean. However, you will find that if you put just 10-15 minutes a day into managing your space, that it will actually save you time because you'll never waste time looking for anything.

Don't be in a rush. Another thing that mellow people do well is to not stress about running out of time or getting somewhere late. You need to work on managing your time so that you have plenty of time to get from one place to another, and that you leave early enough to get somewhere on time instead of stressing out about running late. If you're running late, you're going to be frazzled, not have time to manage your appearance, and will likely forget something, which will make you eve more stressed out. Leave for school or work ten minutes earlier than normal and see how much better you feel when you stop running from one place to the next. The unexpected can always happen. Even if you end up getting to school or work 20 minutes early, it's better than being late because you ran into an unexpected traffic jam. If you plan your life this way, you will feel more mellow when you approach any situation.

Keep a reasonable schedule. Keeping a reasonable schedule is tied to not being in a rush. If you want to be mellow, then you can't have eighty different balls in the air at once. You have to work on finding a way to give yourself enough time to move from place to place and to not be overwhelmed by all of the things that life throws at you. It's important to make time for your friends, but not so much time that you have no time for yourself. It's great to engage in many different projects, from weaving to doing yoga teacher training, but you shouldn't feel like you are committing too much and not being able to do any one thing well. Take a look at your schedule. Do you see anything you can drop without missing it too much? Think about how much calmer you feel if you take 2-3 kickboxing classes during the week instead of 5-6. Make sure to always save at least a few hours for yourself, if not more, during the week. Every person needs to spend a different amount of time by him or herself; get to know how much "me time" you really need and don't ever back out on it. Plan a few short "recovery" breaks throughout the day so you have a chance to clear your head.

Do yoga. Making yoga a part of your life will have countless benefits, from giving you inner peace to helping you develop a toned body. Making a habit of practicing yoga several times a week will make you feel more mellow, more calm, and more in control of your mind and body. When you're on the yoga mat, your goal is to forget all of the distractions around you and to focus on syncing your breathing with the movements of your body; for that time, your other cares and worries should melt away. But doing yoga isn't just a coping mechanism for forgetting your stress for a little while; it helps you build a road map for tackling stress, whether you're on or off the mat. Ideally, you should practice yoga at least 5-6 times a week. This may sound like a lot, but you don't need to go to a studio to practice more than a few times a week, or at all. You can practice in the comfort of your own home, as long as you have the space to do it.

Meditate. Meditation is also a way to become a more mellow person and to learn to quiet all of the voices that may be agitating you throughout the day. To meditate, just find a place where you can sit down for at least 10-15 minutes and learn to relax your body, one part at a time. Close your eyes and focus on the breath rising in and out of your body. When you open them and feel alert again, you'll feel more capable of dealing with what the day throws at you. The best part is, you'll feel more capable of tackling challenges with inner calm and can return to the place you reached in meditation during any part of your day.