Is your lifestyle a healthy one?
There are certain things which improve mood and strengthen a healthy approach to life. These include:

Relaxation: a person can't feel anxious (or depressed) and relaxed at the same time, so learning ways of relaxing helps to increase feelings of calm, confidence and security

Physical exercise: this promotes serotonin production, the body's natural feelgood chemical

Healthy and regular nutrition: there is a significant connection between food and mood, especially keeping blood sugar levels stable - what's more alcohol, coffee and smoking all increase stress levels

Good sleep routine: sleep has two stages - slow wave sleep which restores and repairs us physically and dream sleep which de-stresses us emotionally - so, a good sleep routine rejuvenates us both physically and emotionally

Challenging negative thoughts and black and white thinking styles - we are at our best when we stand back and observe ourselves and our lives objectively and fairly. Because what we focus on is what we get, it is best to focus on what is positive for us and to build positive expectations. We can only realistically expect to change something where we have a genuine influence over the outcome and we need to develop a healthy and robust approach to what can't be changed.

It is important to to use (or improve) our priority, time management, communication, problem-solving and assertiveness skills effectively - some or all of these skills can be at risk if we are too highly emotionally aroused. We can learn too to be more compassionate with ourselves and take care to value ourselves and our core standards.

Drawing on a wide variety of things to meet your needs: family, partner, friends, work, social life, leisure, anything else which gives you a sense of meaning or purpose, receiving and giving enough attention, having enough privacy, having a sense of achievement in at least one part of your life, having at least one person who accepts you warts and all. Relying predominantly on too few sources for meeting these needs and/or not investing sufficient time in enough of these needs is generally not healthy