How to Lift Someone's Spirits

If you're a naturally empathetic person, you probably find yourself in-tune with the emotions of others. Perhaps more often than you'd like.

Even if you aren't, you'll have found yourself in a situation where you would have liked to improve somebody's mood, but may not have known how to.

A reader, Knight, commented in the article on emotional contagion about how a long-time mentor/motivator had seemed down on a recent occasion:

“A great female friend of mine who is usually a great motivator for me was down today - something I haven't seen since we were in year 9 - and it really threw me off.”

He wanted to know how he could shift her emotions:

“I still felt the need to try and cheer her up somewhat... could you perhaps show us all how to shift emotions?I do my best to stay away from downers these days but I realise that some important people in my life are going to feel a bit down some times. It would be great to get them up on par with our happiness again!”

This is a common sentiment when met with the advice that you should associate less with people who are negative or who suck energy from you, a la the psychic vampire; that you have important people in your life that you want to be there for.