Life Got You Down? Experts Suggest ‘Lemonading’

"lemonading," a strategy to enhance resilience and happiness during challenging times. It involves maintaining a realistic view of challenges while staying positive, without succumbing to toxic positivity.

You have two major options when you’re struggling with something: wallow in it, or try to look on the bright side. Turns out, choosing the second option, or “lemonading,” may make you more resilient and happier overall—so that you can still enjoy your life when things are challenging.

Experts suggest acknowledging and reframing feelings, creating personal affirmations, using humor, and focusing on the present to incorporate lemonading into daily life. In the study, they acknowledged risks and challenges just as realistically as others did,” Dr. Shen says. People who practice lemonading also feel vulnerable and isolated sometimes. Dr. Shen says that what set lemonaders apart in the study is that they were able to be “realistic” about what was happening around them while still thinking of positive things in the future.

Basically they didn’t buy into toxic positivity, but still managed to be upbeat. Lemonaders were also good at tweaking their behaviors and trying to be creative in how they navigated hardships. Ultimately they felt more joy and satisfaction with their lives than people who didn’t have this approach.

“Ask yourself, ‘Is there another way to look at this? What is the best case, worst case, and likely scenario?’” Dr. Gallagher says. She also recommends looking at the situation as it is, and then focusing on what you can do about it, if anything. For example: “If you were laid off, but you haven’t been happy in your job for months, what could be good about this?” Dr. Gallagher says. “You don’t need to find the silver lining in everything, but sometimes looking at things through a different lens can make a big difference.”

Trying to find a balance in how you look at things is crucial, Jason Moser, PhD, professor of cognition and cognitive neuroscience at Michigan State University, tells SELF. “Having a view of life where you don’t suppress emotions and you try to problem-solve in a productive way is important,” he says. “It’s crucial not to have rose-tinted glasses where you’re like, ‘everything is fine,’ but also remember that most of the time, negative things get better.”