1. Practice gratefulness. Jonah showed no gratefulness for God’s delivering him from death nor for God’s bringing repentance to the Ninevites. Gratefulness could have benefitted him in many ways, as science is now revealing.
Gratefulnes can …
- help you become more others-centered.
- give you more energy.
- help you sleep better.
- make you physically feel better (it increases several ‘feel good’ brain chemicals).
- help you become less materialistic. Jesus said, “‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (Acts 20.35).
- help combat negativity and the negative emotions that follow.
2. Become others-focused. It would have behooved Jonah to be joyful over what God did in Nineveh rather than turning his eyes on his anger and disappointment.
3. Ask yourself well-placed questions. God asked Jonah three questions, not because God didn’t know the answers. Rather, He asked Jonah the questions to prompt him toward healthy introspection. Unfortunately, Jonah never looked inside but simply reacted and fed his downward spiral.
4. Get into community. When we pull away from others, it contributes to a downward spiral because we can lose perspective in our own negative thought stream. However, when we are with others who care about us, they can give us fresh perspective and help us when we really need it. In fact, when we associate with others who care about us, our brain releases oxytocin which bonds us to them and makes us feel better.
5. Do something constructive. For Jonah, the best thing for him would have been to go back into the city to minister to these newly changed people. To pull out of a downward spiral, brain studies show that simply making a decision can dampen our negative emotional centers and help us think more clearly.
6. Rest. One of the best ways to pull of out a spiral is to simply slow down, rest and take care of ourselves. Jesus reminded us of this in Mark 6.31. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Have you ever been in a downward spiral? What has helped you pull out?
