Top 10 mood boosters

If you’re feeling blue, here’s our top 10 quick ways to give your confidence a boost.

Glam up
Don’t dismiss a bad hair day. Nearly three-quarters of women say their beauty regime boosts their confidence, with more than half of women saying colouring their hair is key, according to a new survey from beauty company Clairol.

And it’s not only slapping on some lippie and dyeing your hair which will help. A study by scientists at Manchester University found there’s a direct link between wearing a push-up bra and inflating your confidence. The researchers filmed women aged 20-55 in three different everyday scenarios, comparing their behaviour in cleavage-enhancing lingerie and their daily underwear.

They discovered a drop in body language signalling a lack of confidence, such as breaking eye contact and touching the face, while behaviour showing confidence, such as smiling, rocketed by 73 percent when they were given a bit of added uplift.

Sit up straight
Yes, your granny was right - sitting up straight is good for you. In fact, improving your posture helps to cut self-doubt, research by Ohio University has found. Scientists discovered that people who were told to sit up were more likely to believe what they’d written about whether they were qualified for a job – compared to those who slumped, who were less convinced of their own abilities.

So you won’t just create a good first impression on other people, you’ll end up changing the way you think about yourself.

Update Facebook
Editing your profile actually makes you feel better about what’s good in your life, according to a Cornell University study, so get onto Facebook and start updating your status. The researchers believe it's probably because social media lets us project the best image of ourselves, giving us a quick boost.

And as most feedback, from likes to comments, tends to be positive, that will raise your self-esteem even further. You may want to ignore all your friends’ bragging though.

Nod your head
It might feel odd when you put it into practice but nodding your head as you talk will make what you say seem more convincing and give you an ego boost, based on a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Researchers tested the theory with a group of students who believed they were trying out headphones – half nodded their heads, supposedly to check the sound quality when someone moved, the other half shook theirs from side to side. When they were questioned afterwards, the nodding group were more likely to agree with what they’d heard.

Unfortunately, the research found that this technique only works if you’re actually making a series of good points so think before you nod.

All you need is a smile
If you’re feeling down, grab a set of happy photos or prime a friend to give you a grin. Scientists from Maastricht University in the Netherlands discovered that women who were feeling unhappy with the way they looked felt much better after seeing a smiling face.

The psychologists showed the group pictures of themselves followed by smiling, neutral or frowning faces – and those who always saw a smiling face also saw an increase in their self-esteem and in their levels of body satisfaction.

Try the blues
If you’re feeling blue, you might think the last thing to help would be the colour blue – but the shade can actually increase your self-confidence as well as cutting stress according to research from the University of Sussex.

The study exposed volunteers to a range of colours and light and discovered that not only did colour make people perform tests up to 25 percent faster, but blue was the only shade which helped both men and women feel calm and confident, although purple also gave women an ego boost. And it could all be down to evolution, with the colour of a blue sky making us feel as if the day has been well spent.

So even if January won’t play along, dig out the holiday snaps and give yourself a quick lift.

Spend time with your dad
If you owe your parents a visit or haven’t quite got round to returning those phone calls, there’s another good reason to do it – a study from the Social Science Research Institute at Pennsylvania State University found that the more time spent alone with your father, the higher your self-esteem.

The research tracked nearly 200 families over seven years and found that spending one-on-one time with your dad has more of an effect than similar time with your mum, increasing social skills and boosting confidence. And while the study was focused on teenagers, it can’t hurt to catch up with your dad for a bit.

Get out
Heading outside could be one of the quickest ways to boost your self-esteem. And it takes less than five minutes to feel the results of getting out in the fresh air. Researchers at the University of Essex looked at evidence from 1,250 people to discover that almost any activity, from walking and cycling to gardening and fishing, in almost any green outdoor location – at any age – improves your mood.

For an added pick-me-up, exercising outdoors, especially in an area with a lake or river, gave people an extra lift, and while there are extra benefits the longer you exercise, the biggest increase in self-esteem is still in the first five minutes.

Strike a pose
Not feeling so confident inside? Fake it… That’s what one assistant professor at Columbia Business School in the US discovered. When she split volunteers into two groups, the set which adopted confident poses such as putting their feet up and interlocking their hands behind their heads actually felt more confident after just one minute than the other group, who sat looking at the ground with their hands in their laps.

It was not just all in their heads either. The researchers took a blood sample from the study participants and found the power posers had significantly higher levels of testosterone, so their body language actually changed the chemical make-up of their bodies.

Create a new you
Not happy with the way things are? The answer, it seems, could be to create a new virtual-self online, according to research by the University of Missouri. The study discovered that being able to create an avatar, an electronic version of yourself, can actually influence everything from your appearance to your health and self-esteem in real life.

The researchers questioned 279 people involved in virtual reality world Second Life, and discovered that the more they identified with their avatar, the better they felt about themselves – for example, people who wanted to lose weight, created fitter avatars and visualised themselves as slimmer and healthier.

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