11 Ways to Lift Your Mood (or Someone Else's)

Unwind with a Whiff

Essential oils can become your personal Pavlovian stimuli. "You can use an oil to elicit a response by creating an association and reinforcing it," says Dawkins. For example, if you use lavender oil during a professional massage, you'll associate the fragrance of that oil with a moment of near nirvana. Once the connection is established, just sniffing that aroma in a less serene setting (a hectic mall or standstill traffic) will recall that warm and fuzzy frame of mind. This kind of olfactory conditioning can also be accomplished with perfume. Wear a fragrance to an emotionally meaningful event and you can conjure up some of those same blissful feelings whenever you need to, with a quick spritz.