How to Turn Lemons into Lemonade

15 Ways to Sweeten Up Your Day

Are you feeling surrounded by acidic lemons--sour, trying times that you just can’t seem to enjoy or digest? It could mean an opportunity to turn hard times into learning experiences and chances to grow.

Maybe it is time to make new choices and take this moment to turn what is sour into something sweet: Change your outlook, surround yourself with love, seek out and find hidden treasures in everyday experiences, get healthier, and, perhaps most importantly, be grateful for anything and everything that comes your way.

If life has handed you some lemons, here are a few ideas for turning them into fruits of opportunity filled with potential.

Excerpted from Lemons to Lemonade: Little Ways to Sweeten Up Life’s Sour Moments (Conari Press 2020) by Addie Johnson. She is a freelance writer/editor and mom whose other books include The Little Book of Big Excuses, Life Is Sweet, and the forthcoming Little Book of Thank Yous and Stick-to-it-iveness. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.

Have a Good Laugh, it’s the Best Medicine

Diagnosed with a rare disease and given only months to live, scientist Norman Cousins checked himself into a hotel room and took massive doses of vitamin C and watched funny movies and television shows all day long. And it worked. For every ten minutes of belly laughs he got two hours pain free. He lived far beyond anyone’s expectations and ignited more serious study of laughter as medicine.

Laughter can boost blood flow as much as light exercise or drugs that lower cholesterol.

There’s some good evidence that laughter can boost the immune system, as well as clean toxins out of the lungs and blood stream. Plus, laughter releases endorphins that are more potent than equivalent amounts of morphine. What’s more, you don’t need to go to rehab to quit laughing if you get hooked.

Try these Ingredients for Success

If you’re feeling in a rut? There’s no secret recipe for success, but these ingredients certainly can’t hurt.

Perseverance: Keep at it! There’s no better way to succeed, and no other way to know whether you can accomplish what you think you can.

Innovation: Redefine the landscape of your field. It can come to you in a moment, but is often the result of a lot of preparation--a miraculous new approach to an old problem.

Caring for Others: In simple, everyday ways and in dramatic, save-the-world ways like developing a new vaccine. If helping people is your focus, you can’t go wrong.

Tackling Challenges: Biting off a little bit more than you think you can chew and pushing through problems as they come.

Resilience: Your response to challenges, and never letting difficulty dull your happiness.

Faith: Knowing in your heart of hearts that this is right.