Next time you're feeling down, change your perspective with this surprising technique

Writer Judi Ketteler has a solid piece of advice for next time you’re feeling a bit down.

And it doesn’t involve Netflix, chocolate, or texting your ex. When you feel angry or confused, try a handstand.

She writes in the New York Times:

The more uncertain, angry, fearful or confused you feel, the more you need to plant your hands on the ground, kick your feet directly above you, and let all those negative emotions drain right back into the earth.

It’s the opposite to what we’d usually do, she says.

In our most vulnerable times, we tend to look up, whether for a prayer or a primal scream. We search out a higher something in the clouds.

It feels like truth is above us and we are stuck on the ground, unable to figure out where we fit in.

On more than one occasion, I have thrown my arms wide up to the sky, feeling helpless.

Each time, the thing that has helped me most is to plant them back on the ground.

Ketteler argues that handstands let us see the world from a new perspective.

If you have been upright nearly every moment of your life and then you are upside-down — well, that feels different. Your body experiences space with a new orientation. That experience alone is a worthwhile endeavor, because seeing the world differently for a minute can sometimes put the right-sided world in perspective.

So there you have it: get yourself upside down. And if that fails, there's always chocolate and Netflix.

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