Do you feel mentally prepared for 2025?
Whatever your answer, there are proven habits that can help you feel sharp, alive, and well next year—and they’re easy to practice.
As journalists covering the mind and brain, we’re always asking experts about the behaviors, conditions and perspectives that influence mental and cognitive health. The tips listed here — some of our favorites from last year — are not intended to guarantee that you’ll always be upbeat and performing at your best 24/7 (frankly, that’s just not realistic), but they can help you build resilience, find balance and prioritize the things you value most.
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- Move your body.
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: physical activity is one of the best things you can do for your brain.
Immediately after a workout, people tend to report feeling better emotionally, and their performance on tests of working memory and other cognitive functions improves. But the real benefits come from exercising consistently over time: People who exercise have a lower risk of developing depression and dementia.
How can exercise do all this? Scientists believe that moving the body leads to increased blood flow and the release of chemicals in the brain, which can help build new connections between neurons. In both depression and dementia, many of these connections are lost, so a strengthened brain can serve as a buffer against deterioration.
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- Address your anxiety.
Survey after survey shows that many Americans are anxious. If you can relate, there are ways to manage your tendency to worry:
Face your fears. Research suggests that directly confronting the things that make us anxious can help break a pattern of fear and avoidance. You can do this with a therapist—a process clinicians call exposure therapy—or you can do it on your own.
Focus on your values (instead of your anxiety). Think about the personal characteristics you admire and do something meaningful to embody them. For example, if being generous is important to you, consider volunteering in your community.
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Try not to catastrophize. Ask yourself: Was the amount of worry I put into a specific problem worth it? How did I navigate my worries and what was the most important thing I learned? Write down your observations so you can refer to them if excessive worry or fear resurfaces.
- Challenge your brain.
It’s still up for debate whether crossword puzzles and brain training games can actually make you smarter or significantly lower your risk of dementia. But experts say it can’t hurt. The same applies to other cognitively stimulating activities, such as playing board games, reading books or newspapers, or learning a new language.
If something is mentally challenging, “chances are it’s good for your brain,” said Lesley Ross, a psychology professor at Clemson University.
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- Get a good night’s sleep.
Americans are chronically sleep deprived: One-third of adults say they sleep less than seven hours a night. And when people have trouble sleeping, it can affect how they experience stress and negative emotions. They may also be more likely to ruminate, become angry more quickly, have more negative thoughts, or find it more difficult to deal with stress.
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I, is more effective than sleep medications over the long term: Up to 80% of people who take it see improvements in their sleep. If you would like to try it, check out the book “Quiet Your Mind and Get to Sleep” by Colleen E. Carney and Rachel Manber. Or download the Insomnia Coach app, which was created by the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
- Get out of stagnation.
We all occasionally feel stagnant at work or in our relationships, but there are small things you can do to re-energize your life:
Try a ‘friction audit’. Identify the things that create obstacles and add complications or stress to your daily life and try to eliminate them. To start, ask yourself: Am I repeating certain patterns that aren’t helpful? Are there things I do regularly that I don’t like?
Try ‘futurism’. Think about what it would be like to be “out of date”. Then think about specific steps that would help you work toward that vision. Write down these steps — ideally by hand — and try to do at least one step each day.
- Stay cool.
Summer may seem far away, but remember that when temperatures rise, the heat can drastically affect the brain. Studies show that hot days impair our cognition and make us more aggressive, irritable and impulsive.
“Your tendency to act without thinking, or not be able to stop acting a certain way” appears to be affected by heat, said Kimberly Meidenbauer, assistant professor of psychology at Washington State University.
When July and August arrive, take the heat seriously and prioritize staying cool and hydrated. Air conditioning, sitting under a fan while spraying cold water, taking a cold shower, or finding a nearby cooling center can help your brain continue to function at its best.
- Silence your inner critic.
If you often feel like you never measure up, it may be time to accept what is “good enough.” Experts suggest letting go of that nagging feeling that you could or should have done more. Instead, give yourself credit for what you accomplish each day.
Distancing yourself from your thoughts is also helpful. Ethan Kross, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, found that when people use the word “you” or their own name in self-talk instead of saying “I,” it feels more constructive and positive.
So instead of saying, “I can’t believe I made that mistake. It was so stupid of me,” consider saying, “You made a mistake. But your mistake is something that happened to a lot of other people too, and you won’t feel bad about it forever.”
- Take care of your physical health.
We know that our brain and body are connected, but it’s easy to forget how much one can influence the other. Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital McCance Center for Brain Health emphasized how important physical health is for mental and cognitive well-being using a unique format: a questionnaire that estimates people’s risk for dementia, depression and stroke.
Most questions address common health metrics (like blood pressure and cholesterol) and behaviors (including exercise and nutrition), illustrating the fact that the healthier your body is, the healthier your mind is. And if your score isn’t as high as you’d like, it’s not too late to make a change.
- Make a new friend.
Feeling lonely and isolated can harm our mental health, and it can also change our brains. In fact, there is a growing body of research showing a link between loneliness and Alzheimer’s disease. Experts believe this may be because loneliness activates the body’s stress response, which increases inflammation. Over time, chronic stress and inflammation can damage brain cells and the connections between them, which can contribute to dementia.
To combat loneliness, reach out to a friend or family member—even a brief connection can have a powerful benefit. If you want to make new friends, joining a club or support group is a good place to start. Look for those based on a shared identity, such as widows or new mothers, Dr. Ellen Lee, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego; this can give you something immediate to connect with.
- Forgive — or not.
Much has been written about why forgiveness is good for us. But therapists, writers and scholars are questioning the conventional wisdom that it is always the best way.
In the book “You Don’t Have to Forgive: Trauma Recovery on Your Own Terms,” due out in February, trauma therapist and author Amanda Gregory defines forgiveness as an emotional process rather than an endpoint. The process can help you experience fewer negative emotions or thoughts about the person who wronged you. But that doesn’t mean you have to like the person.
“You can forgive someone and have nothing to do with them,” she said.
And, he added, if you prefer not to forgive or aren’t ready, that’s okay too.
c.2024 The New York Times Company
