Are you feeling mentally ready for 2025? Whatever your answer, there are some tried-and-true habits to help you feel sharp, alive and well in the coming year – and they’re easy to practice.
As journalists who cover the mind and brain, we are continually asking experts about the behaviors, conditions and outlooks that influence mental and cognitive health. The tips listed here aren’t meant to ensure you’ll be upbeat and performing at your best 24/7 (frankly, that just isn’t realistic), but they can help you build resilience, find balance and prioritise the things that you hold most dear.
1. MOVE YOUR BODY
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it 1,000 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 do have a lower risk of developing depression and dementia.
How can exercise do all this? Scientists think that moving your body leads to extra blood flow and chemicals released in the brain, which can help build new connections between neurons. In both depression and dementia, many of these connections are lost, so a beefed-up brain can serve as a buffer against impairment.
2. ADDRESS YOUR ANXIETY
Survey after survey shows that many people are anxious. If you can relate, there are ways to manage your tendency to worry:
Confront your fears. Research suggests that directly facing 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 traits that you admire, then do something meaningful to embody them. For example, if being generous is important to you, consider volunteering in your community.
Try not to catastrophise. Ask yourself: Was the amount of worry I devoted to a particular problem worth it? How did I navigate my worries and what was the most important thing I learned? Write down your observations so that you can refer back to them if excessive worry or dread resurface.
3. CHALLENGE YOUR BRAIN
It’s still up for debate whether crossword puzzles and brain training games can actually make you smarter or meaningfully lower your risk for dementia. But experts say they can’t hurt. The same goes for other cognitively stimulating activities, like playing board games, reading books or newspapers, or learning another language.
If something is mentally challenging, “chances are that’s probably pretty good for your brain,” said Lesley Ross, a professor of psychology at Clemson University.
4. GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP
Americans are chronically sleep deprived: One-third of adults say they get less than seven hours a night. And when people have trouble sleeping, it can affect how they experience stress and negative emotions. They might also be more likely to ruminate, be quicker to anger, have more negative thoughts or find it harder to cope with stress.
Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I, is more effective than sleep medications over the long term: As many as 80 per cent of the people who practise it see improvements in their sleep. If you’d like to give it a try, check out the workbook 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.
5. GET UNSTUCK
We all occasionally feel stuck at work or in our relationships, but there are small things you can do to jump-start your life.
Try a “friction audit”. Identify the things that create obstacles and add complications or stress to your everyday and try to trim them away. To get started, ask: Am I repeating certain patterns that are unhelpful? Are there things I do regularly that I don’t enjoy?
Try “futurecasting”. Think about what it would look like to be “unstuck.” Then think about the specific steps that would help you work toward that vision. Write down those steps – ideally by hand – and try to do at least one step each day.
6. STAY COOL
When temperatures do rise, heat can dramatically 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 yourself from acting a certain way,” appears to be affected by heat, said Kimberly Meidenbauer, an assistant professor of psychology at Washington State University.
Take the heat seriously and prioritise staying cool and hydrated. Air conditioning, sitting under a fan while spritzing yourself with cold water, taking a cool shower or finding a nearby cooling centre can all help your brain continue to function at its best.
7. QUIET YOUR INNER CRITIC
If you often feel as though you never quite measure up, then it might be time to accept what’s “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 useful. Ethan Kross, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has found that when people use the word “you” or their own name in internal dialogue instead of saying “I,” it feels more constructive and positive.
So instead of saying: “I cannot believe I made that mistake. It was so stupid of me,” consider saying this: “You made a mistake. But your mistake is something that has happened to a lot of other people, too, and you won’t feel badly about it forever.”
8. TAKE CARE OF YOUR PHYSICAL HEALTH
We know that our brain and body are connected, but it’s easy to forget just how much one can influence the other. Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital McCance Center for Brain Health have driven home how important physical health is for mental and cognitive well-being using a unique format: A quiz that estimates people’s risk for dementia, depression and stroke. (You can take The New York Times’ version here.)
The majority of the questions ask about common health metrics (such as blood pressure and cholesterol) and behaviours (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 would like, it’s never too late to make a change.
9. MAKE A NEW FRIEND
Feeling lonely and isolated can harm our mental health, and it may change our brains, too. In fact, there’s a growing body of research showing a link between loneliness and Alzheimer’s disease. Experts think that may be because loneliness triggers 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 short phone call 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 ones that tap into a shared identity, like for widows or new moms, advised Dr Ellen Lee, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego; that can give you something immediate to connect over.
10. FORGIVE – OR DON’T!
Much has been written about why forgiveness is good for us. But therapists, writers and scholars are questioning the conventional wisdome that it’s always the best route.
In the book You Don’t Need to Forgive: Trauma Recovery On Your Own Terms,” which is coming out in February, the trauma therapist and author Amanda Gregory defines forgiveness as an emotional process rather than an endpoint. The process may help you experience fewer negative emotions or thoughts about the person who wronged you. But it doesn’t mean you have to like the person.
“You can forgive someone and have nothing to do with them,” she said.
And, she added, if you prefer not to forgive or you aren’t ready, then that’s okay too.
By Christina Caron and Dana G Smith © The New York Times Company
The article originally appeared in The New York Times.
