Learn how your brain is wired and evolved, as this fundamental knowledge empowers you to make informed changes to protect your sleep, attention, and physical activity, leading to better overall well-being.
Understand that panic attacks are often a sign of a normally functioning brain, acting as a ‘smoke detector’ calibrated to accept false alarms to protect you. This reframe can reduce fear of anxiety itself and potentially decrease the frequency of attacks.
Integrate daily movement into your life as an essential, non-optional component of health, recognizing that consistent physical activity is crucial for overall well-being and brain function.
Engage in regular exercise to preserve brain function, improve memory, focus, creativity, and intelligence, as the brain is the organ that benefits most from physical activity and it also protects against depression and anxiety.
Keep your smartphone out of reach, especially during important tasks, work, or sleep, as its mere presence can be a powerful ‘super stimuli’ that distracts you and consumes mental bandwidth, even if you don’t pick it up.
To significantly improve sleep quality and duration, remove smartphones from the bedroom and use an old-school alarm clock instead. The constant stimulation and information from a phone in bed severely disrupt sleep.
Intentionally create personal rules for digital device use and food consumption to prevent overeating, excessive screen time, and distraction. Consider making your home a low-tech environment, like switching off Wi-Fi at night, to make it harder to engage with tempting stimuli.
If you suffer from severe anxiety that devastates your life, seek professional help. Anxiety is incredibly powerful and cannot be easily tricked away by positive thinking, so there’s no point in suffering in vain.
Make exercise a habit by integrating small movements into your daily life, such as walking or biking to work, or taking the stairs. This helps overcome the brain’s natural tendency towards laziness and conserves energy.
Engage in regular exercise as it is incredibly important for mood regulation. Physical activity improves overall body state, sending better signals to the brain and increasing the likelihood of creating positive feelings.
To calm your nervous system and shift away from fight-or-flight, breathe in for four seconds and breathe out for six seconds, repeating this pattern several times. This longer exhale is very effective for inducing calm.
Put words to your emotional experiences, either by journaling, saying them out loud, or thinking them, trying to be nuanced and objective beyond simple terms like ‘I feel bad.’ This activates the prefrontal cortex, which helps calm the amygdala and reduces anxiety.
Recognize that cravings for high-calorie, super-sweet foods are natural evolutionary instincts for survival. Understand that resisting these powerful temptations in modern abundance is not a moral failing, but a fight against strong biological urges.
Avoid bringing foods you don’t want to eat into your home, as willpower is finite and if tempting food is present, it will likely be consumed. Save your willpower for situations outside the home.
Be incredibly cautious about your focus, as the brain is naturally wired to scan for danger and is easily distracted. Protect your deep focus mode during important work by removing potential distractions like smartphones.
Choose physical books over screens for reading, especially difficult texts, as studies show better learning, retention of details, and understanding of context, potentially due to physical references that aid memory.
For individuals who have experienced multiple depressions and wish to prevent new ones, consistent exercise is incredibly important, potentially even more so than continuing with medication, to lower the risk.
If you have a difficult problem, go for a fast walk and then dedicate the hour immediately after to thinking about the problem. This temporary boost in creativity can increase your chances of finding a solution.
Engage in even short bursts of exercise, such as 20 minutes of brisk walking for adults or six minutes of movement for children before class, to improve concentration and enhance the ability to resist distractions and impulses.
If you currently do not exercise, even small increases in daily movement, like walking or biking to school/work, will yield the most significant benefits for your cognitive abilities and feelings.
Do not blame yourself for feeling lazy or struggling to exercise, as it is not a flaw in character but a natural biological instinct to conserve energy. Understand that you are fighting powerful evolutionary forces in modern society.
Be aware of the ‘Achilles heels’ in your psychology, which are ancient defense mechanisms that have become disadvantages in modern society. Understanding these allows you to work around your difficulties and function better.
As a parent, model intentional and healthy digital behavior, such as limiting social media access for teenagers and prioritizing physical activity, to protect children from the detrimental effects of excessive screen time and comparison.
Before considering sleeping pills, try fundamental changes like removing phones from the bedroom and engaging in regular exercise, as these are often effective and should be prioritized in most cases.