Best Brain Tips for a Healthier, Happier Life in 2024 Richard Sima - The Washington Post
go to original December 15, 2023

To put it mildly, life can be stressful. Amid the noise and the haste, it can often feel difficult to take care of our mental health.

Even relatively small, simple changes to our daily routine or mind-set can have meaningful, positive effects on mental health and well-being in both the short and long term.

Here are some of our best brain tips for a healthier, happier life in 2024.

1. Stop and Listen to the Birds

Take a walk and take in the sights and sounds of birds. Or ask your smart speaker to play bird songs.

Research has consistently shown that interaction with nature is associated with better body and brain health. Our feathered friends appear to be a specific source of these healing benefits. They are almost everywhere and provide a way to connect us to nature. And even if they are hidden in trees or in the underbrush, we can still revel in their songs.

Another study found that listening to short — just six-minute — audio clips of birdsong could reduce anxiety, depression and paranoia in healthy participants.

Read more: Why birds and their songs are good for mental health

2. Channel Your Inner Betty White

Exercise your body, eat fiber-rich foods, stay social and do hard things. These are some of the habits of “SuperAgers.” They are the “Betty Whites of the world,” says Emily Rogalski, a cognitive neuroscientist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

Rogalski was part of the research team that coined the term “SuperAgers” 15 years ago. It describes people older than 80 whose memory is as good as those 20 to 30 years younger, if not better.

What researchers are learning from SuperAgers could allow us to discover new protective factors in lifestyle, genetics and resilience for common changes that arise with aging. Becoming a SuperAger is probably partly because of the genetic lottery, but our lifestyle choices — food, exercise, social connections and taking on new challenges — can also make a difference in our cognitive health span as we age.

Read more: What superagers teach us about longevity

3. Do a Five-Minute Breathing Exercise

Practice cyclic sighing for five minutes a day. Slowly inhale through the nose to begin expanding the lungs. Inhale again to maximally fill the lungs. Now, slowly and fully exhale the breath through your mouth.

Breathwork exercises allow us to consciously slow down our breathing. And research shows it can improve not only mood but also physiology by inducing a more relaxed physical state. Cyclic sighing appeared to be particularly effective among different breathing exercises and better than mindfulness meditation, a recent study reports.

Read more: 5-minutes breathing exercise can improve your mood and lower anxiety

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