10 Research-Based Hacks to Master Your Mental Health

It is fair to say that everyone wishes to be mentally healthy, happy, and full of well-being. However, it can be difficult to know how to achieve these lofty goals. You may have tried any number of approaches to feel better about yourself and your life, only to feel that you’re just not making progress. There are enough challenges that can stand in your way, from making ends meet financially to coping with the daily demands caused by your obligations to work, family, and just about everything else. Never mind taking care of your physical health. Exercise? When?

Where to Find the Answers

There is a surprising pathway through these obstacles based on the accumulating body of research on healthy aging. You might not consider yourself “there” yet, but by taking what you can now from this wisdom of these well-supported principles, you’ll be helped now and for years, if not decades, into the future.

Before covering 10 empirically based strategies, it’s worth mentioning why these findings can be trusted. You might grasp at teasers here and there in your social media feed about “this” brain health pill or “that” all-purpose promise of the effectiveness of meditation. In general, unless such posts come from well-conducted research with appropriate controls (such as randomized trials), they are likely to be misleading.

Researchers in the field of aging and mental health apply their training in both methods and practice to ensure that their findings are not only clinically useful but also scientifically sound. The availability of large-scale replications and “meta-analyses” (tests using multiple data sets) are leading to far more solid conclusions than was ever possible before. It’s the results of these types of studies that you will read about next.

Mental Health’s 10 Hacks

1. Maintain your physical health. This might seem obvious, but a “sound mind and sound body” now has a strong empirical basis. Chronic diseases, stroke, and unhealthy levels of cholesterol and glucose can contribute to depression (Albai et al., 2024). Yet in many cases, they are easily prevented by healthy lifestyle habits.
2. Engage in regular exercise. Getting that sound body is indeed key to reducing the odds of depression at any point in life, but particularly as you get older. Meeting minimum physical activity guidelines can change your body’s way of handling stress in addition to its effect on its overall ability to function (Gyasi et al., 2024).
3. Take care of your vision and hearing. Your sensory apparatus, whether you think about it or not, affects every aspect of your daily life. Vision impairment is related to symptoms of anxiety in older adults (Zhang et al., 2023) and also increases the risk of social isolation in later life, which, in turn, is a risk factor for depression and anxiety (Almidani et al., 2024). Hearing impairment has similar effects on mental health.
4. Get some sleep. When you’re anxious and depressed, it can be hard to get a good night’s sleep, but this inevitably becomes a vicious cycle. This may not be surprising, but research showing the association between nightmares and poor cardiovascular health provides another reason to stay physically healthy (Lee et al., 2024).
5. Go to the dentist. A toothache is definitely a detriment to your well-being, but over the long haul, poor dental health is a risk factor for depression, especially when it leads to tooth loss (Rouxel et al., 2017).
6. Avoid accidents. Obviously, it’s upsetting when you fall and hurt yourself, but many such accidents are preventable. Older adults with traumatic injuries are more likely to have mental health problems (Zarzaur et al., 2024). Why not keep these from happening by learning to avoid fall risk (at any age)?
7. Look in your medicine cabinet. It is by now well-known that opioid medications present significant risks, but, in general, the condition known as “polypharmacy” can occur when drugs that interact cause psychological effects (Schepis et al., 2021). Be sure to read all the possible interactions before you take your next pill.
8. Get enough nutrients in your diet. Vitamin D is an important nutrient that many people miss, but it is important both for bone health (a contributor to mental health) and as a factor involved in depression (Pourghaed et al., 2024).
9. Seek social support. Loneliness is a risk factor for a variety of mental health conditions, whether long-term or as the result of a significant life event such as the loss of a partner (Oughli & Lee, 2024). It may take some effort at first, but it’s important to build or rebuild your bonds with the outside world.
10. Get help if you need it. A U.S. national survey showed that, among adults 60 and older, only 46 percent of those reporting symptoms of any mental health condition received help, and of these, 95 percent believed they didn’t need it (SAMHSA, 2024). Treatment is a way to regain your mental health, but you need to get it first.

Your Next Steps

You’ve now seen the 10 hacks and their research support. The articles cited here are only the tip of the iceberg, and all have ample backing from related studies, some going back decades.

Even if you pick out two or three of these hacks, you’ll be on your way to building a mentally healthier future. What’s great about even taking on two of these is that they build on each other. A holistic approach to improving your well-being now will soon follow, once you realize that (a) none of these are that hard individually and (b) you feel better.

To sum up, sometimes even the best hacks take some work. Start small, and the work won’t seem like work anymore as your body, and life outlook, build toward a healthier future.

Facebook image: MAYA LAB/Shutterstock

LinkedIn image: TetianaKtv/Shutterstock