First published November 16, 2017.
A more pleasant life is usually built from small, repeatable habits rather than big changes: moving your body most days, a few minutes of quiet, decent food, people you stay in touch with, and a kinder way of handling your own thoughts. Below are 28 such habits, grouped by theme, with a note on what research actually supports and where popular advice goes too far.
None of these is a rule. Pick two or three that suit your life, try them for a few weeks, and drop anything that feels like one more chore. If low mood has lasted a long time or is getting in the way of daily life, these ideas are no substitute for help: talk to a doctor.
Move a little and make space for quiet
1. Walk for about 20 minutes a day. Smiling on the way is optional. Walking is often called a natural antidepressant, which oversells it, but not by much: a large 2024 review in The BMJ, pooling over 200 trials, found walking or jogging among the more effective activities for reducing symptoms of depression, with stronger effects from more vigorous exercise. Experts also pointed out that exercise can be very hard when depression is severe, and that it works best alongside, not instead of, treatment.
2. Sit still for ten minutes. No phone, no podcast. Some people call it meditation; you can simply call it a pause. Ten quiet minutes lets your attention settle and makes the rest of the day feel less rushed.
3. Start the morning with intention. For people of faith that may be a short prayer asking for guidance for the day. For others it can be a moment to decide what matters most today. Either way, beginning on purpose beats beginning in your inbox.
Eat and drink in ways that help
4. Favour foods that grew on plants and trees. Fruit, vegetables, beans, nuts and whole grains form the base of nearly every well-studied healthy diet, from Mediterranean to traditional Japanese.
5. Drink plenty of water, and green tea if you like it. Green tea is a pleasant, low-calorie drink with modest caffeine. Claims that it melts fat or prevents disease go well beyond the evidence, so enjoy it for what it is.
6. Keep a few favourites on hand, like blueberries, broccoli and almonds. They are nutritious and easy to add to meals. No single "superfood" transforms health, though; variety matters more than any star ingredient.
7. Make breakfast and lunch your main meals, and keep dinner light. The old saying puts it as breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. Research on meal timing is mixed, but many people sleep better and feel less sluggish when the last meal of the day is smaller and not eaten late.
Look after your mind
8. Spend less energy on things you cannot change. Gossip, people who drain you, and endless replays of old hurts take a lot and give little back. Notice where your attention goes and redirect it, gently, to something you can act on.
9. Do not take yourself too seriously. Laughing at your own mistakes makes them lighter for you and for everyone around you.
10. Ask whether it will matter in five years. Most daily irritations will not. That simple question shrinks a lot of drama to its real size.
11. Care less about what others think. Most people are far too busy with their own worries to judge you as closely as you imagine.
12. Remember that every situation changes. Good spells pass, and so do bad ones. Holding both thoughts makes the highs sweeter and the lows easier to wait out.
13. Let time help, but do not wait for it alone. The saying that time heals everything is only half true. Time softens many things, but grief and trauma often need support from friends, community or a professional as well.
14. Make peace with what hurt you. That does not mean pretending it was fine. It means deciding that the past will not run the present. For some people that takes reflection; for others, therapy.
15. Stay with the present moment. Planning is useful; rehearsing worst cases is not. Bringing attention back to what is in front of you is a skill that improves with practice.
16. Prefer hopeful thinking to forced positivity. Insisting on being positive all the time can make hard feelings worse. A realistic, hopeful view, one that admits problems but expects you can handle them, holds up better.
Be easier to live with, for others and yourself
17. Forgive more readily. Holding on to resentment keeps an old injury fresh. Forgiving is mainly something you do for your own peace, and it does not require trusting the person again.
18. Let some arguments go. You do not have to win every debate. "We see this differently" is a perfectly good ending.
19. Stop measuring your life against other people's. You see their highlights, not their struggles. Comparison is especially unfair on social media, where almost everything is curated.
20. Give more than you take. Time, attention, a meal, a kind word. Generosity tends to come back, and it feels good in the moment too.
21. Let go of jealousy. It rarely changes anything except your mood. Turning attention to what you already value is a better use of the same energy.
22. Try to make a few people smile each day. A compliment, a thank-you or a small favour costs almost nothing. Three a day is a nice target.
Keep work, gratitude and friendship in proportion
23. Remember that work is not your whole life. Protect time for rest, hobbies and the people you love. You will not be remembered for your inbox.
24. Notice what went right today. Gratitude has some of the best evidence of anything on this list. In a well-known study by psychologists Robert Emmons and Michael McCullough, people who wrote weekly about things they were grateful for felt more optimistic about their lives after ten weeks than those who wrote about irritations.
25. Count your blessings when stress builds. The cheerful line "too blessed to be stressed" is not literally true for anyone, but pausing to list what is going well can take the edge off a hard day.
26. Accept that life is unfair and still worth enjoying. Both are true at once, and making peace with that frees energy for the good parts.
27. Own your choices, without blaming yourself for everything. You are responsible for how you respond, but health, money, history and other people shape your wellbeing too. Doing what you can, and asking for help with the rest, is a fair balance.
28. Keep in touch with your friends, and pass good ideas on. Strong relationships are one of the most reliable predictors of a long, healthy life. A 2010 analysis of 148 studies with more than 300,000 people found that those with stronger social ties had about 50 per cent higher odds of survival over the study periods. If one of these habits helps you, share it with a friend; it might help them too.
Myths worth dropping
- "Happiness is entirely up to you." Choices matter, but so do circumstances, health and support. Struggling is not a personal failure.
- "Think positive and the bad will go away." Ignoring problems usually lets them grow. Acknowledging them is the first step to dealing with them.
- "One food or drink can fix your health." Overall patterns of eating, sleep and activity matter far more than any single item.
- "Exercise cures depression." It helps many people, sometimes a lot, but depression is a medical condition with effective treatments. If you are struggling, talk to a doctor; in the US you can also call or text 988.
How to actually start
Choose one habit from movement or rest, one from your mind and one from relationships. Attach each to something you already do: a walk after lunch, a quiet minute before you open your laptop, a message to a friend while the kettle boils. Give it two or three weeks before you judge it. Small, steady changes are the ones that last.
Sources: Science Media Centre: expert reaction to the 2024 BMJ review of exercise for depression (Noetel et al.); Holt-Lunstad, Smith and Layton, PLOS Medicine, 2010: Social Relationships and Mortality Risk; Harvard Health Publishing: Giving thanks can make you happier; NIMH: Depression.
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