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 — some of our favorites from the past year — 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 prioritize 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.

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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.”

Read the full article on The New York Times