So, How Are You?
I don’t believe in complicated mental health routines. I believe in rules. Short, blunt, non negotiable rules that keep your head straight even when your life is a mess. You don’t need a twelve step morning routine or a wellness app that pings you to breathe. You need a handful of things you actually stick to, every single day, no exceptions. Here are seven I live by, and they work better for me than any journaling app or guided meditation ever has.
Turn Off the Sad Songs
If a song makes your chest hurt, skip it. I know it feels good in a strange way to marinate in a breakup ballad at 1 AM, but you’re not processing anything, you’re rehearsing pain until it becomes a habit your brain reaches for automatically. Music goes straight into your nervous system without asking permission first, no filter, no logic, just straight emotional wiring. Feed it something that lifts you, not something that keeps you circling the same drain. Save the sad stuff for when you’re already solid enough to handle it without getting pulled under.
Stop Watching the Sad TikToks on Loop
You know the ones. The heartbreak audio over a slow motion video, the “if you’re going through it too” captions, the algorithm that somehow knows exactly which wound to poke. Don’t react to them. Don’t comment. Don’t rewatch. Every time you engage, you’re training the app to feed you more of the same, and you’re training your own brain that this is where you live now. It’s not harmless scrolling, it’s a feedback loop that keeps you stuck in whatever mood got you to open the app in the first place. Scroll past. Your future self will thank you.
Never Trust What You Feel After 10 PM
Nighttime thoughts lie. Your brain is tired, your defenses are down, and everything feels bigger and darker than it actually is. That relationship problem, that career doubt, that spiral about whether you’re doing life wrong, none of it is as true as it feels at midnight. Your prefrontal cortex, the part that keeps you rational, is running on fumes by then, and your emotional brain takes over the wheel. Write it down if you need to get it out of your head, then go to sleep and look at it again in daylight. Nine times out of ten it looks completely different by 9 AM, and the crisis you were sure you were having quietly disappears.
There’s No Hidden Version of You
Stop hunting for some secret broken part of yourself that explains everything. There’s no dark twin hiding behind your personality waiting to ruin your life. There’s just you, and you’re allowed to be different in whatever way you are. The moment you stop treating yourself like a mystery to be solved, you stop blaming yourself for things that are simply part of who you are. Self awareness is useful. Self interrogation is a trap that keeps you circling your own flaws instead of living your life.
Hungry, Tired, and Dirty Is Not a Crisis
When everything feels like it’s falling apart, run the basics check first. Have you eaten. Have you slept. Have you showered. Half the time your brain is screaming existential alarm bells because your body is running on empty, not because your life is actually collapsing. The world isn’t ending, you’re just depleted. Handle the basic needs before you make any big decisions or send any dramatic texts. Reset first, judge your life second, always in that order.
Look Yourself in the Eyes Every Morning
This one sounds soft, but it isn’t. Every day, look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself it’s going to work out, and that you’re the coolest person you know. It feels ridiculous the first few times you say it out loud. Do it anyway. You talk to yourself all day long whether you notice it or not, and most of that inner monologue is criticism you’d never say to a friend. Might as well make sure the voice in your head is actually on your side for once.
Move Your Body and Your Mind Follows
Walking fixes more problems than overthinking ever will. You don’t need a gym membership or a six day training split, you just need to get outside and move. Your body was built to be used, and when you sit still all day with a spinning brain, that energy has nowhere to go except back into itself, feeding the same anxious loops. Go for a walk before you make any decision you’re not sure about. Let your legs do some of the thinking your head can’t handle right now. It works almost every time.
None of these rules are complicated, and that’s the point. Mental health isn’t always about deep work and therapy breakthroughs, sometimes it’s just about not feeding the fire. Pick one of these and start today, not next Monday, not after some big life event forces your hand. Your brain will notice the shift before your calendar even catches up.
