How To Improve Your Mental Health Using Simple Stress-Relief Tricks Experts Swear By
It's World Mental Health Day, take a moment to unwind with these 4 speedy tricks
Let’s be honest—taking care of your mental health can feel overwhelming, especially when you’re juggling so many responsibilities. But here’s the good news: You don’t need expensive therapy sessions or complicated wellness programs to feel better. Today, for World Mental Health Day 2025, we’re revealing how to improve your mental health using simple, science-backed strategies you can start using right now to ease stress and boost your mood.
Mental health is as important as your physical health
“Mental health is the foundation for everything else in your body and in your life, including how you sleep, eat, move, connect with others and experience emotions,” says Jennifer Dragonette, PsyD, National Clinical Services Instructor, Newport Healthcare. “When your mind is under stress, your body feels it too. Anxiety can raise blood pressure, stress can disrupt your hormones and depression or low moods can drain your energy and create relationship challenges. Simple habits like slowing down, engaging in activities you value, getting enough rest and spending time with people who lift you up can make a real difference in your mental health.”
Greg Hammer, MD, a former Stanford professor and physician and mindfulness expert, says prioritizing mental health is particularly important for women over 50.
Woman's World Answers
“The older we get, the more adversely affected we are by chronic stress, which is bad for us,” says Dr. Hammer. “Menopause itself represents a stressor, and many bodily functions can be negatively affected.” How so? Elevations in cortisol caused by chronic stress may contribute to decreased bone density. And since post-menopausal women are already at risk for osteopenia, or weak bones, “it’s especially important for women over 50 to embrace methods to decrease their stress levels.”
How to improve your mental health: 4 easy tips
You already know that eating healthy foods, being physically active and making time for activities you enjoy help improve your mental health and reduce the stress hormone cortisol. But here, we’ve rounded up surprising (and effective!) strategies you may not have considered:
Practice cyclic sighing
A Stanford Medicine study in the journal Cell Reports Medicine examined 108 adults who practiced five minutes a day of different breathing exercises for 28 days. The researchers found that daily breathwork, especially cyclic sighing, significantly boosted mood and lowered anxiety. It also reduced participants’ resting respiratory rate over time.
“Cyclic sighing, also called the ‘long exhale’ method or ‘physiological sighing,’ is a breathing technique,” says Dragonette. “The key is that your exhale is intentionally longer and more controlled [than your inhale], promoting a sense of release or letting go.”
Why are breathing techniques like cyclic sighing so impactful? “When our lungs are fully expanded, the vagus nerve is activated,” says Dr. Hammer. “This causes slowing of the heart rate, a [decrease] in blood pressure and a sense of calm. In addition, the oxygen in our blood increases. These physiologic changes enhance our health if we practice deep breathing regularly. When we are stressed, we may go all day without taking a deep breath.”
To give it a try, follow Dragonette’s simple how-to:
- Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose to mostly fill your lungs
- Take a second, shorter breath through your nose to completely fill your lungs
- Exhale slowly and fully through your mouth, making an audible sigh as your shoulders relax
- Repeat this cycle of two inhales and one long exhale for several minutes
Stay hydrated
In a Journal of Applied Physiology study, researchers found that participants who consistently drank high amounts of water (about 4.4 liters a day) had significantly lower cortisol levels after a stress test than those who drank less (about 1.3 liters a day), suggesting that staying well-hydrated may help the body respond more calmly to stress.
Dragonette explains how water calms the body’s stress response. “When humans are even mildly dehydrated, our body sees it as a stress signal, which can cause cortisol to rise,” says Dragonette. “Staying hydrated helps your body work smoothly and keeps your stress response in check so that you’re less likely to feel exhausted and strained under stress.”
As a general rule of thumb: “One should drink ample amounts of water and other liquids such that their urine is not very concentrated,” says Dr. Hammer. “This generally means drinking around 3 to 4 liters of water per day for women and men, respectively.” (That’s about 12 to 17 cups.) Learn more about how much water you should drink in a day here.
Try the ‘butterfly hug’
Researchers reporting in the Journal of Nursing Practice found that participants who practiced a “self-healing butterfly hug” once a week for 30 minutes significantly lowered their anxiety levels within three weeks.
“The ‘self-healing butterfly’ hug is a kind of self-soothing method wherein one crosses one’s arms across the chest and taps their fingers on their upper arms or shoulders,” says Dr. Hammer. “This is coupled with slow, deep breathing to activate the vagus nerve (parasympathetic nervous system). This is a way of managing stress and anxiety, serving as an emotional ‘reset.’”
The best part? You can do it any time, anywhere. “This technique works because physical touch, even one’s own, can signal safety, release oxytocin and reduce feelings of stress,” says Dragonette. “In addition, bilateral (right/left) tapping can activate aspects of our nervous system that help to ground and strengthen our sense of here-and-now safety, which helps contrast with panic sensations that accompany anxiety.”
Make time for ‘pride practice’ journaling
Remember keeping a journal when you were younger? Turns out, that simple practice is one of the most powerful ways to improve your mental health—and it takes just a few minutes before bed.
“My personal favorite journaling practice is what I call ‘pride practice,’” says Dragonette. “To try this practice, set aside a few moments before going to bed and write down three things from that day that you feel proud of yourself for. These can be large or small, and I challenge my clients to try to write down three different things each day.
“This has been very impactful for many of my clients, particularly women over 50, as we otherwise tend to focus on the things we wish we had done differently, the ways we let ourselves down or self-doubt that feeds into anxiety and depression,” Dragonette explains. “It turns out that feeling a real sense of pride, self-efficacy and self-esteem are highly protective against negative mood states and can help us move through significant challenges more easily.”
Remember that taking care of your mental health can be as simple as leaning into easy home strategies you can try anytime. You deserve to feel calmer, more grounded and in control—and now you know a few tools to help make that happen.
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Woman's World does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.
