Hacking Your Brain for Mental Health
“Change what you can, manage what you can’t.” – Raymond McCauley
Knowing what to do is not the same as doing what you know
Since 1992, we celebrate World Mental Health Day on 10 October to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world and to mobilise efforts in support of mental health. This is a sign of an ongoing global shift from stigma and discrimination to better understanding of mental health and acceptance and support for those who need it due to mental illness. After all, any of us can find ourselves, at any point of the mental health continuum (a range of states, with mental health and mental illness at the two extreme ends), during our lifetime.
Every year, we see a wave of publications and discussions about various aspects of mental health culminating on 10 October and then, gradually, decreasing until it disappears almost completely from our “radars”.
By now, we know not only about key facts on this important topic, but also about many useful tips and strategies to help our mental health and overall wellbeing. Sometimes, we may even revisit this information when we are making our New Year’s resolutions. But knowing what to do is not the same as doing what you know, and our good intentions rarely, if ever, become sustainable habits. The action paradox, or disconnect between knowledge and action, is at play here. This article contains some useful tips for dealing with the action paradox to help you integrate the following brain hacks for better mental health into your everyday life.
Some of the less-known brain hacks for mental health
In many of my previous articles published by The Maverick Paradox Magazine, I mentioned the benefits of evidence-based practices such as mindfulness, gratitude, journaling, reframes and other brain hacks and healthy lifestyle strategies.
Let’s explore a few of the less-known brain hacks for better mental health which are grounded in sound academic research.
- Take a cold shower in the morning. You can start with your usual temperature setting and turn it to cold at the end. You will notice that this will immediately change your breath to fast and shallow (a sign that your “fight or flight” mode is activated). Focus on your breathing to slow it down and to extend exhales. Practising this hack will train your nervous system to stay in “rest and repair” mode. Alternatively, you can try cold water immersion in the form of a cold bath or cold water swimming. Listen to this podcast by the late Dr Michael Mosley about the science of cold water and how it could help your mood, brain, immune system and heart.
- When you feel stressed, yawn and stretch slowly. According to Mark Waldman, a neuroscientist from Loyola Marymount University, yawning reduces hyperactivity in the frontal lobe, especially when combined with slow stretching and gentle stroking of your arms and hands. It can help you enter a deep state of relaxation in less than 60 seconds.
- Use your sense of smell to increase your wellbeing – in evolutionary terms, our sense of smell played a critical role in our survival and flourishing as a species. Unlike other senses which travel first to the thalamus region of our brain, which acts as an interchange to connect these senses to the relevant areas of our brain for processing, our sense of smell goes straight to the limbic system, where emotions are processed and the hippocampus, where our learning and memory are being formed. We know from research, that smell-based memories can induce a powerful emotional response when triggered. So, introduce your favourite smells to your everyday life and enjoy them – it could be the smell of freshly ground coffee, shower gel or scented candles. Alternatively, just remind yourself about happy moments in your life and smells associated with them. Amplify these smells in your mind and notice how this simple trick will lift your mood. For me, it is the smell of a pine forest on a hot summer day; this reminds me of happy school holidays which I spent with my grandparents.
- Make sure you get enough nature experience – According to research, it is one of the determinants of mental health and wellbeing. Exposure to real nature (as opposed to looking at the photos or watching videos) has been strongly associated with changes in brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that plays an important role in emotional regulation, reducing the impact of stress and other mental health benefits.
- Stimulate your vagus nerve. This nerve is the longest in our body. It is an important part of our parasympathetic system connecting our brain to our major organs and can play a major role in our mental health. There are many natural ways to stimulate the vagus nerve in order to counteract the signals that cause anxiety. You can find some of them in this article and this blog post. There is a short guided video on some vagus nerve techniques which you can try. You can also download a useful guide about staying well in the workplace with simple, discrete and effective exercises.
- Move your eyes to lower stress. We know from research that eye movement is directly connected to thought patterns and cognitive processing which is used in new therapies such as EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) proved to be effective in treating trauma and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). You can use lateral (side to side) eye movement to reduce stress. Neuroscientist Dr Andrew Huberman explains the science behind this method and its benefits in this video.
- Before going to sleep, do the 4-7-8 Breath exercise – This technique, developed by Dr. Andrew Weil, involves inhaling quietly through your nose on a mental count of four, holding your breath for a count of seven and exhaling completely through the mouth with a “woosh” sound for a count of eight. This is one breath / one cycle. You will need to repeat this cycle three more times. Practising this technique will calm the nerves, soothe the heart and help you reduce sleeplessness. You can also do this exercise a few times during the day to manage your stress response.
You can read about other brain hacks helpful for boosting positivity, productivity, and managing anxiety in this article by Dr Eva-Maria Kangro.
Test all these hacks and find the ones that work best for you. Then make sure you practise them regularly until they become a habit (regularly repeated behaviour that requires little or no thought and is learned rather than innate). This is the best way to beat the action paradox and close the gap between your knowledge and action for better mental health and wellbeing.
Want to know more about brain hacking? My next article will follow soon!