DR. AMEN’S TOP 10 BRAIN HEALTH TIPS

1. Love your brain.

Just like your heart and liver, your brain is an organ—and it creates your mind. You can put your brain at risk through various lifestyle choices, like poor diet and lack of exercise or sleep. Or you can dedicate your efforts to tactics that promote better brain health.

When your brain suffers, your whole life can suffer: relationships, decision making, mental health, and more. On the other hand, when you work to optimize the physical functioning of your brain, you’ll enjoy a better mind—one that fosters more well-being, peace, and happiness in your everyday life.

2. If you’re struggling, ask for help.

In decades past, mental health issues were shrouded in stigma, shame, and misconceptions. Even today, individuals may hesitate to seek help for their mental health issues because they don’t want to be viewed as “defective” or “weak.”

However, stats show that if you have mental health symptoms—such as depression, anxiety disorders, memory loss, brain fog, or problems with focus—you’re no longer in a small minority. A wide-scale survey of individuals in 29 countries published in 2023 found that by age 75 about half the population will develop 1 or more of the 13 mental disorders considered.

Remember that asking for help is a sign of strength, and spreading awareness will contribute to ending the shame around mental health conditions.

3. When things go wrong, be curious, not furious.

Do you tend to beat yourself up for failures or bad days? If so, rethink your perspective. Slip-ups, setbacks, and mistakes can offer great lessons if you choose to learn from them rather than use them as evidence of your inadequacy.

In fact, setbacks are part of your progress, not in opposition to them. When you’re enacting any new habit, you’ll need time to adjust. Then, through practice, healthier habits will become automatic. And, when you backslide into old ways, don’t get frustrated—get curious. Ask yourself, “How can I learn from this experience?”

4. Find the root cause of your mental health problems.

Even though we give simple labels to mental health issues like generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder, we should never treat them as simple or straightforward.

Depression, for example, is a symptom with multiple possible causes, including biological reasons, lifestyle choices, and circumstances such as grief or stress. Amen Clinics has outlined seven types of depression and anxiety, seven types of ADD (attention deficit disorder), also called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and six types of addiction.

Therefore, diagnosis and treatment should never be one-size-fits-all. Amen Clinics uses state-of-the-art brain scan technology called SPECT to enable the most effective targeted treatment.

5. To feel better, look for the positive.

Did you know that you can choose your own mood and attitude, simply by training your mind? You may have already noticed this phenomenon working in your life: When you focus on positive thoughts, you tend to breed more positive thoughts. When you focus on everything that is going (or could go) wrong, you’re more likely to notice the negative.

Your thoughts actually change your brain chemistry. Negative thoughts boost cortisol, the stress hormone, making you feel anxious and depressed. Positive thoughts generate feel-good chemicals, like dopamine and serotonin. To create your own “positivity bias,” make a daily gratitude list or journal about three positive things that happened in your day.

6. Discipline your mind.

Related to #5 above, negative thinking is a habit like any other—and one you can break by exercising more discipline. First, become familiar with your automatic negative thoughts (ANTs). When you start to examine them and ask yourself if they’re true, you’ll find that they often aren’t based in reality. They also tend to build upon each other, creating further negative thoughts.

You don’t want to engage only in positive thinking, either. Aim instead for accurate thoughts. When your thoughts are realistic rather than falsely positive or doom-and-gloom, you’ll enjoy better mental health and more happiness, while engaging in fewer bad habits.

7. Don’t argue with reality.

This phrase, adopted from Byron Katie, refers to the frustration that’s bound to result when you can’t roll with life’s punches. Those who are trapped in rigid thinking patterns, as opposed to embracing cognitive flexibility, create unnecessary suffering for themselves and others.

Instead of fighting reality, focus on what you can control. Notice and redirect negative thinking loops and seek to boost serotonin for better moods. When you go with the flow and adapt to uncertainty, you will create more peace and stability, even amid life’s inevitable stormy periods.

8. Try natural treatments whenever possible.

Doctors all too frequently consider prescription medications as the first or only line of defense for mental health issues. Sometimes, these can be helpful components of a treatment plan. But we should never overlook the many natural solutions available to counteract mental health symptoms like depression and anxiety.

Options like supplements, dietary changes, and exercise can make significant impacts on mental health. They can also be affordable (or free), without the side effects that medications may bring. Just make sure that any supplements you take contain clinically studied ingredients that are verified by an independent third party for optimal quality and efficacy.

9. Feed your brain with healthy foods.

Diet can aggravate common mental health conditions—including autism, memory problems, ADD/ADHD, and clinical depression—or it can assist in healing the brain and body.

Elimination diets help you find out if certain foods are contributing to physical, mental, cognitive, or behavioral issues. If you’re noticing symptoms associated with mental health disorders, examine and/or adjust your diet. As a bonus, every member of the family, including children and pets, will benefit from eating more brain-healthy foods.

For 2025, you can’t afford not to prioritize fueling your body with a high-quality diet. It will save you untold amounts of money and difficulties in the long term, helping decrease the risk of chronic diseases for years to come.

10. Know that the price of treatment is less than the cost of lifelong mental health problems.

People often assume that seeking mental health treatment is too expensive or time-consuming. They may believe they’re performing at their best even while struggling with common mental health symptoms.

However, untreated psychiatric issues can take a serious toll. Strained relationships, substance abuse, lost jobs, and underperformance at work or school are just some potential outcomes. Just like maintaining a well-balanced diet, getting mental health help may require money and effort in the short term, but you’ll enjoy major savings over time.

DAILY MENTAL HEALTH HABITS ADD UP

These 10 mental health tips for 2025 may seem like small efforts, but they’re designed to create maximum impacts in your life and health. Even subtle tweaks, with consistent and diligent practice, can make a big difference.

Try a few of them—or all of them—to enjoy major strides in your mental health and prepare to mark significant progress by this time next year.

Reviewed by Amen Clinics Inc. Clinicians