Eight Steps to Helping Yourself Have a Happier Life

Research into genetics can make it feel as if our personality and mood are preordained. But you can do much to strengthen your mental health. Attitudes and thoughts can control biologically induced anxiety. Environment can mitigate mood problems. Relaxation techniques can keep anxiety symptoms to tolerable levels.

Here are eight steps to helping yourself have a happier life:

REDUCE STRESS. Prolonged stress increases the blood level of cortisol in your brain, affecting parts of it that control anxiety levels. People with genetic predispositions for anxiety or depression are especially vulnerable to the impact of stress.

Anxiety tends to make you take shallow breaths that spark rapid heartbeats. Combat that by breathing slowly and deeply from your belly, in through your nose and out through your lips. Visualize images of calm places. Or preoccupy yourself with a mental game such as counting backward from 100 by threes. Help your muscles relax by first tensing and then releasing them. When a thought gets stuck in your mind, imagine a giant broom sweeping it away.

Some athletes "compartmentalize" their fears by focusing methodically on the task before them—I will walk to the pool's edge, wrap my toes around it, lean over, listen for the gun, and so on. Such concentration allows them to box their fears.

Broaden your horizons. Hobbies give people a way of defining themselves free of peer opinion. Praying has been shown to lower blood pressure and heart and breathing rates much as relaxation techniques do. Faith can provide hope in the future and, through attendance at services, a strong social support.

A feeling of community has been shown to be one of the best buffers against mental-health disorders. People who can name several intimate friends are healthier, happier, and likely to live longer. Friends are good sounding boards to test out perceptions and suggest alternative ways of behaving or seeing the world .

If you tend toward worry or impulsivity, try to pair yourself with people who complement your temperament rather than mirror it. Spend less time with friends who have what experts call "toxic personalities," who make you feel bad about yourself or encourage unhealthy behavior. Anxious people do better with optimistic, even-keeled mates.

SLEEP RIGHT. The human body is biologically designed to sleep eight or nine hours a day. Sleep is when the body repairs its immune system and the mind makes sense of the day's events. Too little sleep leaves people achy, irritable, and more prone to infection, depression, and anxiety disorders. It can also spark manias.

Set regular times for going to bed and waking up to promote predictable circadian rhythms . Avoid red-eye flights followed by early-morning meetings. It takes the body six hours to rid itself of caffeine found in chocolate, coffee, and soft drinks. Many people use a "nightcap" to induce drowsiness. Although alcohol initially sedates, it has a middle-of-the-night chemical rebound that wakes up the body. Granny's cure of a glass of warm milk is better; milk contains tryptophan, which induces sleepiness.

Drink six to eight cups of water a day to hydrate your body and eliminate insomnia-causing toxins.

ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE. Negative thoughts are self-defeating and seem to promote anxious physiology within the brain. Research has shown that "reframing" your expectations and practicing coping strategies will rewire the brain. It gives the thinking prefrontal lobe the power to override instinctive fight-or-flight alarms in the brain's more primitive regions.

Try to eliminate black-or-white perfectionism, overgeneralizing with words like "always" or "never," magnifying a mistake or flaw, and assuming the worst.

Hyper self-consciousness is self-defeating and unrealistic. In his book Change Your Brain, Change Your Life , psychiatrist Daniel Amen gently pushes an "18/40/60 rule ": When you're 18, you worry about what everybody is thinking of you. When you're 40 you don't care. When you're 60 you recognize that nobody's been thinking about you at all. They're worrying about themselves.

Think in shades of gray. When something doesn't go as well as you wanted, look for positives. That allows you a partial success rather than a complete failure.

Challenge your interpretation of a person's reaction. Is there evidence supporting what you feel? Are there other possibilities? Look for factors beyond your control that contributed to a disappointment. Learn to do what psychiatrist David Burns calls a "cost-benefit analysis " in his book The Feeling Good Handbook. Do your feelings help or hinder you? If they cause worry or prevent you from doing something you really want to do, it's worth trying to change them.

Personality studies reveal four traits that promote mental health: high self-esteem, a feeling of being in control, optimism, and extroversion. Outgoing people tend to make more friends, claim better jobs, and marry earlier—things that promote well-being.

LISTEN TO MUSIC. A study of children with attention deficit disorder found that Mozart calmed theta brain-wave activity, helping them to focus and control their impulsivity. Because processing music involves the same regions of the brain as doing math, listening to classical music seems to strengthen higher-level brain functioning. This "Mozart effect" then would not only enhance our ability to perform mental sequencing required for math problems but should also raise our conscious control over subconscious anxiety triggers. Music just seems to soothe. Singing is an age-old prescription to calm anxious babies. And studies show that students who had learned to play musical instruments scored 51 points higher on the verbal SAT than the national average.

ENJOY SCENTS. Aromatherapy has basis in fact. Smells are processed through the deep limbic system, affecting the hypothalamus (which affects sleep and stress responses). In a study in the British medical journal the Lancet（柳叶刀） , the scent of lavender(熏衣草) oil lowered stress and promoted sleep . The scent of chamomile also seems calming.

SCHEDULE A PHYSICAL. Vitamin deficiencies, thyroid problems, anemia, and hypoglycemia can produce symptoms akin to those produced by anxiety disorders and depression. Migraines and stomach problems often coexist with anxiety disorders.

EXERCISE. The first thing therapists recommend is aerobic exercise at least 20 minutes three times a week. This elevates the level of endorphins, tryptophan, melatonin, and serotonin. These brain chemicals affect your sense of well-being, the ability to be calm and flexible, and your sleep. Exercise increases blood flow in the brain to help nourish it. It gives more energy, which also improves mood.

Go easy on exercise right before bedtime. Late-evening workouts raise body temperature and metabolism, which impedes sleep.

Take your exercise outdoors in the sunlight as much as possible. Natural light promotes good moods. It also helps regulate your internal pacemaker to give you sounder sleep.

EAT WELL. Protein is rich in calming amino acids that help produce mood-regulating neurotransmitters. Low levels of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine have been traced to worry, irritability, and moodiness.

Protein-rich foods include lean fish, turkey, milk, eggs, nuts, and produce such as avocados, peaches, and raisins . Eat protein snacks rather than carbohydrates to prevent hypoglycemic blood-sugar drops that make people agitated, anxious, and unable to focus. Contrary to popular belief, sugary or bready snacks decrease energy and dopamine levels. Graham crackers and pretzels are soporific and are good evening nibbles to bring on drowsiness.

Try to eat fish three times a week; its omega-3 fatty acids keep brain-cell membranes responsive to important brain chemicals. As hunter-gatherers, we found plenty of omega-3 in wild game and plant leaves. Today the best sources are mackerel, salmon, bluefish, sardines, tuna, swordfish, and oysters.

Have sufficient levels of vitamins B6 and E, both of which are linked to the body's production and use of serotonin. Walnuts, peanuts, and sunflower seeds contain vitamin E . Calcium seems to combat anxiety as well. Calcium comes not only in milk but in broccoli, corn, baked potatoes, almonds, peanuts, and oranges.

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