Want to make 2025 your best year yet? Here is some advice from scientists and wellness experts on how to improve your quality of life.
If you, like us, have made New Year’s resolutions about improving your wellbeing in any way, we need to form new habits to get the ball rolling. We’ve checked out advice from wellness experts to offer you four hacks on how to live a better life. Best thing? These biohacks are absolutely free — anyone can implement them!
1) Get some blue light from the sun for an energy boost but avoid it at night.
Many of us need something to jolt us out of our morning lethargy. Some turn to coffee. But you can get it for free from the sun.
Lily Serna, host of Lily’s Life Hacks, says that early on in the day, lots of sunlight gets filtered out by a thick layer of the atmosphere (minimising those pesky UV rays!). But higher energy light — blue light — makes it through.
Sleep expert Tim Mocha tells Serna that blue light is the best way to reset your body clock. When blue light strikes a part of your eyes, it informs your brain to stop producing a hormone called melatonin, which is responsible for making us feel sleepy and is usually secreted at night. So when we receive blue light exposure in the morning, we naturally feel more alert.
Unfortunately, blue light can be a double-edged sword. If you are exposed to it at night — and it’s easy to, since our electronic devices like mobile phones emit it — your sleep cycle can be disrupted. This is also problematic for modern society because we spend most of our days indoors, without sunlight, and our nights in light.
For that morning energy boost, get about 10 minutes of sun, without sunglasses on, while it’s still not blazing hot yet.
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Lily Serna is on a mission to find everyday science-based hacks to create the formula for a perfect day.
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2) Practise deep breathing to lower stress
Even if you start the day right, it’s probably not long before stress kicks off. According to Serna, that stress is humans’ ancient fight-or-flight response trying to save our lives. When your body senses stress, it can trigger your nervous system to raise your heart rate, blood pressure, and anxiety. A small dose of it can be good in the right situations, but many of us battle too much stress on far too regular a basis.
Good news? There’s a free remedy for stress: deep breathing. Breathing more mindfully and slowly — making your exhalations longer — can help lower your blood pressure and heart rate. It is a tool used in yoga and tai-chi, and people also use it to handle the stress of ice baths — a kind of cold meditation that’s become trendy in recent years. The more we practise deep breathing, the more we can build resilience and take charge of our nervous systems.
3) Delay your caffeine consumption to get the most of its benefits
When you wake up in the morning, the amount of cortisol and adrenaline in your body is already going up. So you are already experiencing a natural kind of high. Caffeine, which gives your body a jolt of energy and raises cortisol levels, will raise your alertness, but you probably don’t need it immediately after you get out of bed. Instead, wait an hour after waking up, when your cortisol and adrenaline levels are falling, to drink coffee — that way, you’ll get the most bang for your cup. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with drinking coffee right out of bed, but delaying that morning cuppa just a while can help optimise your energy levels.
4) Being in nature can work wonders for your mental health
You’ll hear people say things like “you need to go out more” or “take a walk in the park”. Turns out, there is some science to back such advice. On Healing Gardens: Exploring Nature’s Natural Medicine, Dr Melissa Lem, a family physician and environmentalist who has been researching the nature-health connection for a decade, shares that her evidence-based MRI studies show that good things happen in the brain when the body is in nature.
For example, there was a study comparing men who spent 15 minutes looking at the forest with men who spent 15 minutes looking at the city. Looking at the city did nothing for the men, but looking at the forest actually lowered the participants’ cortisol levels. Turns out, being in nature really lowers our stress and anxiety levels!
So if you want a quick mood boost, try going for a short walk in nature.
This beautiful series explores the healing capabilities of nature, gardens, gardening and unique green spaces.
View DetailsImages: Pexels (Mike, Vlada Karpovich), Unsplash (Parker Johnson, Elise Zimmerman).