3 Science-Backed Habits That Will Make You Feel Better Every Day

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1:01Jay Shetty:Hey, it's Jay. I don't know what your day's been like, but I was just thinking about you for a minute. And I hope you're being a little patient with yourself because you deserve it. And yeah, I'll talk to you soon.

1:24Jay Shetty:Over the last seven years, I've had the privilege of sitting down with some of the world's leading neuroscientists, psychologists, physicians, researchers, and happiness experts. Every conversation leaves me inspired. But if I'm being honest, it also leaves me with another habit to try. One expert tells me to prioritize strength training. Another swears by cold exposure. Someone else explains the importance of gut health, sleep consistency, or meditation. I genuinely love learning from these conversations, but after a while I noticed something happened that I wasn't expecting. The more I learned about wellness, the more overwhelmed I could start to feel.

2:03Jay Shetty:I found myself wondering whether I was eating the right foods, getting enough sunlight, taking the right supplements, moving enough, sleeping enough, or following the best possible morning routine. Instead of feeling healthier, I was constantly thinking about all the things I wasn't doing. And I started to wonder if this is what so many of you are experiencing as well. We have more information about health than any generation before us, yet so many people still wake up feeling exhausted, anxious, disconnected, or simply not like themselves. That's when I realized something. I feel our minds have convinced us that feeling better is far more complicated than it actually is.

2:46Jay Shetty:Somewhere along the way, we started believing that if we weren't following an elaborate routine or optimizing every part of our day, we were falling behind. Psychologists actually have a name for part of this tendency, complexity bias. we naturally assume that complicated solutions must be more effective than simple ones even when the evidence suggests otherwise think about the amount of times you've said oh it can't be that simple oh it can't be that easy it needs to be more complex than that the result is that we then spend so much time searching for the perfect routine that we overlook the habits that have consistently helped human beings thrive for thousands of years so for today's episode i decided to go back through years of conversations we've had on this podcast and ask a different question.

3:34Jay Shetty:Instead of focusing on everything the experts disagree about, I looked for what kept showing up again and again. They debate diets, they debate supplements, they debate fasting, cold plunges, and the latest wellness trends. But despite coming from completely different fields, there are three habits that almost everyone agrees have an outsized impact on how we feel. When I say feel better, I don't just mean living longer or lowering every risk of disease decades from now. I mean having more energy when you wake up in the morning, feeling calmer in your own mind, feeling more present with the people you love, feeling like yourself again.

4:15Jay Shetty:Today I want to share those three habits with you, but more importantly, I want to explain why they work because I believe understanding the science behind them is what finally makes them stick. One thing that fascinated me as I looked back through all of these conversations is that the experts almost never started with the newest research. They started with the basics. That's interesting because progress often feels like adding more. More information, more technology, more optimization. But what I've found is that in reality, the fundamentals always need to be met first. Are you sleeping? Are you moving your body?

4:53Jay Shetty:Are you chronically stressed? Are you connected to other people? I think we could all benefit from asking ourselves those questions more often. Before we assume something is deeply wrong with us, it's worth asking whether we've simply become disconnected from the things our minds and bodies have always needed. You can't optimize your way out of needing the three basic things that are going to make you feel your best. So let's start with the number one thing every expert shares we need and that is simply moving our bodies. If I asked you what exercise is good for, most people would probably give me the same answer.

5:29Jay Shetty:They'd say it's good for your heart, helps you lose weight, build muscle, or keeps you strong as you get older. All of those things are true, but I actually think they've caused us to miss the most important benefit. This episode of On Purpose is presented to you by Mazda. Peace of mind doesn't happen by chance. It's created through the habits we build before we ever need them. That's the philosophy behind every Mazda. With proactive safety features that help keep you more aware, more connected and more engaged, Mazda helps you feel ready for whatever the road brings. It's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand.

6:06Jay Shetty:And as of July 2026, Mazda has won more 2026 IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus awards than any other car brand. Visit www.iihs.org to learn more. A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Visit mazdausa.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Exercise doesn't just change your body. The first thing it changes is your brain. And once you understand what's happening inside your brain every time you move, it becomes much easier to understand why movement is one of the fastest ways to feel better. One of the biggest misconceptions we've been taught is that exercise is primarily about burning calories.

6:51Jay Shetty:That's become the story we've attached to it, especially in a culture that's so focused on appearance. We think of movement as something we have to earn or something we should do after we've eaten too much. But your body has never viewed movement as punishment. From a biological perspective, movement is one of the primary signals that tells your brain and body, we're alive. We're capable. We can handle today's challenges. That's a completely different way of thinking about it. For almost all of human history, movement wasn't something we scheduled into our calendars. It wasn't a workout class or 30 minutes of the gym before work.

7:28Jay Shetty:Movement was simply life. We walked to find food. We carried water. We climbed, lifted, squatted, ran, reached and explored just to survive. Anthropologists sometimes describe this as an evolutionary mismatch. Our bodies were designed for a world that demanded regular movement, but we've created a world where we can get through an entire day without asking much of our bodies at all. Our environment changed in just a few generations, but our biology hasn't had nearly enough time to catch up. That's why movement has such a profound effect on how we feel. It's not because your body's impressed that you hit 10 ,000 steps, it's because you're giving your brain something it evolved to expect.

8:13Jay Shetty:Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, delivering more oxygen and nutrients exactly where they're needed. It also increases the production of a protein called brain-derived nootrophic factor, or BDNF, which many neuroscientists describe as fertilizer for the brain. BDNF helps your brain create new neural connections, strengthens learning and memory, and supports the very parts of the brain responsible for emotional regulation. In other words, movement doesn't just strengthen your muscles. It helps your brain become more adaptable. But movement changes more than just your brain chemistry. It also changes the relationship you have with yourself.

8:54Jay Shetty:We often think that confidence comes before action, but psychologists have found the opposite is usually true. Confidence is built through evidence. Every time you keep a promise to yourself, no matter how small, your brain collects another piece of evidence about who you are. That's why movement can be so transformative even before your body changes. The physical benefits matter but so does the quiet confidence that comes from proving to yourself over and over again, I'm someone who follows through. Sometimes that's the feeling people are really noticing after a workout. It's not just endorphins, it's self-trust.

9:33Jay Shetty:Your muscles aren't simply machines that contract and relax. In fact, scientists now understand that muscles function almost like an endocrine organ. Every time you exercise, they release chemical messages that travel throughout your body, communicating with your brain, immune system, liver, and even your fat tissue. It's almost as if your body starts having an internal conversation. Those signals help reduce inflammation, improve metabolism and support brain health in ways researchers are still discovering. So when people say exercise is medicine, they're not speaking metaphorically. Your muscles are literally producing substances that help the rest of your body function better.

10:14Jay Shetty:This is also one of the reasons movement has become such an important tool in treating anxiety and depression. Exercise stimulates the release of endorphins, which reduce pain and create feelings of well-being. But that's only part of the story. It also increases endocannabinoids, naturally occurring compounds that help create feelings of calm and reduce stress. Over time, regular movement positively affects motivation, mood and resilience. That's why so many people say they feel like a different person after a long walk or a good workout. They aren't imagining it. Their brain chemistry is genuinely shifted.

10:50Jay Shetty:we spend so much time trying to think our way into feeling better that we sometimes forget our brains are constantly listening to our bodies. Most emotions have a physical state. Anxiety changes your breathing. Stress tightens your muscles. Sadness slows your movements. The communication goes both ways. When you intentionally change your physiology, you're also giving your brain new information about the state you're in. That's one reason a walk can change your day even when nothing around you has changed. The difficult conversation still awaits. The bills are still there. The uncertainty hasn't disappeared.

11:27Jay Shetty:But your physiology has shifted and your brain begins interpreting the world from a calmer, more energized state. Of course, movement doesn't solve all your problems, but it does change the version of you that's capable of facing them. One of my favorite questions to ask is this. If exercise makes us feel this good, why is it so difficult to get ourselves to do it? The answer isn't that we're lazy. It's that our brains are wired in a way that often works against us. Psychologists call this present bias. We naturally place more value on immediate comfort than future rewards. Your brain pays attention to how difficult it feels to get off the couch right now.

12:07Jay Shetty:It doesn't naturally give equal weight to how energized, focused, or peaceful you'll feel an hour from now. In other words, your brain is comparing today's effort with tomorrow's benefit. and today's effort almost always wins out. There's another interesting piece of psychology at work called effort discounting. Researchers have found that we consistently overestimate how unpleasant effort is going to feel before we begin. We imagine the entire workout when all we really need to do is put on our shoes. We picture ourselves exhausted, uncomfortable and wishing we were snoozing the alarm. But once we actually start moving, our brains update that prediction.

12:47Jay Shetty:That's why so many people say the hardest part of exercising is simply getting started. The anticipation is often worse than the experience itself. So often we criticize ourselves for lacking discipline, when in reality we're experiencing something almost every human brain is designed to do. Your brain isn't trying to sabotage you. It's trying to conserve energy because for most of human history, conserving energy, helping you. This episode is brought to you by Vinted. Value can be found anywhere, even in the clothes sitting untouched in our closets. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes you no longer want and get more value out of them, whether you're running out of space, moving, or simply updating your wardrobe.

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14:10Jay Shetty:Leave the driving behind and settle into a comfortable seat with plenty of room to stretch out. Catch up on work with Wi-Fi, grab a snack at the cafe car, or just sit back and enjoy your favorite podcast. Choose a cellar or Northeast Regional and get there without the stress of getting there. Visit Amtrak.com to plan your next trip. This episode is brought to you by Indeed. I know how important every hire is for a business. If you need to make the right hire, this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed Sponsored Jobs helps find quality candidates when you need them most. You can reach who you need based on whatever criteria you're looking for, like skills, certifications, or location.

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15:33Jay Shetty:So next time your brain is convincing you to stay in bed, to stay stationary, to skip that next workout, ask your brain a different question. What are all the benefits I stand to gain by simply lacing up my sneakers today? Because that's really what we're talking about. We're not chasing the perfect body. We're not trying to earn our dinner or punish ourselves in any way. We're giving our brains the signals they were designed to receive. And when we do that consistently, feeling better stops being something we hope for and starts becoming something we actively create. So if you take only one thing away from this first idea, let it be this.

16:09Jay Shetty:Don't think about movement as something you're doing for the version of yourself 10 years from now. Think about it as one of the fastest ways to change the way you feel today. You don't need the perfect workout. You don't need two hours at the gym. Sometimes a 20-minute walk, a short stretch session, or simply taking a lap around your office is enough to shift your mood. quiet your mind and remind your brain that it's capable of more than it felt just a few minutes earlier. Now, the second habit most experts shared surprised me because almost everyone I spoke to described it differently. Some talked about limiting screen time.

16:45Jay Shetty:Others talked about mindfulness or meditation. Some emphasized boredom. Others spoke about deep work or being present with your family. On the surface, it sounded like completely different advice, But underneath it all, they were pointing to the same thing. They were talking about protecting your attention. I don't think most of us realize that attention isn't just something we use. It's something we spend. Every conversation you have, every notification you check, every headline you read, every video you watch, every worry you replay in your mind, they all require a piece of your attention. Once you've scattered it across a hundred different places, it becomes incredibly difficult to feel calm, focused or present anywhere.

17:26Jay Shetty:I actually think attention is even more valuable than time. We often say time is our greatest resource because once it's gone we can never get it back. But you can spend an entire afternoon somewhere without ever really experiencing it. You can sit across from someone you love while your mind is somewhere else entirely. You can take a vacation and spend half of it thinking about work. The quality of your life isn't just determined by where your body spends its time. It's determined by where your attention spends its time. That's why I actually don't think our biggest problem is that we're spending too much time on our phones.

18:02Jay Shetty:I think the bigger problem is that we've become accustomed to living with fragmented attention. We rarely finish one thought before another one interrupts it. We answer an email while half listening to a podcast. We check a message during dinner. We watched television while scrolling social media. Somewhere along the way, multitasking became something we were proud of. But neuroscience tells us we shouldn't be. The brain isn't actually doing multiple complex tasks at once. It's rapidly switching between them and every switch comes with a cost. Researchers call one part of this attention residue.

18:40Jay Shetty:Imagine you're working on an important project and then your phone buzzes. You quickly reply write a message, and return to what you were doing. It feels like you've picked up right where you left off, but your brain hasn't. Part of your attention stays attached to the previous task, almost like leaving one room while a part of you is still standing in the doorway. That residue accumulates throughout the day, making it harder to think clearly, solve problems creatively, or feel fully engaged in whatever you're doing next. I think this also explains why so many people end the day feeling strangely drained.

19:15Jay Shetty:even if they haven't done physically demanding work. Mental fatigue doesn't only come from working hard. It comes from constantly switching gears. Imagine trying to read three different books at the same time, picking up a different one every few minutes. You wouldn't expect to understand any of them very well. Yet that's often how we move through our days. We ask our minds to constantly start over and then wonder why we feel exhausted by the evening. I recently read a study that completely changed the way I think about my phone. Researchers discovered that your cognitive performance actually decreases when your phone is simply sitting nearby, even if it's turned face down and completely silent.

19:57Jay Shetty:Think about that for a moment. You don't have to be using it for it to affect you. Part of your brain is still allocating resources to resisting the urge to check it. Your attention is paying rent to something that isn't providing any value in that moment. So if we want to solve this problem, I think we need to first understand why we do this. It's tempting to blame technology or the speed at which we're expected to know new information. But I don't think that's the full story. Most of us don't pick up our phones because we're intentionally looking for information or to be distracted. We pick them up because we're looking for relief.

20:35Jay Shetty:We reach for them in the quiet moments between meetings while standing in line, when a conversation feels awkward, or when we're anxious about something we can't control. The phone becomes less of a communication tool and more of an emotional coping mechanism. Psychologists call this experiential avoidance. Instead of sitting with boredom, uncertainty, loneliness, or stress, we instinctively move away from those feelings. The problem is that every time we immediately distract ourselves, we also rob ourselves of the opportunity to process what we're feeling. We become incredibly skilled at escaping discomfort, but much less practiced at understanding it.

21:14Jay Shetty:Over time, that constant escaping leaves us feeling mentally exhausted because our attention never gets the chance to settle. The moment there's a pause, we instinctively fill it. We reach for our phones while waiting in line. We turn on a podcast the second we get in the car. We scroll while standing in the grocery store checkout. Somewhere along the way, we stop trusting that our own thoughts were enough to keep us company. Or maybe we got scared of them. But boredom isn't the absence of something meaningful. Very often, it's the beginning of it. It's where reflection happens. It's where creativity begins connecting ideas that didn't seem related before.

21:50Jay Shetty:It's where we finally hear the thought that's been trying to get our attention all day. When we eliminate every quiet moment, we don't just eliminate boredom. We also eliminate some of the best opportunities to better understand ourselves. One of the most surprising things neuroscientists have shared with me is that your brain actually needs periods of rest that don't look like rest. Going for a walk without headphones, sitting quietly with a cup of tea, driving without automatically turning a song on, waiting in line without reaching into your pocket. During these moments, a network in the brain called the default mode network becomes more active.

22:27Jay Shetty:This is the system involved in reflection, creativity, making sense of your experiences, and connecting ideas. Ironically, some of our clearest thinking happens when we stop trying so hard to think. This episode is brought to you by Walden University. Balancing work, life, and big goals isn't easy. That's why Walden University helps working professionals get the W with Tempo Learning, so you can earn your degree at your own pace while gaining practical skills through real-life scenarios. You'll also learn from faculty with real-world experience and have support start to finish. Walden University, set a course for change.

23:07Jay Shetty:Ready to start? Visit waldenu.edu today. Certified to operate by Shev, Tempo Learning, available in select programs. That's why protecting your attention isn't really about using your phone less. It's about creating more moments where your mind can fully arrive wherever your body already is. When your attention is constantly divided, life begins to feel blurry. Conversations become shallower, meals pass by unnoticed. Days seem to disappear before you've really experienced them. But when you reclaim your attention, something remarkable happens. You don't just become more productive, you become more present.

23:47Jay Shetty:And presence has a way of making ordinary moments feel meaningful again. I also think it's worth asking ourselves a question. When was the last time someone felt like they had your complete attention? Not half your attention while you glanced at a notification. Not the version of you that was already thinking about what you had to do next. The version of you that was fully there. Because when people remember the relationships that mattered the most in their lives, they rarely remember every word that was said. They remember how they felt in the moment. They remember feeling seen, heard, and understood and important.

24:24Jay Shetty:And maybe that's another reason protecting your attention helps us feel better. It doesn't just improve the relationship we have with ourselves, it deepens the relationship we have with everyone else. So here's the question I'd leave you with. The next time you instinctively reach for your phone, pause for just a second and ask yourself, what am I actually looking for right now? Is it information or is it comfort? Because if it's comfort, there's a good chance your phone isn't going to give you what you're really searching for. Sometimes what your mind needs most is simply a bit of quiet. So we've covered the importance of exercise and the importance of protecting your attention.

25:05Jay Shetty:The third and final habit is the one I think people underestimate the most. If I asked someone to list the things they should do to improve their health, they'd probably mention eating vegetables, true, drinking more water, true, exercising, true, or getting enough sleep long before they mention relationships. We tend to think of relationships as something that makes life more enjoyable, not something that fundamentally shapes our health. But after years of interviews, I've become convinced that we have this backwards. Relationships aren't just a nice addition to a healthy life. They're the foundation of it.