Oh hey they taught me what to tell you in nursing school! And I’m a psych nurse so I can also give tips on not going bonkers! These are all for the average person that doesn’t have any specific reason they shouldn’t do any of these; like certain gastrointestinal disorders would contraindicate the dietary fiber.

• Get plenty of low impact exercise like biking or swimming to keep your heart healthy but avoid fucking your joints.

• Eat a balanced diet that’s low in processed or added sugars and high in lean protein, polyunsaturated fats (usually liquid at room temperature), and especially dietary fiber. When you talk Paleolithic diet vs the modern diet, the biggest difference is almost always roughage/fiber. Whole wheat bread might not taste as good but your colon needs the scrubbin’

• practice good sleep hygeine. This means setting a big as possible of a difference in location, behavior, and sensory input between wakey time and sleepy time. So when you’re awake, hang out in a different area, look at different things, listen to different sounds and music, apply a different smelly lotion or keep a different essential oil near you (one of the few things essential oils are actually really good for is pavlovian conditioning yourself to get more relaxed or more alert). Also have different clothes you wear to be alert vs asleep and if you drink coffee in the morning, drink a completely differently tasting herbal tea at night. Create separate and distinct sensory environments for yourself for different contexts in general: they’ll help keep your subconscious in sync with what you’re consciously trying to accomplish.

• either a) be religious and attend services regularly or b) choose a different social ritual to engage in and form close enough bonds with those people that they will come find and help you if you suddenly stop showing up. The mental health benefits of religion go far beyond feeling spiritually connected to the world. For a lot of people their religion is their primary social support, so if you’re not religious that’s completely valid but for optimal mental wellness you need to engage in some kind of activity that will allow a similar long term bond to form with other people. The advatage to doing this with religion is that its easier to tell people they have to come back or they’ll go to hell than to explain that not engaging in regular low-key social interaction will increase their risk of dementia in like 30+ years.

• Don’t do meth or fentanyl, and be very very careful with alcohol. Weed is less bad for you than alcohol but tbh a light mauling from a black bear is also probably less bad for you than several years of high alcohol intake. “Safer than alcohol” is not high praise. If weed starts giving you anxiety or frequently seeing/hearing things others don’t, stop the weed immediately.