The 3 Simplest Ways to Feel Better

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. Over the last seven years, I've had the privilege of sitting down with some of the worlds 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, and others 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. 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. 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. So, our colleges 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. 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. 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 signs 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? 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. 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. That's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports safest new car brand. And as of July 2026, Mazda has won more 2026 I.I.H.S Top Safety Pick Plus Awards than any other car brand. Visit www.I.I.H.S.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 exercises primarily about burning calories. 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 is 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. 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 is impressed that you hit 10,000 steps. It's because you're giving your brain something it evolved to expect. 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 neutrophic 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. 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. 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. 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 reduced 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. 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 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, but your physiology is 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. 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 one pleasant effort is going to feel before we begin. We imagine the entire workout, but 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. 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 helped us survive. The problem is that the world we live in today promotes sitting still far more than the world our brains evolved for. The 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. 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 of 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 I almost everyone I spoke to described it differently. Some talked about limiting screen time. Others talked about mindfulness or meditation. Some emphasize boredom. Others spoke about deep work or being present with your family. From 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. 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. 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 watch television while scrolling social media. Somewhere along the way multi-tasking 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. Imagine you're working on an important project and then your phone buzzes. You quickly reply to 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, 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. 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. 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. 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 a 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've 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. 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. In these moments, a network in the brain called the default mode network becomes more active. 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. Ready to start? Visit WaldenU.com. EDU today. Certified to operate by chef, 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 passed by are noticed, 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, 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. 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. 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, drinking more water, 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. Think about the thing you complain about the most when it's wrong, the relationship, whether it's romantic, a friend or a parent, it's the thing that causes the greatest stress or creates the greatest joy. One of the longest running studies in history has spent decades trying to answer a remarkably simple question. What helps people live long, happy, healthy lives? The researchers tracked participants across generations, measuring everything from cholesterol levels and careers to wealth, intelligence and lifestyle habits. After following people for more than 80 years, one finding consistently rose above most everything else. It wasn't fame, it wasn't success, it wasn't even genetics on their own. What I find especially interesting is that the researchers weren't simply asking whether people had relationships. They were asking about the quality of those relationships because it's entirely possible to be surrounded by people and still feel profoundly lonely and it's possible to have a relatively small circle but feel deeply supported. What seems to matter isn't how many people know your name. It's whether there are people with whom you can be completely yourself. I think that's an important distinction because we often confuse being socially connected with feeling emotionally connected. We can collect followers, attend events, answer messages and still carry the feeling that nobody really knows us but genuine connection asks for something different. It asks us to be vulnerable enough to let ourselves be seen. I think knowing this helps us prioritise the time, investment we ultimately put into our relationships. Often we treat relationships like something nice to have, if there's time after work, errands, emails and responsibilities. We tell ourselves we'll call our friend next week, plan the dinner next month, or finally make time for family once life slows down. But life rarely slows down on its own. If anything it keeps finding new ways to occupy every empty space we leave available. Before we know it, years have passed and we've accidentally neglected one of the very things that helps us feel most alive. Talking to someone you trust can completely change the way you feel. Maybe you've had one of these days where everything feels overwhelming. Your to-do list is impossible. Your anxious about the future and your thoughts seem to be running in circles. Then you call a friend, go for a walk with your partner or spend an hour laughing with someone who knows you well. When you hang up the phone, the circumstances of your life haven't changed. But somehow you feel lighter. Life feels more manageable. That isn't just emotional. It's biological. When we spend time with people we feel safe around, our bodies begin regulating themselves differently. Stress hormones like cortisol decrease. Oxytocin, often called the bonding hormone, increases. Our heart rate becomes steadier. Our breathing slows. Some researchers describe this as co-regulation. The idea that our nervous systems are designed to help calm one another. We spend so much time trying to regulate ourselves in isolation that we forget one of the ways humans have always found stability is through other people. I think our culture tends to accidentally teach us that strength means handing everything on our own. We admire independence. We celebrate self-sufficiency. We tell ourselves we shouldn't need anything else. But human beings were never designed to heal in isolation. Some of the strongest people I've met are the ones you never ask for help. They're the ones who know when to lean on the people who love them. So stop waiting until you have more time for your relationships. Relationships aren't strengthened by having huge amounts of free time. They're strengthened by repeated moments of attention and presence. A thoughtful message, a shared walk, five minutes at the end of a long day, those small moments rarely feel significant in isolation. But over months and years they become the foundation of real connection. They remind us that we were never meant to carry every burden alone. And sometimes the fastest way to feel better isn't finding the right answer. It's finding the right person to sit beside you while you're still figuring it out. Today's 7-day challenge is brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. 7 days is a good way to begin something. Orange theory is built to keep you coming back after that. Designed to burn fat, build muscle and help you live a longer, more vibrant life, here's your challenge this week. For the next 7 days, I want you to make one simple promise to your body. Move for at least 20 minutes every day. That's it. You can walk, run, lift weights, take a class, stretch, hike, ride a bike, whatever gets your body moving counts. But here's what I want you to do differently. Before you move, rate how you feel from 1 to 10. How's your energy? How's your mood? How stressed do you feel? Then do your 20 minutes. And as soon as you finish, rate yourself again. Don't judge the workout by how fast you ran, how much you lifted, how many calories you burned, or what your body looks like. Judge it by one question. Do I feel better than I did 20 minutes ago? Because we often think about exercises something we do for a future version of ourselves. But movement can change how we feel today. Even a short walk or stretch can shift your mood, quiet your mind, and remind you what your body is capable of. And every time you show up, you're also keeping a small promise to yourself. That's how confidence gets built, not by waiting until you feel motivated, but by collecting evidence that you follow through. So for seven days, 20 minutes every day, rate yourself before, rate yourself after. At the end of the week, look back at your numbers. You may realize that feeling better doesn't always require a complicated routine. Sometimes you just have to start moving. Once again, today's seven day challenge was brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. Complete strength and cardio delivered in one hour, a different workout every day, and an expert coach that meets you where you are. Head to orange theory.com/onpurpose to learn more and get your first class free. Terms and conditions apply. See where page and studio for details. When I looked back over all of those conversations with experts, I expected to find a long list of habits. I expected more complexity, more nuance, more things to add to an already busy life. Instead, I found the opposite. Again and again, the conversations kept returning to the same simple truths. Move your body, protect your attention, invest in your relationships. What's striking to me isn't just that these habits all simply improve you over time. It's that each one changes the way you experience your life almost immediately. I know it's tempting to think the answer is out there somewhere. Another book, another supplement, another routine, another productivity system, another piece of advice. But if this podcast has taught me anything over the years, it's that wisdom usually isn't about accumulating more. It's about returning to what has always mattered. So every episode we do is a reminder to go deeper. So don't leave today's episode thinking you need to transform your entire life by tomorrow morning. You don't need the perfect routine. You don't need to get everything right. Pick one thing, go for a walk this afternoon, leave your phone in another room while you eat dinner, spend time with someone you've been missing. People repeated actions often create the biggest shifts, especially when you're investing back into the fundamentals we all need. If you only remember one thing from today's conversation, let it be this. Feeling better doesn't have to be complicated. My hope is that today's episode isn't another list of things to do. I hope it's permission to stop chasing every new answer and start trusting the timeless ones. Feeling better isn't about adding more to your life. It's about making more room for what matters most. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you on the next one. Remember I'm forever rooting for you and I'm always in your corner.