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Hydration, walking, exercise, eating well, no artificial light before bed, moderate screentime, socializing, journaling, sleep, etc.
Try to stay away from supplements and medications unless absolutely needed. Try to find those in foods and plants.
In my case, the most commonly recommended actions - exercise and meditation - trigger my health anxiety and OCD. Courses of CBT (cognitive/behavioral therapy and ERP (exposure and response prevention) have been much more productive.
Which is to say, we're all working on our own difficulty levels, and if the basic maintenance isn't working for you, don't hesitate to reach out to the specialists!
I began every day with a short daily walk in the morning. 15 minutes. It's a fairly easy goal so it's possible to stick to it, and it made a surprising difference in my mood. Got this one from this episode of the Huberman podcast [1].
Then I changed from doing hot yoga/HIIT three times a week to doing it daily at 6:30am, which requires going to bed at 10pm. This was harder to get in to, but I suffered for a couple weeks and it's now a habit.
This year, I'm continuing with the above but adding cold showers.
Note that these are all physical rather than mental improvements, but their impact on my mental health has been huge.
1. Friends... Typically, when I am around friends, my happiness can increase by 1.5(measured out of 5). This is enough to put me back in the normal range. I used the term friends here loosely. Just being around people provides a lift. Easiest way to gain friends is to join a club (may I suggest chess). Being lonely is as painful as being wildly hungry or thirsty [1]
2. Exercise...Typically, I exercise for 32mins(stairclimbing) daily. Every fifty minutes of weekly exercise corresponds to a 50% drop in the odds of being depressed. [2]
3. Massages - I feel significantly better after a massage.
4. Have a schedule - Typically, I have a routine. First, I brush my teeth in the morning. This might seem simple, but it's an easy habit to form and can form the start of a habit chain [3]. By chaining habits(i.e. creating one habit directly following another), I don't use much energy to get my day going. I Brush my teeth then the rest of my day flows from there. I automatically go on my gallery workout while reading then update my expenses etc.
5. Keep Busy - “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” [4] This is probably the most important point. Always keep busy.
[1] - Point 14 - https://www.chestergrant.com/67-highlights-from-susan-pinker...
[2] - Point 26 - https://www.chestergrant.com/highlights-from-spark-how-exerc...
[3] - https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/life-strategies/inspira...
[4] - Read Point 53-57 - https://www.chestergrant.com/summary-altered-traits-by-danie...
Apart from this, sleeping and waking up pretty much at the same time every single day, even on the weekends, along with some form of exercise daily for 20-30 mins made a big difference.
I went from someone who was moody and volatile, to being even-minded in most circumstances.
Hope this helps.
Having written that, I recommend learning more about what the classic texts write about virtue (a good place to start are the four cardinal virtues[0]; there are others, but Rome was not built in a day). Have a look at this list[0] of virtues and vices and create a self-assessment. The first four pages concern the four cardinal virtues and various particular species, though I think it is best to read these in light of the book linked earlier as it helps get to the essential character of each virtue.
Beyond that, keeping your body healthy through eating well and exercising regularly does wonders.
I'm currently struggling with parenting an 18 month old child as an introvert. As a 50 year old first-time parent who had the benefit of lots of quiet alone time for literally decades, and possibly got a bit too used to it. :/ My sanity is eroding and I hit a wall every day. I also found that I don't have time anymore to keep up with technological developments like I used to, which is unfortunately eroding my value a…
It gets better! My youngest is now 3 and I'm slowly getting more time for myself (and to be with my wife). She goes potty on her own, she can play on her own for 15 minutes and not demand anything, and we don't worry about her climbing the shelfs or playing with knives. It's still hard, of course, but so much better than 1 year ago. I don't have any advice that you haven't heard a million times already, but: 1. Carve…
Also, I don't know if every parent just completely forgets what the first 3 years are like (maybe the lack of sleep prevents long-term memory formation? lol) but every parent I've run into whose kids are now older than 5 seem to have completely forgotten everything about the first 3 years - for example, one of them offered my kid a whole Dorito a few months ago (choking hazard, not many teeth in yet, etc.!) and I was like WHOA WAIT A MINUTE, DON'T YOU REMEMBER?!
A better place to start is to understand how your undesired behaviors ("bad habits") are serving a purpose for you, and then through that awareness build a substitute habit or coping strategy. For example, you don't have a "video game addiction"; you have a coping strategy that worked well to buffet you against the pangs of failure as you struggled in high school. The reason failure hurt so much is that your parents only conditionally showed affection toward you based on your academic success, so you never learned how to unconditionally love yourself. As an adult with a job and a family, this coping strategy is maladaptive, but is the "best" way you subconsciously feel you can deal with the feelings that continue to well up.
Two books are How We Change [0] and Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents [1], although I'd recommend the former book much more to start with.
Side note: if you're picking books to read, make sure to avoid books with a big photo of the author on the cover. That's almost a sure sign of a useless personal growth book.
[0] https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-we-change-ross-el...
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23129659-adult-children-...