Wellness Readers Digest | Health & Wellness Tips for Everyday Living

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a structured, short-term talking therapy that helps you spot unhelpful thoughts and habits and change them so you feel and function better. A typical course runs about 5 to 20 sessions, includes practice between sessions, and has strong evidence for depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD and insomnia. This article is for general information and is not medical advice. Key takeaways CBT works on the link between thoughts, feelings and behaviors: change one, and the others often shift too. Most people have between 5 and 20 sessions, and homework between sessions is a core part of the treatment. CBT is a recommended treatment for depression, anxiety, panic, OCD, PTSD and chronic insomnia, among other conditions. Specialized forms include CBT for insomnia (CBT-I), exposure therapy and trauma-focused therapies such as cognitive processing therapy. You can do CBT in person, by video, by phone or through guided online programs, and the skills are mea...

Biohacking means making deliberate changes to your habits, environment or body to improve health and performance. For beginners, the hacks with the best evidence are the boring ones: regular sleep, morning light, daily movement and strength work. Fasting and cold plunges have weaker evidence and real risks for some people. This guide is for curious adults who want to try biohacking without wasting money or taking unnecessary risks. Key takeaways Biohacking ranges from low-risk lifestyle changes, like a consistent sleep schedule, to experimental practices like device implants and DIY gene editing, which are unproven and potentially dangerous. Adults need at least 7 hours of sleep a night, and getting light soon after waking helps reset your body clock. Adults should aim for 150 minutes of moderate activity a week plus muscle strengthening on at least 2 days. Intermittent fasting has not consistently beaten ordinary calorie reduction for weight loss in clinical trials. People w...

Blue light from screens does not damage your eyes, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The sore, tired eyes many people blame on blue light are usually digital eye strain from blinking less. Where blue light does matter is sleep: evening exposure can delay your body clock and make it harder to fall asleep. This guide is for anyone whose eyes ache after a day at a screen, who struggles to sleep after late-night scrolling, or who is wondering whether blue light glasses are worth buying. Key takeaways The American Academy of Ophthalmology says there is no scientific evidence that blue light from digital devices damages the eye. People blink about 15 times a minute normally but only about 5 to 7 times a minute while using screens, which dries the eyes and causes strain. A 2023 Cochrane review of 17 trials found blue light filtering lenses may offer no short-term benefit for eye strain from computer use. Blue light at night can suppress melatonin and shift the body ...

The best time to exercise is the time you can repeat most weeks. A 2023 meta-analysis found little evidence that morning or evening training produces bigger gains overall, though evening sessions may suit strength work, morning activity is linked with lower obesity risk, and afternoon sessions improved blood sugar in one diabetes trial. This guide is for adults who want to fit regular exercise into real life and are wondering whether the clock should change their plan. Key takeaways A 2023 systematic review of 26 studies found little evidence for or against a single best time of day to train for performance or health. The same review found gains tend to be larger when you train and test at the same time of day. Moderate exercise that ends at least 90 minutes before bed is unlikely to harm sleep, but vigorous exercise within an hour of bedtime may delay sleep. In a small trial of men with type 2 diabetes, afternoon high-intensity intervals lowered blood sugar, while morning ses...

Grounding mats have not been shown to reliably improve sleep or pain. The research behind them is small, often poorly designed and sometimes funded by people who sell grounding products. They're probably low risk when wired correctly, but they carry real electrical safety concerns and should never replace proven sleep or pain treatment. This guide is for anyone thinking about buying a grounding mat or sheet, or who already uses one and wants an honest read on the evidence and safety. Key takeaways Grounding, also called earthing, is the practice of connecting your body to the Earth's surface, either by bare skin outdoors or through a conductive mat or sheet wired to a ground connection. Cleveland Clinic describes earthing research as limited and of questionable quality, with small samples, weak designs and flawed analysis. One sleep study on grounding sheets after exercise had only eight participants, according to the Sleep Foundation. Indoor grounding products depend ...

To cut back on phone overuse, change your environment before you rely on willpower: turn off nonessential notifications and autoplay, keep the phone out of the bedroom, set screen-free times, and replace the scroll with a specific alternative. Heavy use is linked to worse mood and sleep, especially in young people. This guide is for adults who feel stuck in a scrolling habit and for parents worried about how much time their preteen or teen spends on screens. Key takeaways Doomscrolling means continuing to scroll through bad or upsetting news even when it makes you feel worse. Young people who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of poor mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety symptoms, according to the U.S. Surgeon General. Teens spend an average of 3.5 hours a day on social media, and 40% of children aged 8 to 12 use it. In a study of 9,243 preteens, more daily screen time at ages 10 to 11 was linked to slightly higher manic symp...

The sleep hygiene tips that work best are simple: keep the same wake time every day, get daylight early, stop caffeine well before bed, keep your bedroom cool, dark and quiet, put screens away at least 30 minutes before bed, and get up if you can't sleep after about 20 minutes. Most adults need at least 7 hours. This guide is for adults who sleep badly some or most nights and want practical, evidence-based changes before (or alongside) talking to a doctor. Key takeaways The CDC recommends 7 or more hours of sleep for adults aged 18 to 60, 7 to 9 hours for ages 61 to 64, and 7 to 8 hours for adults 65 and older. A fixed wake time, kept within about an hour on weekends, is the single most useful habit for resetting a drifting body clock. The effects of caffeine can last up to 8 hours, so an afternoon coffee can still be in your system at bedtime. If you are not asleep after about 20 minutes, get out of bed and do something quiet in dim light until you feel sleepy. Insomnia ...