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Every human needs a little help sometimes. Here are seven, science-backed ways to improve your mental health this year:

1. Reconsider your social media use. While I’d encourage you to cancel social media altogether (the last 15 years have been amazing!), I realize this is a huge ask. But in the very least, you should restrict your social media use for maximum fulfillment, as I wrote in my best-selling book Log Off.
2. Reconnect with a long lost friend. Simply text or say the following: “I thought of you today and miss you. How are you?”
3. Empathize with someone different from you. People with high levels of empathy tend to function better in society than those with low levels. So go out of your way to meet, learn from, and befriend people that don’t look, think, or talk like you.
4. Stop ruminating about work. It can wait until tomorrow morning or after the weekend. One of the best way to overcome this is to simply write down what you need to do and schedule time on your calendar to take care of it later.
5. Make time for fun, mastery, social, and physical activities. You should be doing at least one of each every weekday, including fun things that excite you, cleaning or errands that make you feel good, excercize, and talking with your favorite people. If you’re the type that’s always helping others, carve out 20-30 minutes of “me time” everyday to reduce stress.
6. Write a thank you letter. Gratitude increases happiness better than just about anything.
7. Consider therapy if your emotions need some help. I’ve done this twice before and it saved my marriage and tempered my anger management. A good friend of mine is also visiting a therapist for the first time this year and loving it. I’m so fond of counseling that I’m gifting it to all of my kids and their spouses when they get married.