A few years ago, I was dealing with some issues around anxiety, so I made a little app for myself to track my daily activities against my mental health (in the form of 3 assessments [0] measuring depression, anxiety, and well-being)

I spent about 9 months logging, and found these to be the top 5 activities that improved my overall happiness:

- 1. Strenuous exercise (e.g. going hard at the gym, playing a sport, taking a dance class, etc.) was a clear winner. (Going for a walk or doing light bodyweight exercises at home helped a bit, but not nearly as much.)

- 2. Creative activities (e.g. writing, playing music, programming), particularly when I could get into a "flow" state.

- 3. Reading long-form content (for at least 20 mins).

- 4. Meditating (for at least 5 mins).

- 5. Spending time with close friends (as opposed to e.g. going to parties with acquaintances).

A lot of these things are fairly obvious (and may also vary a bit by personality type) but being able to see concrete, quantifiable results made it much easier to adopt habits that made me happier in the long run!

[0] https://github.com/reichert621/health/blob/master/server/db/...