Don’t feel great this February? We get it. Try these three easy hacks to improve your mood and attention. Get ready for kawaii!

1. Cute Kittens and Puppies Can Boost Your Mood

Puppies, kittens, and babies have a common set of features: a large head and forehead, big eyes, chubby cheeks, and a small nose and mouth. These cute features capture people’s attention, boost motivation and activate the reward system of the brain. 

Participants in one of the studies played the Operation game and completed attention and reaction tests. People who looked at kittens and puppies performed better on the tests compared to people who looked at the images of adult animals or pictures of food.

All in all, puppies and kittens helped people to improve motor skills, visual search, and narrow attentional focus! 

Ready to boost your focus? Here you go:

If you need more, watch this 10-minute video with cute puppies.

2. A Hot Bath Alleviates Depression Symptoms

Scientists decided to warm up a few dozen people and see whether it would improve their depression symptoms. Spoiler alert: it worked.

Depression lowers the activity of certain brain areas, some of which induce the feeling of pleasure. The same regions are activated if you warm up the whole body. 

People who took a hot bath (white dots) had lower depression scores compared to participants who didn’t (dark dots). Source

Maybe a hot bath will help to improve your mood too!

3. Chewing Gum Reduces Stress

We have already written about how gum can boost focus. Surprisingly, it also reduces stress! Participants in the study were performing mentally demanding tasks. The level of cortisol in their saliva was lower in participants who chewed gum.

Researchers think that chewing boosts blood flow to the brain, which helps people stay focused and calm.

If you can't chew that much gum, try Normotim supplement – a mint-flavored tablet easily dissolves under the tongue and improves your focus.

Learn More About Mental Health

• Unplug From Social Media in Four Steps

• How Planning Helps with a Cognitive Load

• Three Grounding Steps to Regain Control During Anxiety

Science Papers

This newsletter is based on peer-reviewed research. Here are the links to the studies we mentioned earlier:

• The Power of Kawaii: Viewing Cute Images Promotes a Careful Behavior and Narrows Attentional Focus

• Whole-Body Hyperthermia for the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder

• Chewing gum alleviates negative mood and reduces cortisol during acute laboratory psychological stress