What Your Brain Needs to Thrive: 5 Habits That Matter Most

Everyone wants to thrive.

Yet until recently, neuroscience couldn’t answer a fundamental question:

What does the brain of a thriving person do differently?

New research from my laboratory provides an answer.

Using continuous a neurologic measure of brain responses along with validated behavioral assessments, we identified the strongest predictors of thriving.  The five most important modifiable factors explain most of what separates people who thrive from those who struggle.  

The short answer is that people who thrive are emotionally healthy.

The encouraging news is that every one of them can be changed.

1. Show More Empathy

The strongest predictor of thriving wasn’t intelligence, education, or income.

It was empathic concern.

People who genuinely care about others build stronger relationships, earn greater trust, and create more opportunities for meaningful social connection. The brain rewards these behaviors because they strengthen our essential social networks.

What you can do:

• Perform one intentional act of kindness every day.

• Listen to understand rather than to respond.

• Volunteer your time or expertise.

• Reach out to someone who needs encouragement.

Improving another person’s life improves your own emotional fitness.

2. Get Social 

The second strongest contributor was extraversion.

This isn’t about becoming the loudest person in the room.

It’s about increasing the frequency and quality of social interactions.

The brain is fundamentally social. Isolation weakens emotional fitness.

What you can do:

• Schedule regular time with friends.

• Join organizations that meet in person.

• Start conversations with people you don’t know.

• Replace some screen time with face-to-face experiences.

• When possible, work alongside colleagues rather than exclusively from home.

Your brain benefits from connection.

3. Reduce Anomie

Anomie is a life that lacks meaning and connection.

It quietly erodes thriving.

Brains function best when our actions connect to a larger purpose.

What you can do:

• Define the values that guide your decisions—and use them every day.

• Invest time in causes larger than yourself.

• Build relationships within your community.

• Limit exposure to media that reinforces cynicism.

• Become active in a church or other spiritual community.

Purpose isn’t discovered.

It’s constructed through insight and action.

4. Experience Joy 

Negative emotional states drag down the ability to thrive.   

Frustration, anger, anxiety, and sadness–everyone experiences these emotions occasionally.

When you choose not to let them linger, you maintain the ability to thrive.

What you can do:

• Exercise consistently.

• Protect your sleep.

• Spend time outdoors.

• Practice gratitude every day.

• Box breathe to reduce stress.

Small daily habits change brain function over time.

Thriving isn't just the absence of stress. It's the regular experience of joy.

5. Care Without Carrying

This finding surprised us.

Personal distress substantially diminishes thriving.

While empathic concern motivates helping, personal distress causes us to absorb another person’s suffering as if it were our own.

What you can do:

• Care about people without assuming responsibility for solving every problem.

• Help others, but recognize that their emotions belong to them.

• Set healthy boundaries when relationships become emotionally draining.

• Recharge after supporting others by spending time with people and activities that restore your energy.

• Remember that sustainable compassion requires caring for yourself as well.

Thriving comes from compassion with healthy emotional boundaries.

Care deeply.

Don’t carry what isn’t yours.

The Other Contributors

Three additional factors also predicted thriving.

Lower neuroticism reflects greater emotional stability and becomes easier to achieve as the first five habits strengthen.

Marriage provides many people with consistent social support and shared purpose, although close relationships of many kinds offer similar benefits.

Conscientiousness helps turn good intentions into consistent behaviors.

These matter.

But they matter less than the five behaviors above.

What Gets Measured Improves

For the first time, emotional fitness can be measured continuously from brain activity.

That means thriving is no longer something we simply hope for.

It becomes something we can monitor, improve, and optimize.

Just as athletes measure physical fitness, emotional fitness should also be measured. That's exactly what the free app, SIX, from Immersion does.  Available in the App and Play stores, SIX continuously measures what your brain values most and identifies the moments that contribute most to thriving. Over time, it learns what strengthens your emotional fitness and uses AI to help you create more of those experiences. 

The goal is simple: six high-value Key Moments each day to build up thriving.  

Thriving is a skill. Like every skill, it improves with practice and with measurement.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the five factors that support thriving?

The research identified empathy, social connection, purpose, joy, and healthy emotional boundaries as the strongest modifiable contributors to thriving.

Can people learn to thrive?

Yes. Thriving is not a fixed personality trait. The behaviors that support emotional fitness can be strengthened through intentional, consistent practice.

Why is empathy important?

Empathy strengthens trust, relationships, and social connection. However, thriving also requires caring for others without absorbing their distress.

What is anomie?

Anomie is a lack of meaning, belonging, or direction. Connecting daily actions to personal values, relationships, and a larger purpose can help reduce it.

How can emotional fitness be improved?

Exercise, sleep, gratitude, meaningful relationships, time outdoors, purposeful activity, and healthy boundaries can all support emotional fitness over time.