How to use this site

Who it's for, how the pages are laid out, what the evidence badges mean, and where to start.

• Evidence: Common practice

This site is for people who are basically fine and want to feel better: calmer, more social, more hopeful, with better habits. Think of it like going to the gym. You don’t need to be ill to train.

One clear path

1. Read Start here. Three short pages.
2. Check the Foundations. Sleep, movement, daylight, food, alcohol and caffeine, your phone, people. If one of these is off, fix it first. Everything else is easier with them in place.
3. Use Situations when something comes up. A hard meeting on Thursday, a talk you’ve been putting off, a flat Sunday. Use the “What’s going on?” picker on the home page.
4. Read Ways of thinking and Building a good life when you have time. These are the slower, longer-term skills.
5. Keep Quick resets for when you need to feel a bit better in the next five minutes.

Change one thing at a time. Simple habits stick faster than complicated ones, and it takes weeks of repetition for one to become automatic [1]. How to build one habit at a time explains how.

How situation pages work

Every situation page has the same parts, in the same order:

1. Short answer. The main advice in two or three sentences.
2. Right now. What to do in the next two minutes.
3. Before. How to prepare.
4. During. What to do, with example phrases in a highlighted box. Change the words to fit you; they’re starting points, not scripts.
5. After. How to recover and follow up, including what to do if it went badly.
6. Why this works. The research, briefly, with sources.
7. Try this week. One specific thing to do.
8. Sources. The numbers in square brackets, like [1], link straight to them.

Pages in Ways of thinking and Building a good life explain an idea, how to use it, the common mistakes, and the evidence.

Evidence ratings

Every page has a badge at the top that says how strong the research behind its main advice is:

• StrongMeta-analyses or several good randomized trials agree.
• SomeA few trials or consistent long-term studies. Likely true; the size of the effect is uncertain.
• WeakSmall, short or mixed studies, or findings that haven't held up well. Might help; might not.
• Common practiceWidely used and sensible, but little research either way.

Psychology has had a replication problem. Some famous findings, such as power posing, didn’t hold up when other labs repeated the studies carefully. We don’t present those as fact, and when we mention one, we say it failed to replicate. If the evidence for a page is weak or mixed, the page says so in its first paragraph, not at the end.

We prefer, in order: meta-analyses and systematic reviews, randomized trials, large long-term studies, and established methods used by psychologists. Each source in a page’s list is labeled with its type.

What this site isn’t

It’s not therapy, and it isn’t about treating mental health conditions. It assumes you’re doing okay and want to do better. If things feel heavier than that, read If it’s more than a rough patch.

The tools

The tools help with planning and tracking: a conversation planner, a stress audit, a weekly review and more. They work offline, and anything you save stays in your browser on your device.

Topics: About This Site

Sources checked 4 October 2026. Spot a mistake? Tell us.