Can You Relieve Stress in 5 Minutes a Day?
While prioritizing mental health is important throughout our lives, it’s especially critical for adults 50 and older, in part because they can take longer than younger individuals to recover from stress. In older adults, stress raises the risk for chronic aging-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, osteoarthritis and heart disease. The good news: If our goal is to manage stress and feel better, maybe we don’t need a lengthy vacation or an hour of yoga every day.
According to Catherine Sanderson, psychology professor at Amherst College and author of The Positive Shift: Mastering Mindset to Improve Happiness, Health, and Longevity, small moments have a meaningful impact on our happiness. “What the data now is really showing is that these sort of micro-moments are having tangible increases on people’s mood,” she says.
A new focus on small moments: In a 2025 study in Psychology of Popular Media, people who spent just five minutes daily meditating or watching professionally produced inspirational videos felt more hopeful than those who scrolled social media or watched videos of comedians. Those who meditated or viewed inspirational videos also experienced less stress than the other groups up to 10 days after completing the activity.
Excerpted from AARP
