May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and this year's theme — “More Good Days, Together” — asks a deceptively simple question: what does a good day actually look like for you?
For a lot of us, mental health conversations focus on crisis. The breaking point. The intervention. And those matter — deeply. But there's a quieter question that doesn't get as much attention: what keeps you grounded before things get that far?
I've been thinking about this a lot — especially after a season where grief, loss, and burnout converged. And what I found surprised me. The thing that kept me grounded wasn't a product, a subscription, or a quick fix. It was a process. Specifically, the process of learning something I was genuinely curious about.
Turns out, that instinct has real science behind it.
Your Brain on Curiosity
In 2014, researchers at UC Davis published a study in Neuron that changed how neuroscientists think about curiosity and learning. Using fMRI imaging, Gruber, Gelman, and Ranganath found that when people are in a state of high curiosity, two things happen: the brain's reward system lights up — specifically the midbrain and nucleus accumbens — and activity in the hippocampus (the brain's memory center) increases significantly (source).
The mechanism? Dopamine. The same neurotransmitter that drives motivation and pleasure is released when you're genuinely curious about something. And it doesn't just help you remember what you're curious about — it enhances memory for everything you encounter during that state, even unrelated information.
In other words, curiosity doesn't just make learning easier. It puts your brain into a fundamentally better operating mode.
This connects directly to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's decades of research on flow states — the experience of being so absorbed in a challenging, meaningful activity that you lose track of time. His work, and studies that followed, found that people who regularly experience flow report higher levels of wellbeing, intrinsic motivation, and resilience. A 2018 study by Conner, DeYoung, and Silvia in The Journal of Positive Psychology went further, finding that everyday creative activity — not professional-level art, just the daily act of making or learning something — was a direct path to flourishing (source).
The pattern is clear: engaging your curiosity isn't a distraction from mental health. It's a contributor to it.
How This Played Out for Me
When I went through a hard season — grief, lost friendships, the kind of emotional upheaval that makes everything feel unstable — I didn't set out to “fix” my mental health with technology. I set out to solve a small problem: my infrared sauna blanket was wearing out, and I needed a better solution at home.
That one question — what should I replace it with? — pulled me into a research rabbit hole. Sauna domes. Infrared wavelengths. How different parts of the light spectrum interact with the body at a cellular level. Red light therapy and photobiomodulation.
I didn't just compare products. I read the studies. I tracked my own data. I built tools to measure whether what I was doing was actually working. And somewhere in that process, I realized: the research itself was what was keeping me grounded.
Not the sauna. Not the red light panel. The process of understanding how these things work — and whether the science actually supports the claims.
The Wellness Tech Connection
Here's where it gets interesting: some of the tools I was researching also have emerging evidence for mental health benefits on their own.
Photobiomodulation — the use of red and near-infrared light at specific wavelengths — is being actively studied for its effects on mood and depression. A 2023 systematic review and meta-analysis in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that PBM improved depression symptoms across multiple randomized controlled trials (source). The proposed mechanism involves enhanced mitochondrial function and increased ATP synthesis in brain cells, particularly when applied transcranially to the prefrontal cortex.
On the heat therapy side, a 2016 randomized clinical trial published in JAMA Psychiatry found that whole-body hyperthermia produced significant reductions in depression symptoms (source). More recently, a 2024–2025 series of clinical trials at UCSF led by Dr. Ashley Mason found that combining infrared sauna sessions with cognitive behavioral therapy was effective for patients with major depressive disorder — with 86.2% of participants no longer meeting MDD criteria by the end of the trial (source).
I'm not a doctor, and none of this is medical advice. But the research is moving in a direction worth paying attention to — which is exactly why I broke down the wavelength science in my recent post, Red Light Therapy Wavelengths Explained: Panels vs. Face Masks. Understanding what the light actually does, at what wavelengths, is the kind of informed decision-making that matters if you're going to invest in these tools.
The Framework: Process as Anchor
Here's what I want you to take away — not from my story, but from the research:
When you engage your genuine curiosity, your brain releases dopamine, activates its memory and reward systems, and enters a state that researchers associate with wellbeing and resilience. That's not a vague self-help claim. That's neuroscience.
And it doesn't require expensive tools or dramatic life changes. It requires finding something you're genuinely curious about — and giving yourself permission to go deep on it.
Maybe that's learning how a specific technology works. Maybe it's understanding your own health data. Maybe it's building something, writing something, or solving a problem that's been nagging at you. The topic doesn't matter. What matters is that the curiosity is real — not performative, not prescribed by someone else.
Because when you enjoy the process, the process becomes the anchor. And when you're anchored, you can handle a lot more than you think.
What Does a Good Day Look Like for You?
That's the question Mental Health America is asking this May. And I think the answer, for a lot of us, includes something we don't talk about enough: the quiet satisfaction of learning something new. Of following a question to its answer. Of building understanding, one layer at a time.
That's not self-care in the bubble-bath sense. It's self-knowledge. And it might be one of the most underrated mental health tools we have.
Enjoy the process. Stay grounded. Scale better.
— Laura
References
- Gruber, M.J., Gelman, B.D., & Ranganath, C. (2014). States of curiosity modulate hippocampus-dependent learning via the dopaminergic circuit. Neuron, 84(2), 486–496. doi.org
- Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper Perennial.
- Conner, T.S., DeYoung, C.G., & Silvia, P.J. (2018). Everyday creative activity as a path to flourishing. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 13(2), 181–189. doi.org
- Sakaki, M., Yagi, A., & Murayama, K. (2018). Curiosity in old age: a possible key to achieving adaptive aging. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 88, 106–116.
- Cassano, P., et al. (2023). Photobiomodulation improves depression symptoms: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, 1267415. doi.org
- Janssen, C.W., et al. (2016). Whole-body hyperthermia for the treatment of major depressive disorder: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Psychiatry, 73(8), 789–795. doi.org
- Mason, A.E., et al. (2024). Feasibility and acceptability of an integrated mind-body intervention for depression: WBH and CBT. International Journal of Hyperthermia, 41(1). doi.org
- Mason, A.E., et al. (2025). WBH + CBT for major depressive disorder: randomized trial. Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health.
- Mental Health America. (2026). Mental Health Awareness Month: More Good Days, Together. mhanational.org
All views expressed are my own. Nothing shared here is financial, legal, or professional advice... and AI is used ;)