A simple mental health check-in & better pasta

Happy Wednesday! Here’s your weekly “One Day Better” toolkit:

• One new habit: Try this mental health check-in

• One habit to rethink: Swap your regular pasta for legume pasta

• One small win: My go-to exercise “snack”

• One day brighter: Join me in haiku writing and “joy scrolling”

Where are you on the happiness ladder?

Here’s a simple question to help you check in with your mental health and overall well-being: If happiness were a ladder with 10 rungs, where would you place yourself today?

Are you an 8 or 9, living (nearly) your best possible life? Somewhere in the middle at a 5 or 6? Or are you feeling low, stuck on one of the bottom rungs?

Once you’ve decided your place on the ladder, ask yourself another question: What’s one thing that might help you climb up just one rung today?

I do this check-in regularly with myself, and it helps me explore what’s going right and what could be better in my life. For additional clarity, share the question with a friend and discuss. It makes for great conversation and can lead to real insights and a roadmap for change.

This imaginary ladder is known as the Cantril Ladder, named after the psychologist who created it. It’s widely used by researchers to measure subjective well-being and life satisfaction, including Gallup, which uses the ladder to determine the world’s happiest (and least happy) countries. Finland leads the world in happiness with an average life rating of 7.7, meaning many people there place themselves at 8 or higher. The U.S., averaging just 6.7, ranks 24th—suggesting a broader mix of mid-to-lower ratings. The difference in scores is influenced by a number of factors, including economic prosperity and life expectancy.

But one of the more revealing findings in this year’s happiness report is something you can do any time: Share a meal with a friend. The report found that people who regularly share meals with others tend to be happier and more emotionally satisfied, regardless of age, culture or background. Dining with a friend was found to be as predictive of happiness as income or employment status. So now go make some dinner plans with your pals and ask them where they stand on their happiness ladder!

Note: If you rated yourself low on the ladder and are struggling, please reach out for professional help. The Psychology Today therapist finder is excellent. Zocdoc will help you find an in-network provider or go to the American Psychological Association crisis resource page.

How to upgrade your pasta habit

If you're looking for a simple way to upgrade the quality of your diet, try this easy and delicious food swap: switch out regular pasta for a legume-based pasta like edamame, lentil or chickpea spaghetti.

I learned about this easy swap from two of my favorite food writers — Anahad O’Connor and Joe Yonan of the Washington Post. Legume pastas are naturally high in fiber and protein, which can help stabilize blood sugar and keep you feeling full. The fiber in legumes also nourishes your gut microbiome.

I love this swap because it’s super easy and has the immediate result of adding more fiber and protein to my plate. I’m making chickpea penne with vodka sauce tonight. Read the free WaPo article here.

One small win: wall pushups

I'm a big believer in "exercise snacks" — short bursts of movement you can do for a few minutes or as little as 20 seconds. (You can read more about exercise snacks here.) My favorite exercise snack is the wall pushup — it’s easy to do anywhere, low-impact, doesn’t require getting on the floor and can be made easier or harder depending on how far you stand from the wall. I do them after brushing my teeth, after walking the dog and in between video calls. A wall pushup is pretty self-explanatory, but if you’d like a short demo, watch this video. Set a goal of doing 10 wall pushups after brushing your teeth every morning and see where it takes you.

Joy scroll with me

Good news, entertainment and links to counteract the gloom.

Make your own haiku: April 17 is Haiku Poetry Day. I tested a few haiku online generators and landed on this one. I wanted a haiku to capture my morning walks with my dog Sugar and her tendency to find discarded food everywhere. Sugar loves New York City. Here’s the haiku it created for me.

Paws on city streets,

Sugar sniffs out pizza dreams —

Joy in every step.

Please make your own Haiku and share it with me!

Chocolate bunny meditation: Amaury Guichon is a French pastry chef and chocolatier known for his sculptures. For some fun Easter vibes, watch him construct this giant chocolate bunny.

Slow and steady: Two nearly 100-year-old Galapagos tortoises have become first-time parents of four hatchings at the Philadelphia Zoo. Watch a video here.

Jellyfish therapy: Add the live jellyfish cam at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to your bookmarks. I first learned about it from television writer Cord Jefferson, who famously thanked his therapist when accepting an Emmy. Cord later told me that he regularly watches the jellyfish feed to clear his mind. The feed runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Pacific Time, and shows recorded jelly content during off hours.

Turn your iPhone into a white noise machine: In Settings, go to Accessibility > Audio & Visual > Background Sounds and choose from sounds such as bright noise, ocean, rain and fire. I learned this hack from Wirecutter, which has a useful article on 18 things you didn’t know your iPhone could do.

A better pill case: Drew Barrymore recently featured the Ikigai pill case on her show. If you take vitamins or regular meds, you know how frustrating it can be to keep track of your daily pills. I do love this well-designed and sturdy case, but it’s pricey at $94 for the weekly version. They come in fun colors, don’t break and are easy to slide open, plus you can personalize them. The inventors have a great story — two brothers who saw their dad struggling with pill cases, so they invented one with a sliding lid. I suffered through a half dozen plastic pill cases that broke before I invested in my Ikigai case. If you have a pill-taker in your life and want to give them a great personalized gift, this is definitely one of those gifts you didn’t know you needed.

Eating for longevity: A new Nature Medicine study highlights that it’s never too late to adopt healthier eating habits. The Harvard-led study followed over 100,000 people and found that eating a healthy diet in midlife significantly increases the odds of reaching age 70 without chronic diseases or impairments. The longevity diet is one that includes lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes. And most-important, it cuts back on sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods.

This is great news for all of us, especially if we have strayed from healthy habits from time to time. Now we know that no matter what age you are, small nourishing habits really do make a difference. (CNN has a longer summary of the study here.)

Thanks for reading, and see you next week. Let’s keep the conversation going! Send me your haikus, your comments and ideas. Drop a note in our subscriber chat or message me directly on Substack!

Every week, the One Day Better newsletter celebrates the power of small steps. If you enjoyed reading, please share it with a friend. This newsletter is free and reader-supported. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a contribution here.

Tara Parker-Pope is an Emmy Award–winning journalist who shared the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more at taraparkerpope,com