5 Ways to Reset Your Mental Health for 2026

Between 2020 and 2022, national survey data found that around 43% of Australians aged 16–85 had experienced a mental disorder at some point in their life, and about 22% had one in the previous 12 months.

That’s almost half the adult population – not “a few people doing it tough”, but our colleagues, friends, parents, partners, and us.

At the same time, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare estimates that mental health conditions and substance use disorders now account for about 15% of Australia’s total burden of disease, putting them just behind cancer.

So if you’re heading into 2026 feeling wrung out by stress, burnout, anxiety or low mood, you’re not broken – you’re human, and you’re living through a period where mental strain has become almost a default setting.

This is exactly why a mental health reset for the new year matters more than another set of doomed resolutions.

In this article, we’ll walk you through five psychology-backed ways to reset your mental health for 2026 – practical, realistic strategies that fit real Australian lives. We’ll look at:

• How to debrief 2025 without beating yourself up
• Simple daily habits that calm your nervous system
• How to reclaim your attention from phones, news and endless notifications
• The role of connection and boundaries in building resilience
• How to build a personal mental health plan and support team for the year ahead

As an Australian telehealth clinic, we talk every day with people juggling work stress, exams, family pressures, cost-of-living worries, relationship issues, sexual health concerns and more. We see the patterns that push people towards burnout, and the small changes that help them turn things around.

Our aim here isn’t to replace your GP, psychologist or psychiatrist – this isn’t medical advice – but to give you evidence-informed mental wellbeing tips and psychology strategies you can start using this week, plus clear pointers on when it’s time to get professional help.

If you’re ready to shake off 2025, protect your mental wellbeing and build resilience for whatever 2026 throws at you, let’s get into it.

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Why a “mental health reset” beats New Year’s resolutions

Most New Year’s resolutions fail by February. They’re usually:

• Vague (“get healthier”)
• Unrealistic (“no sugar, ever”)
• All‑or‑nothing (“I’ve missed a day, so what’s the point?”)

A mental health reset is different. Think of it as tidying up your inner world:

• Not “be perfect”, but notice what’s actually going on for you
• Not “fix yourself”, but adjust your environment and habits so your brain and body can cope better
• Not “push harder”, but build resilience – the capacity to bend without breaking, to recover after tough patches

Australian health authorities repeatedly emphasise that good mental health is more than the absence of illness – it’s about being able to cope with normal stresses of life, work productively, and contribute to your community.

In other words, new year wellness isn’t about becoming a different person. It’s about setting yourself up so:

• The bad days don’t knock you out for weeks
• The next big stressor doesn’t send you straight into burnout
• You’ve got tools, people and services you can lean on when things get rough

Let’s look at five concrete ways to create that kind of reset.

Way 1: Do a compassionate 2025 debrief (not a self‑roasting)

Before you race into goals for 2026, pause and look back at 2025 – gently.

Most of us do one of two unhelpful things:

• Avoid thinking about the year altogether (“Glad that’s over, don’t want to talk about it”)
• Rerun the lowlights in our head while calling ourselves useless, weak or lazy

Neither helps your mental health.

Psychologically, meaning-making – making sense of what you’ve lived through – is a powerful resilience tool. It’s used in therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help people move from “everything is a mess” to “here’s what happened, and here’s what I can do next”.

Here’s how to do a simple, compassionate debrief.

Step 1: Name the big themes of your year

Grab a notebook or notes app and jot down:

• 3 things that were genuinely hard in 2025
• 3 things you’re proud you got through (even if you didn’t handle them perfectly)
• 3 things that kept you going (people, routines, places, beliefs, jokes, music)

Examples might be:

• “Cost-of-living pressure, constant under‑staffing at work, and a breakup blindsided me.”
• “I kept showing up for my kids, I helped a friend through a rough patch, I stayed off the pokies even when stressed.”
• “Daily walk with the dog, weekly call with my sister, going to the beach.”

This process does three important things:

1. Validates your stress – “No wonder I was struggling.”
2. Highlights strengths – persistence, courage, kindness, not just “failures”.
3. Shows what actually supported your mental health – your personal “protective factors”.

Beyond Blue’s Wellbeing Action Tool encourages people to identify the small things that already help, then build on them – exactly what you’re doing here.

Step 2: Rewrite the story you’re telling yourself

Our brains love harsh, simplistic stories:

• “I’m hopeless with money.”
• “I can’t handle conflict.”
• “I stuffed up 2025.”

Use a CBT‑style reframe:

Ask:

• What else is true here?
• What did this teach me?
• How did I cope, given the circumstances?

For example:

• “I made some expensive mistakes, and I was dealing with rent rises and bills that went through the roof.”
• “I didn’t handle that argument well, and I was already burnt out and running on no sleep.”

You’re not excusing harmful behaviour – you’re moving from self‑attack to self‑understanding, which is linked with lower depression and better recovery after setbacks in self‑compassion research.

Step 3: Decide what you’re bringing and what you’re leaving

Now divide your reflections into two lists:

• Bring into 2026: habits, people, mindsets that helped
• Leave in 2025 (or dial right down): patterns that drained you

For example:

• Bring: morning walk, Sunday phone call with Mum, saying “no” to extra shifts when you’re exhausted
• Leave: doomscrolling at midnight, always being the one who organises everything, saying yes to every family request

You’ve just taken a core psychology strategy – reflective meaning-making – and turned it into a decision tool. That’s your first mental health reset.

If your 2025 debrief throws up clear signs of burnout – constant exhaustion, dread of work, feeling detached or cynical – make some time to read our article “5 Signs You’re Too Burned Out to Work” and “Burnout or Just Tired?” for a deeper dive into what burnout looks like in Australian workplaces and when to consider mental health leave.

Way 2: Reset your daily rhythms (sleep, movement, light)

You can’t “think” your way to better mental health if your nervous system is fried.

Good sleep, regular movement and sunlight sound boring compared to fancy wellness trends – but they are core building blocks of mental wellbeing, highlighted again and again by Australian mental health resources like Healthdirect, Lifeline and Beyond Blue.

Think of this as maintenance for your brain.

Sleep: the original mental health reset button

Sleep problems and mental health go hand‑in‑hand – poor sleep worsens mood, and low mood worsens sleep. You don’t have to become a “sleep perfectionist” to benefit.

Try this:

• Anchor your wake‑up time. Pick a realistic time you can keep 5–6 days a week, even on weekends. Your body clock loves consistency.
• Get outside within an hour of waking, even for 5–10 minutes – on the balcony, walking the dog, hanging washing. Morning light helps reset circadian rhythms and supports better night‑time sleep.
• Create a “landing strip” for your brain at night. 20–30 minutes where you do the same low‑key things: shower, stretch, make tomorrow’s to‑do list, read a book. Try not to start big emotional conversations or scroll social media in this window.

If sleep is consistently poor (taking hours to fall asleep, waking very early, or snoring / stopping breathing at night), speak to a GP. These can be signs of insomnia, sleep apnoea or mood disorders that need proper assessment.

Movement: not punishment, but mood medicine

Large studies show that regular physical activity reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety and boosts overall wellbeing.

You don’t need a gym membership or a “summer body” plan. For a mental health reset:

• Aim for “more often than last year”, not perfection
• Choose Australian‑friendly options you might actually enjoy:
  • Walking around your suburb or local park
  • Ocean or river swims
  • Bushwalks in cooler parts of the day
  • Kicking a footy with the kids
  • 10‑minute YouTube workouts under the air‑con

Treat movement as “mood maintenance”, not weight loss. If you’re struggling with body image or disordered eating, focus on how you feel after gentle movement, rather than calories burned.

Nature: the (mostly) free antidepressant

The “Five Ways to Wellbeing in Nature” campaign in South Australia highlights how time in green or blue spaces – parks, bush, beaches, rivers – boosts mood, reduces stress and increases feelings of connection.

This doesn’t require a national park. Honestly, it might just be:

• Sitting under a tree with a coffee
• Walking barefoot on grass
• Watching magpies in your local oval
• Taking work calls while strolling instead of sitting indoors

Lifeline’s self‑care guide notes that even adding an indoor plant or paying attention to the sky can give that little “awe” hit that shifts perspective.

Build your own “minimum viable reset”:

• Sleep: 1 small change (e.g. consistent wake‑up, or 30 mins less phone use in bed)
• Movement: 10 minutes of something, most days
• Nature: 5 minutes outdoors, noticing what you can see, hear and feel

These aren’t glamorous, but they are among the most powerful mental wellbeing tips you can implement this week.

Way 3: Reclaim your attention from your phone, news and notifications

If your brain feels constantly “full” and anxious, it may not be a mystery illness – it might be information overload.

Recent Australian reports suggest close to half of adults consider themselves addicted to their smartphones. Excessive screen time and doomscrolling are linked with higher stress, sleep problems and anxiety, especially in younger people.

A realistic mental health reset for 2026 includes a digital reset.

Why this matters psychologically

Our nervous systems were not designed for:

• Endless breaking news about disasters, conflict and crises
• Thousands of micro‑social comparisons on Instagram and TikTok
• Work emails that follow us into the bedroom

This constant input keeps your brain in a low‑level fight‑or‑flight state. Over time, that fuels:

• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Difficulty concentrating
• A sense that life is “too much”

The aim isn’t to delete the internet. It’s to put some fences around it so your brain has space to recover.

Three simple “attention hygiene” rules

1. No phone as your first and last interaction of the day (most days)
   • In the morning, try 5–10 minutes of anything else first – stretch, drink water outside, say hi to whoever you live with.
   • At night, charge your phone away from your bed if possible. Swap 10 minutes of scrolling for a book, podcast, or just staring at the ceiling and letting your thoughts wander.
2. Create “news windows” instead of all‑day grazing
   • Choose one or two short windows (e.g. 8–8:15 am and 6–6:15 pm) to check news or social feeds.
   • Outside those times, log out or move apps off your home screen.
3. One‑screen rule
   • If you’re watching TV with a partner or kids, try not to scroll on a second screen at the same time. Your brain struggles to relax when it’s being pulled in two directions.

These are classic behavioural psychology strategies – changing cues and environments so your brain doesn’t have to rely on raw willpower.

If you notice social media is heavily fuelling your anxiety – particularly around body image, relationships or sexual performance – consider curating your feeds. Unfollow accounts that leave you feeling “less than”, and add accounts that share realistic mental health stories, evidence‑based information, or just wholesome Aussie dog content.

Way 4: Strengthen your connections – and your boundaries

One of the most robust findings in psychology is that strong, supportive relationships protect mental health, while chronic isolation increases the risk of depression, anxiety and even early death.

At the same time, people‑pleasing, conflict avoidance and constantly saying “yes” are some of the fastest routes to burnout – something we see over and over in our telehealth consultations and in posts like “How to Ask Your Boss for a Mental Health Day”.

So a genuine mental health reset involves both:

• Deepening the connections that nourish you
• Setting boundaries around the people and situations that drain you

Borrow from the “Five Ways to Wellbeing”

The “5 Ways to Wellbeing” framework, used widely across Australia, summarises evidence‑based habits that support mental health: Connect, Be Active, Keep Learning, Take Notice, Give.

You’ve already touched “Be Active” and “Take Notice” (Way 2). For connection:

Connect:

• Message three people you haven’t spoken to in a while and set up a catch‑up (in person, phone or video) spread over January.
• Join one group that matches your interests – local sport, book club, community garden, queer social group, choir, craft, gaming.

Give:

• Do one small act of kindness each week – cook for a friend, help a neighbour, volunteer, or mentor a junior colleague. Altruism is linked with higher wellbeing and lower stress.

These aren’t fluffy “be nicer” slogans – they’re practical resilience builders. Helping others and being part of something bigger than yourself can buffer you when life throws curveballs.

Boundaries: emotional sunscreen for 2026

If last year involved a lot of over‑functioning for everyone else – overtime at work, emotional labour at home, being the default organiser – boundaries are non‑negotiable for your new year wellness.

Some ideas:

• Time boundaries:
  • “I can’t stay back late this week – I’ve got commitments after 5:30.”
  • “I’m available to talk until 8 pm; after that I need to wind down.”
• Emotional boundaries:
  • “I care about you, but I’m not in a place to have this conversation right now.”
  • “I’m happy to listen, but I can’t be your only support – have you thought about talking to a counsellor or GP as well?”
• Family / social boundaries:
  • “I’m coming for lunch but I’ll be leaving by 3 pm.”
  • “I’m not comfortable discussing my relationship/sex life at family gatherings.”

Our article “Dreading Christmas Lunch? Managing Holiday Anxiety” walks through boundary‑setting in more detail, but the same principles apply to any big family or social event – not just December.

If boundaries feel impossible, or saying no fills you with guilt or fear, that’s a good topic to explore with a psychologist. They can help you unpack long‑standing patterns (for example, growing up in a family where your needs were always secondary) and practise new ways of relating.

Way 5: Build your 2026 mental health plan and support team

Even with good habits, there will be tough weeks in 2026. Exams, job losses, health scares, breakups, grief, climate events, big bills – life doesn’t care about our calendars.

Resilience isn’t about avoiding all of that. It’s about having a plan.

1. Know your early warning signs

Think back to times when your mental health has dipped. What were the first clues?

Common early warning signs include:

• You stop returning messages or cancel social plans
• Sleep gets patchy – either too little or sleeping all the time
• You rely heavily on alcohol, vaping or other substances to “switch off”
• Brain fog, frequent mistakes at work or study
• Loss of interest in sex or intimacy, or sudden worries about sexual performance
• Thoughts like “What’s the point?” or “Everyone would be better off without me”

Write your personal list somewhere you’ll see it – notes app, journal, even the fridge. When two or more of those signs show up for more than a couple of weeks, that’s your cue to act early, not wait for a crisis.

Healthdirect and other national resources remind Australians that most people will struggle with their mental health at some point, and early support generally leads to better outcomes.

2. Create a “toolkit” of coping strategies

Next, list five things that usually help you feel at least a bit better or safer when you’re struggling. Try to include:

• One body‑based tool (e.g. stretch, walk, cold face splash, slow breathing, yoga)
• One connection tool (call/text a friend, partner, mentor, helpline)
• One distraction tool (comfort TV, game, podcast, craft)
• One soothing tool (bath, weighted blanket, cuddling a pet, music)
• One meaning tool (writing, prayer, time on Country, volunteering, nature)

Lifeline’s self‑care guide gives lots of practical examples of this kind of routine‑building – morning intentions, evening wind‑downs, mindful eating, time in nature – and explains how these small rituals reduce stress and improve resilience.

You can also try formal tools like:

• Beyond Blue’s Self‑Care Check, which helps you reflect on lifestyle, mindset, connection and sense of direction.
• Beyond Blue’s Wellbeing Action Tool, which leads you through creating your own plan‑on‑a‑page.

Stick your toolkit somewhere visible. In a bad patch, you won’t feel like inventing solutions from scratch – you’ll just pick something from your list.

3. Map your professional support options

A solid mental health reset includes knowing where you’d go for help before you’re in crisis.

For 2026, consider:

• Your usual GP or clinic
  • They can assess your symptoms, rule out physical causes (like thyroid issues or side‑effects from medications), and, if appropriate, create a Mental Health Treatment Plan so you can access Medicare‑subsidised psychology sessions.
• Telehealth options
  • If you’re in a regional area, can’t get in to see your usual GP, or just can’t face a waiting room, telehealth can bridge the gap for many general concerns.
  • At NextClinic, our Australian‑registered doctors provide telehealth consultations for a wide range of issues – from general advice, to medical certificates when you’re too unwell to work or study, through to specialist referrals. While we can’t create a formal mental health care plan through this pathway, we can:
    • Assess how you’re going and advise next steps
    • Issue a short‑term medical certificate if you’re unfit for work or study due to mental health symptoms
    • Provide or renew prescriptions for some ongoing medications, if clinically appropriate
    • Arrange online specialist referrals – including to psychiatrists – when you can’t get in to your usual GP
• Psychologists and counsellors
  • Check which services are available locally or via telehealth. Some workplaces offer Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) with free short‑term counselling.
• Free and low‑cost supports
  • Lifeline (13 11 14) – 24/7 crisis support and suicide prevention
  • Beyond Blue (1300 22 4636) – 24/7 mental health support and advice
  • Government‑backed online programs like MindSpot and Head to Health offer free resources and therapy programs for anxiety, depression and stress.

If stress or burnout is affecting your ability to work, study or care for others, our posts “How to Ask Your Boss for a Mental Health Day”, “Is Stress a Justifiable Reason for Sick Leave?” and “Burnout or Just Tired?” explain your rights in Australia and how online medical certificates fit into that picture.

4. Know your crisis plan

If you’ve ever had thoughts of self‑harm or suicide – or worry that you might in future – it’s worth writing down a simple crisis plan now, even if you feel okay today.

Include:

• People you can contact quickly (friends, family, partner, support worker)
• Helplines you trust (Lifeline, Beyond Blue, 13YARN for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, QLife for LGBTQ+ support)
• Locations that feel safe (a friend’s place, a busy café, a local park)
• Clear instructions: “If I am thinking about harming myself, I will [call X / go to ED / call 000].”

If you or someone with you is in immediate danger, always call 000.

Telehealth – including our doctors – is not an emergency service.

How mental health links with sexual health and relationships

Because many of our patients come to us for sexual health and ED treatment as well as mental health concerns, it’s worth naming that your mind and your sex life are deeply intertwined.

Stress, anxiety, depression, relationship conflict and fatigue can all contribute to:

• Low libido
• Difficulty with arousal or orgasm
• Erectile difficulties or premature ejaculation
• Avoidance of intimacy, even with partners you love

And sexual problems can in turn worsen mental health, feeding shame, worry and relationship strain.

The point of a mental health reset is not to become some kind of “perfect lover”, but to:

• Reduce the background stress that interferes with desire and performance
• Communicate more openly with partners about what you need
• Get medical support early if something feels off – whether that’s an STI concern, painful sex, or ongoing erection issues

At NextClinic, our doctors provide confidential sexual health consultations, including support for conditions like erectile dysfunction, chlamydia treatment and contraceptive management, where clinically appropriate. If sexual worries are impacting your mental wellbeing, it’s absolutely valid to bring them up in a consultation.

When a self‑guided reset isn’t enough

The strategies in this article are designed for everyday mental health maintenance and mild‑to‑moderate stress. They’re not a substitute for personalised care when you’re really struggling.

Please reach out to a GP, psychologist or psychiatrist (or our telehealth doctors as a starting point) if you notice any of the following:

• Low mood or anxiety most days for more than two weeks
• Panic attacks, severe agitation or constantly feeling “on edge”
• Thoughts of self‑harm or suicide
• Losing interest in things you usually enjoy
• Relying heavily on alcohol, drugs, gambling or porn to cope
• Work, study, parenting or relationships falling apart because you can’t cope
• Ongoing sexual difficulties that are stressing you or your partner

Our article “Anxiety Disorders: Common Symptoms and Effective Treatments” is a good place to start if you’re wondering whether what you’re feeling might be more than “just stress”.

Remember: needing help is not a failure of resilience. It’s often the bravest – and most effective – step in any mental health reset.

Bringing it all together: your 2026 mental health reset challenge

Let’s recap the five ways to reset your mental health for 2026:

1. Do a compassionate 2025 debrief
   • Name what was hard, what you survived, and what helped.
   • Rewrite harsh self‑stories into more balanced, truthful ones.
   • Decide what you’re bringing into 2026 and what you’re leaving behind.
2. Reset your daily rhythms
   • Tweak sleep, movement and time in nature – the unglamorous but powerful foundations of mental wellbeing.
3. Reclaim your attention
   • Put fences around phones, news and notifications so your nervous system can breathe.
4. Strengthen connection and boundaries
   • Deepen supportive relationships, and practise saying “no” where you need to.
5. Build a mental health plan and support team
   • Know your warning signs, your coping toolkit, your professional supports, and your crisis plan.

You absolutely don’t have to do all five at once. In fact, please don’t – that’s just another sneaky resolution trap.

Your challenge for this week

Pick one of these five ways and try a tiny, specific action. This week.

For example:

• Way 1: Spend 15 minutes doing a 2025 debrief with a cuppa.
• Way 2: Go outside within an hour of waking, every day for a week.
• Way 3: Charge your phone outside the bedroom for three nights.
• Way 4: Say no to one non‑essential request and notice how it feels.
• Way 5: Save key helpline numbers in your phone and bookmark one resource (like Beyond Blue or Lifeline) you’d use if you needed support.

If you’d like some backup, our doctors are available via telehealth consultations from 6 am to midnight AEDT, seven days a week. We can’t fix everything in one phone call, but we can help you take the next practical step – whether that’s a medical certificate, a script renewal, or a referral to the right specialist.

Over to you:

Which of the five mental health reset strategies are you going to try first for 2026 – and what’s the smallest action you can take on it this week?

If you’re reading this on our blog, we’d love to hear your plan (or your results) in the comments. Your story might be exactly what another Aussie needs to read to start their own reset.

References

• National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, 2020-2022 | Australian Bureau of Statistics
• Burden of disease - Mental health - AIHW
• Mental health resources | healthdirect
• Wellbeing Action Tool - Beyond Blue
• Self-care for mental health and wellbeing | Lifeline
• 5 small daily habits to support your mental health | au
• Department for Environment and Water - Five Ways to Wellbeing in…
• Australian Statistics On Mental Health (2025)
• Five ways to wellbeing | The Law Society of NSW
• 5 Ways To Wellbeing - Five Ways To Wellbeing Australia | Home
• Self-care check - Beyond Blue
• Beyond Blue | Lifeline
• Snapshots - Mental health - AIHW

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