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Dr Jake's Corner is a weekly newsletter from UBA board member, Dr. Jake Goodman. Dr. Goodman is a Board Certified Psychiatrist & global mental health activist who is passionate about discovering ways we can all improve our mental health and live more balanced lives.

The best investments in brain health are usually the least exciting ones

Supportive relationships help regulate stress in ways people often underestimate

Most people think of friendship as something emotionally important.

Fewer people think about it as something biologically important.

But social connection engages the brain constantly. Conversations require attention, memory, language processing, emotional interpretation, and cognitive flexibility all at once. Relationships also help create routine, activity, and engagement with the world around us.

Over time, that matters.

Research has linked stronger social connection with lower rates of depression, lower stress levels, and even reduced risk of cognitive decline. On the other hand, chronic loneliness and isolation appear to negatively affect both mental and physical health.

This is part of why loneliness has increasingly been discussed as a public health issue, especially among older adults.

Friendship does not need to mean having dozens of friends or being social all the time. A few meaningful, consistent relationships can have a major impact on emotional well-being and long-term brain health.

Sometimes maintaining those relationships requires more intentional effort as life gets busier.

But from a mental health perspective, that effort is often worth it.

Do you know what one of the most overlooked benefits of exercise is?

When people think about depression, they usually think about stress, trauma, brain chemistry, or life circumstances.

Nutrition rarely makes the list.

But chronic inflammation has been increasingly linked to depression, and diet is one of the major factors that can influence inflammation in the body.

That doesn’t mean depression is caused by food.

It does mean that consistently eating highly processed, inflammatory dietary patterns may be one piece of a much larger mental health puzzle.

On the flip side, dietary patterns rich in vegetables, fiber, healthy fats, legumes, and omega-3s have been associated with better mental health outcomes in multiple studies.

Food is not a replacement for therapy, medication, or appropriate care when needed.

But treating nutrition like it has zero impact on mental health probably misses part of the picture.