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Tag: exercise

  • Does Marijuana Affect Weight Gain or Bone Density?  | NutritionFacts.org

    Does Marijuana Affect Weight Gain or Bone Density?  | NutritionFacts.org

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    Are the apparent adverse effects of heavy cannabis use on the bone just due to users being thinner? 

    It’s been recognized for decades that cigarette smoking can have “a major effect” on bone health, “increasing the lifetime risk of hip fracture by about half.” It also appears to impair bone healing, so much so that surgeons ask if they should discriminate against smokers because their bone and wound-healing complication rates are so high. What about smoking marijuana?

    As I discuss in my video Effects of Marijuana on Weight Gain and Bone Density, “There is accumulating evidence to suggest that cannabinoids [cannabis compounds] and their receptors play important roles in bone metabolism by regulating bone mass, bone loss, and bone cell function.” Okay, but are they “friend or foe?” 

    “Results from research on cannabinoids and bone mineral density in rodent models have been inconsistent. Some studies show increased bone formation, others have demonstrated accelerated bone loss, and yet others have shown no association. This variation in results may be due [in part] to differences in the mouse strain, sex, age…” If you can’t even extrapolate from one mouse to another, how can you extrapolate from mice to human beings?

    What if you just measure cannabis use and bone mineral density in people? Researchers tested thousands of adults and asked them about their cannabis use. There did not appear to be any link between the two, which is a relief. However, in this study, “heavy” cannabis use was defined as just five or more days of use in the previous 30 days. The researchers didn’t ask beyond that, so, theoretically, someone who smoked just five joints in their entire life could be categorized as a “heavy user” if they happened to use it five times in the last four weeks.

    How about cannabis use on 5,000 separate occasions over a lifetime? Now that’s a heavy user—decades of regular use. In that case, heavy use was “associated with low bone mineral density and an increased risk of fractures”—about double the fracture rate presumably due to lower bone density in the hip and spine, although heavy cannabis users were also thinner on average, and thinner people have lighter bones.

    Hip fracture risk goes down as our weight goes up. Nearly half of underweight women have osteoporosis, but less than 1 percent of obese women do, which makes total sense. Being obese forces our body to make our bones stronger to carry around all of that extra weight. That’s why weight-bearing exercise is so important to constantly put stress on our skeleton. When it comes to our bones, it’s use it or lose it. That’s why astronauts can lose a percent of their bone mass every month in “long-duration spaceflight.” Their bodies aren’t stupid. Why waste all that energy making a strong skeleton if you aren’t going to put any weight on it? 

    So, maybe the reason heavy cannabis users have frailer bones is because they tend to be about 15 pounds lighter. Wait a second. Marijuana users are slimmer? What about the munchies? “The lower BMI that was observed in heavy cannabis users at first sight seems counterintuitive,” given marijuana’s appetite stimulation, but this isn’t the first time this has been noted. 

    “Popular culture commonly depicts marijuana users as a sluggish, lethargic, and unproductive subculture of compulsive snackers,” and marijuana has indeed been found to increase food intake. A single hit can increase appetite, so you’d expect obesity rates to rise in states that legalized it. But, if anything, the rise in obesity appeared to slow after medical marijuana laws were passed, whereas it appeared to just keep rising in other states, as you can see in the graph below and at 3:45 in my video. 

    The reason pot smokers may be slimmer is because of the effect of smoked marijuana on metabolism. We’ve known for more than nearly 40 years that within 15 minutes of lighting up, our metabolic rate goes up by about 25 percent and stays there for at least an hour, as you can see below and at 4:04 in my video. So, that may be playing a role. 

    Is that why heavy cannabis use is associated with lower bone mineral density and increased risk of fractures? Because users just aren’t as overweight? No. Even when taking BMI into account, heavy cannabis use appears to be “an independent predictor” of weaker bones.

    I originally released a series of marijuana videos in a webinar and downloadable digital DVD. There are still a few videos coming out over the next year, but if you missed any of the already published ones, see the related posts below. 

    For more on bone health, check out the related posts below. 

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Phototherapy and Losing Weight  | NutritionFacts.org

    Phototherapy and Losing Weight  | NutritionFacts.org

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    What did randomized controlled trials of phototherapy—bright morning light—for weight loss find? 

    If weakening our circadian rhythm can cause weight gain, might strengthening it facilitate weight loss? You may remember the child’s swing analogy I shared previously. Regular morning meals can give our cycles a little daily push, but the biggest shove comes from our exposure to bright morning light. Similarly, exposure to light at night could be analogous to nighttime eating, as you can see below and at 0:31 in my video Shedding Light on Shedding Weight. 

    Of course, we’ve had candles to illuminate our nights for 5,000 years, but flames from candles, campfires, and oil lamps are “strongly skewed towards the red end of the [light] spectrum; as a result, firelight has much less impact on circadian rhythmicity than electric light.” It’s the shorter blue wavelengths that specially set our circadian clocks. Electric lighting, which we’ve only had for a little over a century, “has gradually changed since the 1960s from an incandescent-bulb form consisting of mainly low-level yellow wavelengths to high-intensity discharge forms,” such as fluorescents and LED lights, “that contain blue wavelengths,” which are more similar to morning sunlight and have the strongest effect on our circadian rhythm.

    Using wrist meters to measure ambient light exposure, researchers found that increased exposure to light in the evening and nighttime correlated with a subsequent increased risk of developing obesity over time. This was presumed to be due to circadian misalignment, but might it instead be a sign of not sleeping as much, and maybe that’s the real reason people grew heavier? This was controlled for in a study of more than 100,000 women, which found that the odds of obesity trended with higher nighttime light exposure independent of sleep duration.

    Compared to women who reported their bedrooms at night were either too dark to see their hand in front of their face or at least dark enough that they couldn’t see across the room, those who reported their bedrooms were light enough to see across the room were significantly heavier. They weren’t all sleeping with nightlights on either. Without blackout curtains on windows, many neighborhoods may be bright enough to cause circadian disruption. Using satellite imagery, scientists have even been able to correlate higher obesity rates with brighter communities. There’s so much light at night these days that, outside of a blackout, the only Milky Way our children will likely ever see is inside a candy wrapper.

    Although sleep quantity could be controlled, what about sleep quality? Maybe people sleeping in bedrooms that aren’t as dim don’t sleep as soundly, leaving them too tired to exercise the next day, for example. You can’t know for sure if nocturnal light exposure is harmful in and of itself until you put it to the test. When that was done, those randomized to exposure to bright light for a few hours in the evenings or exposed even just for a single night suffered adverse metabolic consequences. 

    The more intriguing question then becomes: Can circadian syncing with morning bright light therapy be a viable weight-loss strategy? Insufficient morning light may be the circadian equivalent of skipping breakfast. Indoor lighting is too bright at night, but it may be too dim during the day to robustly boost our daily rhythm. Light exposure from getting outdoors in the morning, even on an overcast day, is correlated to lower body weight compared to typical office lighting, so some doctors started trying “phototherapy” to treat obesity. The first case reports began being published in the 1990s. Three out of four women lost an average of about four pounds over six weeks of morning bright light exposure, but there was no control group to confirm the effect. 

    Ten years later, the first randomized controlled trial was published. Overweight individuals were randomized to an exercise intervention with or without an hour a day of bright morning light. Compared to normal indoor lighting, the bright light group lost more body fat, but it’s possible the light just stimulated them to exercise harder. Studies show that exposure to bright light, even the day prior to exercise, may boost performance. In a handgrip endurance test, exposure to hours of bright light increased the number of contractions until exhaustion from about 770 to 860 the next day. While light-induced improvements in activity or mood can be helpful in their own right, it would be years later still before we finally learned whether the light exposure itself could boost weight loss. 

    Following an unpublished study in Norway purporting to show a dozen-pound weight-loss advantage to eight weeks of 30 minutes of daily daylight (compared to indoor lighting), researchers tried three weeks of 45 minutes of morning bright light compared to the same time sitting in front of an “ion generator” that appeared to turn on but was secretly deactivated. As you can see in the graph below and at 5:08 in my video, the three weeks of light beat out the placebo, but the average difference in body fat reduction was only about a pound. This slight edge didn’t seem to correlate with mood changes, but bright light alone can stimulate serotonin production in the human brain and cause the release of adrenaline-type hormones, both of which could benefit body fat aside from any circadian effects. 

    Regardless of the mechanism, bright morning daylight exposure could present a novel weight-loss strategy straight out of the clear blue sky.  

    I have a whole series on chronobiology. You can see all of the videos on the topic page. The last few are listed below in the related posts and help to paint the full picture of how our environment can affect our circadian rhythms.

    For more on weight loss, you can also check out my recent series in the related posts below, or browse all of my weight loss videos here. 

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • San Diego is cracking down on groups for exercising outside without a permit

    San Diego is cracking down on groups for exercising outside without a permit

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    They come in packs. They’re often crunchy. They’re chameleons: a downward-facing dog one moment, a cobra or child the next. (What versatility!) They do handstands and breathe peacefully. And we can’t have any of that. 

    At least, not on public land. By “they,” I’m referring to the world of yogis. And by “we,” I mean the city of San Diego, which revised its municipal code in March to prevent groups of four or more people engaged in commercial recreational activities—yoga, fitness classes, dog training, etc.—from convening in public spaces without a permit.

    Law enforcement officers are zeroing in on rogue gatherings, breaking up beachside classes before they begin and issuing tickets to the teachers. And despite the city’s emphasis on “commercial” activities, park rangers are also busting those groups who meet with no cost of admission. “It’s really tragic that the city would take away the opportunity to come to a class for free, to be outside in a public park, and to enjoy nature,” Amy Baack, a yoga instructor, told San Diego’s KGTV station. And despite what might be the gut reaction here—”Just get a permit!”—it appears the city isn’t making that easy: “We are perfectly willing and ready to get a permit,” Baack added, “if the city would allow it.”

    The law was originally tailored to target permitless food vendors. Reasonable people can and should debate the necessity or utility of preventing people from buying hot dogs from someone without a stamp of approval from government bureaucrats. But it would seem even more questionable to apply that concept to people who voluntarily meet by the water to do some stretching. Conjuring safety concerns there requires an active imagination.

    Indeed, San Diego says the core issue at stake is safety. Officials expanded the code, which went into effect March 29, “to ensure these public spaces remain safe and accessible,” a city spokesperson said in a statement. What danger these groups pose while transitioning from, say, bridge pose to wheel pose remains unclear.

    The idea that the code provision ensures accessibility, meanwhile, is richly ironic, as it explicitly excludes from access those taxpaying San Diegans who have the audacity to work out with other people sans a permit. That they have gathered together as opposed to separately, or to do a specific activity as opposed to something nebulous, should not suddenly necessitate approval from the government.

    Whether or not the rule will survive is up in the air: An attorney for a group of yoga instructors on Friday served a cease-and-desist letter to city officials. Whatever the case, it’s an example of the government implementing a solution in search of a problem, which didn’t actually exist until city leaders created it.

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    Billy Binion

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  • Irregular Meals, Night Shifts, and Metabolic Harms  | NutritionFacts.org

    Irregular Meals, Night Shifts, and Metabolic Harms  | NutritionFacts.org

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    What can shift workers do to moderate the adverse effects of circadian rhythm disruption?

    Shift workers may have higher rates of death from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia, and cardiovascular disease, as well as higher rates of death from cancer. Graveyard shift, indeed! But, is it just because they’re eating out of vending machines or not getting enough sleep? Highly controlled studies have recently attempted to tease out these other factors by putting people on the same diets with the same sleep—but at the wrong time of day. Redistributing eating to the nighttime resulted in elevated cholesterol and increases in blood pressure and inflammation. No wonder shift workers are at higher risk. Shifting meals to the night in a simulated night-shift protocol effectively turned about one-third of the subjects prediabetic in just ten days. Our bodies just weren’t designed to handle food at night, as I discuss in my video The Metabolic Harms of Night Shifts and Irregular Meals.

    Just as avoiding bright light at night can prevent circadian misalignment, so can avoiding night eating. We may have no control over the lighting at our workplace, but we can try to minimize overnight food intake, which has been shown to help limit the negative metabolic consequences of shift work. When we finally do get home in the morning, though, we may disproportionately crave unhealthy foods. In one experiment, 81 percent of participants in a night-shift scenario chose high-fat foods, such as croissants, out of a breakfast buffet, compared to just 43 percent of the same subjects during a control period on a normal schedule.

    Shiftwork may also leave people too fatigued to exercise. But, even at the same physical activity levels, chronodisruption can affect energy expenditure. Researchers found that we burn 12 to 16 percent fewer calories while sleeping during the daytime compared to nighttime. Just a single improperly-timed snack can affect how much fat we burn every day. Study subjects eating a specified snack at 10:00 am burned about 6 more grams of fat from their body than on the days they ate the same snack at 11:00 pm. That’s only about a pat and a half of butter’s worth of fat, but it was the identical snack, just given at a different time. The late snack group also suffered about a 9 percent bump in their LDL cholesterol within just two weeks.

    Even just sleeping in on the weekends may mess up our metabolism. “Social jetlag is a measure of the discrepancy in sleep timing between our work days and free days.” From a circadian rhythm standpoint, if we go to bed late and sleep in on the weekends, it’s as if we flew a few time zones west on Friday evening, then flew back Monday morning. Travel-induced jet lag goes away in a few days, but what might the consequences be of constantly shifting our sleep schedule every week over our entire working career? Interventional studies have yet put it to the test, but population studies suggest that those who have at least an hour of social jet lag a week (which may describe more than two-thirds of people) have twice the odds of being overweight. 

    If sleep regularity is important, what about meal regularity? “The importance of eating regularly was highlighted early by Hippocrates (460–377 BC) and later by Florence Nightingale,” but it wasn’t put to the test until the 21st century. A few population studies had suggested that those eating meals irregularly were at a metabolic disadvantage, but the first interventional studies weren’t published until 2004. Subjects were randomized to eat their regular diets divided into six regular eating occasions a day or three to nine daily occasions in an irregular manner. Researchers found that an irregular eating pattern can cause a drop in insulin sensitivity and a rise in cholesterol levels, as well as reduce the calorie burn immediately after meals in both lean and obese individuals. The study participants ended up eating more, though, on the irregular meals, so it’s difficult to disentangle the circadian effects. The fact that overweight individuals may overeat on an irregular pattern may be telling in and of itself, but it would be nice to see such a study repeated using identical diets to see if irregularity itself has metabolic effects.

    Just such a study was published in 2016: During two periods, people were randomized to eat identical foods in a regular or irregular meal pattern. As you can see in the graph below and at 4:47 in my video, during the irregular period, people had impaired glucose tolerance, meaning higher blood sugar responses to the same food.

    They also had lower diet-induced thermogenesis, meaning the burning of fewer calories to process each meal, as seen in the graph below and at 4:55 in my video.

    The difference in thermogenesis only came out to be about ten calories per meal, though, and there was no difference in weight changes over the two-week periods. However, diet-induced thermogenesis can act as “a satiety signal.” The extra work put into processing a meal can help slake one’s appetite. And, indeed, “lower hunger and higher fullness ratings” during the regular meal period could potentially translate into better weight control over the long term. 

    The series on chronobiology is winding down with just two videos left in this series: Shedding Light on Shedding Weight and Friday Favorites: Why People Gain Weight in the Fall.

    If you missed any of the other videos, see the related posts below. 
     

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Don’t just track your steps. Here are 4 health metrics to monitor on your smartwatch, according to doctors.

    Don’t just track your steps. Here are 4 health metrics to monitor on your smartwatch, according to doctors.

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    From smart wearables like the Apple Watch or Garmin trackers to the celebrity-sported Oura ring and trendy WHOOP strap, health tech has come a long way from just tracking your steps.

    “There’s lots of different metrics now that we can begin to look at,” says Dr. Davin Lundquist, family physician and chief medical officer at Augmedix. “Anytime that we can have a greater awareness of our health and paying attention to it, it tends to influence behavior in a positive way.”

    Here are four that doctors say can be useful to monitor:

    Sleep 

    Most healthy adults can benefit from sleep tracking to some level, says Dr. Carlos M. Nunez, chief medical officer at medical device company ResMed.

    “Many users aren’t tracking the right information and can end up fixating or misinterpreting the data rather than observing the larger trends that the trackers can help to indicate,” Nunez says. “Users should start by tracking their sleep-wake cycle to establish a consistent routine of quality sleep, which research has shown can lead to improved concentration, increased productivity and feeling overall more positive.”

    Heart rate

    Tracking your heart rate can give you a picture into your heart health. The lower your resting heart rate, within reason, the healthier your heart is, explains Lundquist. 

    “If you’re doing more aerobic exercise, over time, your resting heart rate should decline. And that would be an indication that your heart is getting healthier,” he says. 

    Respiratory rate

    “Certain devices can also provide insight into potential key health indicators – such as your respiratory rates, activity level and more,” Nunez says. “For some users, the data can also indicate how your body is responding to stress.”

    Respiratory rate is a metric that may alert someone to other health issues, too. That’s something Michael Snyder, a Stanford School of Medicine professor who has studied smartwatches, experienced firsthand after coming down with COVID-19. Though he took a COVID test that came back negative, his own research app alerted him to sudden changes in his breathing and heart rates.

    “I listened to my COVID test, and I should have listened my smartwatch,” he told CBS News in a 2022 interview.

    Cardiac rhythm

    Tracking metrics like cardiac rhythm may help alert patients to a bigger problems.  

    “I had a patient whose Apple Watch told them that they had a run of atrial fibrillation,” Lundquist said. “We got this person into a cardiologist — sure enough, it was confirmed and the patient was adequately treated.”

    “Afib (atrial fibrillation) is a big deal,” cardiologist Dr. Tara Narula told “CBS Mornings” in 2018 as Apple rolled out electrocardiogram technology in its smartwatches to help detect the heart issue. “It affects millions of Americans, increases hospitalization rates (and) increases death and heart failure.”

    It also increases risk for potentially debilitating strokes by five times, she added.

    “The problem with afib is that it can be asymptomatic, so you can be walking around and not know you have it while you’re at increased risk of stroke,” she explained, noting that a tracking device could help empower patients, but could also lead to false alarm: “Anxiety, false positives, flooding doctors’ offices with calls. There are definitely downsides, but I think this has the potential to really be very helpful down the road,”

    How accurate is the data?

    Health trackers have come a long way, doctors says, but you shouldn’t rely on these devices for 100% accuracy or diagnosis. The FDA has specifically warned against any device that claims to measure blood sugar without needles, since inaccuracies could lead to serious health consequences.

    For other types of tracking, “The accuracy of some of the smartwatches is still a little bit in question, although with each generation they’re getting better. So I think overall, physicians are getting more confident in trusting these devices,” Lundquist says. Plus, as he points out, users also have to take off the device to charge, meaning data won’t be recorded 24/7. 

    While trackers can be a “valuable tool for many,” Nunez says the data shouldn’t be used to diagnose serious sleep or health issues.

    “Ultimately, sleep tracking devices can help to empower users to set and achieve health goals but are not a substitute for formal diagnosis or professional medical care,” he says. 

    They can also help physicians partner with their patients, Lundquist says.

    “As these applications become more mainstream, the ability to show up in your with your doctor’s appointment, pull up your phone and show them your metrics would be a great way for us to partner with our patients and help them see where there’s potential opportunities or problems,” he says.

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  • Marijuana MicroDosing Can Improve Mundane Tasks

    Marijuana MicroDosing Can Improve Mundane Tasks

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    Some things in life can’t be avoid – and seem to suck the fun out of a day…but maybe a little cannabis can help!

    Mowing the grass, brainstorming, exercise, and other everyday tasks just seem to suck the life out of a day – especially the precious weekend Saturday and Sundays. Not only are they mundane, but they have to be done…over and over again over the course of your life. What about making them more fun, engaging and pouring some happiness into every day tasks? Marijuana microdosing can improve mundane tasks to the point of enjoyment.

    RELATED: The Most Popular Marijuana Flavors

    Microdosing cannabis may be a beneficial way to achieve a relaxed, yet focused high. The sativa strain tends to energize and uplift and can place you into a state of timelessness, effortlessness, euphoria, and single-minded focus. Microdosing cannabis can help boost creativity, mood and productivity.  Consider about 2.5 mg to start – which is about half a gummy or a puff or two from a vape.

    Household Chores

    From laundry and folding clothes to cleaning the fridge, these are must do activities to facilitate day to day life.  Sometimes mindless, it is easy to slip into boredom trying to match an endless supply of socks or cleaning the oven.  A little sativa can add not only energy but a bit of creativity in these tasks.  You might be startled by how vacuuming can become fun!

    Outdoor Chores

    Mowing the grass goes down as the more boring job.  Around 76% report their lawn is mowed at least every other week. What a dull routine and pattern, add in edging, weeding and other garden task and you can find yourself in a bi-weekly loop of boredom. Pop a gummy and you reimagine your garden again and again.  The same for washing and cleaning the car or garage. And you end with a strong sense of satisfaction.

    Working Out Classic Film GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

    Exercise

    Some people do not get the natural home people who enjoy physical activity enjoy. Some see it as a health or physical appearance reason and it can be a little dull.  Trendmills, stationary bikes, walks, runs and more tend to be a set period of time which can get a bit dull day after day.  Maybe mix it up with a little cannabis and put a little pep into the set.

    Additionally, cannabis has been proven to have properties that not only aid in the recovery from working out, but also in the actual performance of certain activities. Studies have shown the plant’s ability to decrease anxiety and act as a bronchodilator increasing airflow to the lungs. Moreover, as one study found, “cannabinoids are potent anti-inflammatory agents.”

    Brainstorm

    Whether you’re writing a book, managing work project for your team at work, or organizing  your family or friend life, the ability to think strategically and creatively is critical to being productive. Sometimes you can get stuck in a rut, a little time, weed, and space allows you a fresh, creativity perspective.  While 80% may not work – 20% might be something you can build which could make life better.

    RELATED: People Who Use Weed Also Do More Of Another Fun Thing

    For some, consuming weed allows the brain the work in a different mechanism, fueling creativity and crashing through any persisting roadblocks. So the next time you are stuck, try stepping away for a few minutes to imbibe and return to the situation with a new perspective.

    Studying


    via GIPHY

    There’s no excuse for not taking advantage of the plethora of high quality free education available online these days. Whether you’d like to learn more about computer science or classic literature, the tools are online and in some cities in person.

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    Amy Hansen

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  • Want to Build Your Glutes, But Sick of Squats? Meet the Fire Hydrant Exercise – POPSUGAR Australia

    Want to Build Your Glutes, But Sick of Squats? Meet the Fire Hydrant Exercise – POPSUGAR Australia

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    The fire hydrant exercise has been around at least since the days of Jane Fonda workout tapes, but it’s not just your mama’s exercise – it’s something you should consider adding to your routine as well. Fire hydrants are a great exercise because they don’t require any equipment, but can still help you build some serious glute strength.

    Fire hydrants target your gluteus medius (think the side of your butt). “This muscle can be overshadowed in training, since many people focus on their gluteus maximus, the main part of your butt”, says Domenic Angelino, a certified personal trainer with Trainer Academy. “The gluteus maximus still will experience a training effect here, but it won’t be as profound as the gluteus medius.” So, no – the fire hydrant is not a replacement for squats. But it can be a great alternative, since it works related but different muscles.

    The benefit of having a strong gluteus medius is to be able to move the body in a lateral direction, or side to side. This is helpful not only for athletes who need lateral agility, but also for everyday life when you need to move out of the way quickly, like maneuvering your way through a busy airport.

    Fire Hydrant Exercise Benefits

    Again, the fire hydrant is an incredibly effective glute move. Here, three benefits of the lower-body exercise.

    They Don’t Require Equipment

    The fire hydrant is a great way to train your glutes without needing access to go to a gym. Lack of equipment can be a barrier when it comes to working out, but with the fire hydrant, all you need is your bodyweight. “This is huge, because a lot of people struggle to maintain motivation to workout consistently. Since motivation comes in waves and is transient, it’s important to have tools at your disposal to capitalize on those bursts of motivation. Having a way to workout on the spot is a great way to do this”, says Angelino. This also means you can keep up with your fitness routine anywhere.

    (That said, you can up the intensity of the move by adding on an exercise band – more on that below.)

    They’re Accessible

    The fire hydrant is simplistic. “They’re structured in such a way that most people will be able to lift their leg up appropriately, even if only through a partial range of motion,” Angelino explains. Though you do want to use your maximum range of motion, it does not need to be a large range of motion to be effective.

    They’re a Perfect Finisher

    When you’ve reached the end of a workout where you’ve used heavy loads, and want to do a final burnout round to push your muscle endurance, the last thing you want to think about is lifting more heavy weight. Enter the fire hydrant. “Since they rely on a single joint, they can be tagged on to a workout after completing more challenging exercises that involve multiple joints”, Angelino tells PS.

    How to Do a Fire Hydrant

    1. Start on all fours with your wrists under your shoulders, and your knees under your hips.
    2. Keeping the left knee on the ground, lift your right leg up, opening up the hip.
    3. Bring your right leg up to 90 degrees, or as high as your range of motion allows while keeping your hips parallel to the floor.
    4. Return your right leg back to the starting position.
    5. Repeat for 10 reps.
    6. Complete 10 reps on the left leg.

    An important note is to make sure you keep your hips square to the floor and not let your torso twist. Twisting the body will start to recruit the abdominals and take away from the activation of the glutes.

    Fire Hydrant Modifications and Variations

    One reason trainers love fire hydrants is because they’re so adaptable. You can start with a smaller range of motion when you’re still newer to the move; or wear a resistance band to make it more challenging. Here, more info about how to modify the exercise.

    Try a Clamshell

    The clamshell exercise trains similar muscles to the fire hydrant, so it can be a good place to start if you’re struggling with the fire hydrant, Angelio says.

    You can find the steps for performing a clamshell here. Basically, you’ll lay on your side with your hips, knees and ankles stacked. Lift your top knee, and open your hips as far as your range of motion allows, then return to the starting position.

    Add a resistance band

    When adding a resistance band to your fire hydrant, slip a closed band around your legs, placing it about two inches above your knee. Then perform a fire hydrant as normal.

    Add a pulse

    Another way to get more of a muscle burn is to add a pulse to the top of the fire hydrant movement. Raise your leg to the top of your range of motion. Then lower your leg an inch, then lift it an inch, and repeat for 10-20 reps. This creates more time under tension, which helps to build the muscle.

    Brittany Hammond is a NASM-certified fitness instructor, a fitness writer, and an avid reader. In addition to POPSUGAR, she has contributed to Livestrong.com, Well+Good, Verywell Fit, and Health.com. She has worked as a group fitness coach for the past seven years.

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    Brittany hammond

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  • 58-year-old grandmother of 12 breaks world planking record after holding position for more than 4.5 hours

    58-year-old grandmother of 12 breaks world planking record after holding position for more than 4.5 hours

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    There’s a new world record for the longest plank ever held by a woman – and it was broken by a grandmother in Canada. 

    Guinness World Records announced late last month that 58-year-old DonnaJean Wilde, a mother of five and grandmother of 12 in Canada, broke the women’s world record for the longest time in an abdominal plank position after holding it for 4 hours, 30 minutes and 11 seconds – 10 minutes longer than the previous record established in 2019. She spent that entire duration with her forearms and toes touching the ground and her body remaining lifted and straight. 

    Wilde, who is now retired, completed the event at the high school where she previously served as vice principal. She told Guinness that the first two hours were relatively quick, but by the end, there was a bit of a struggle. 

    “My elbows hurt pretty bad,” Wilde said. “I was so worried about losing my form and I think that’s why my quads hurt because I was just really tense.” 

    The last hour “was the most challenging,” she said, but by “breathing, staying calm and not shaking,” in the last 30 minutes, she was able to persevere. Her main motivator was her dozen grandchildren, all of whom attended the record-breaking event. 

    But breaking a world record doesn’t come easy. Wilde spent every day planking for up to three hours, during which time she would watch movies and even study for her master’s degree. In preparation for the attempt, she did that three-hour exercise twice a day. 

    “I realized that I could read and do things when I was planking and fell in love with it,” she said.

    Wilde has been planking for more than a decade, getting into the activity after she broke her wrist 12 years ago and couldn’t run or lift weights while she was in a cast. 

    And she did it all while dealing with chronic pain in her hands and arms. She suffers from transverse myelitis, a condition in which both sides of a section of the spinal cord become inflamed, sending pain to those areas she relies on to hold a plank. Her husband Randy told Guinness, however, that he believes the pain she regularly experiences ended up being more helpful than hurtful when it comes to breaking a world record. 

    “That chronic pain and numbness that she deals with every day has helped her to be able to plank through the pain,” he said. “…I think the model for someone whose done a world record is officially amazing, but she’s been officially amazing her whole life.” 

    After all the time spent training and finally breaking the record, Wilde says the only feeling she’s left with is “overwhelming.” 

    “I actually still can’t believe it,” she said. “It feels like a dream.” 

    Li Cohen


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    Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News.

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  • Milk Hormones and Female Infertility  | NutritionFacts.org

    Milk Hormones and Female Infertility  | NutritionFacts.org

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    Dairy consumption is associated with years of advanced ovarian aging, thought to be due to the steroid hormones or endocrine-disrupting chemicals in cow’s milk.
     
    When it comes to the amount of steroid hormones we are exposed to in the food supply, dairy “milk products supply about 60–80% of ingested female sex steroids.” I’ve talked about the effects of these estrogens and progesterone in men and prepubescent children, and how milk intake can spike estrogen levels within hours of consumption. You can see graphs illustrating these points from 0:25 in my video The Effects of Hormones in Milk on Infertility in Women. In terms of effects on women, I’ve discussed the increased endometrial cancer risk in postmenopausal women. What about reproductive-age women? Might dairy hormones affect reproduction? 
     
    We’ve known that “dairy food intake has been associated with infertility; however, little is known with regard to associations with reproductive hormones or anovulation.” How might dairy do it? By affecting how the uterus prepares, or by affecting the ovary itself? Researchers found that women who ate yogurt or cream had about twice the risk of sporadic anovulation, meaning failure of ovulation, so some months there was no egg to fertilize at all. Now, we know most yogurt is packed with sugar these days. Even plain Greek yogurt can have more sugar than a double chocolate glazed cake donut, but the researchers controlled for that and the results remained after adjusting for the sugar content, “which suggests that the risk of anovulation was independent of the sugar content included in many flavored yogurt products.” We don’t know if this was just a fluke or exactly what the mechanism might be, but if women skip ovulation here and there throughout their lives, might they end up with a larger ovarian reserve of eggs? 
     
    Women are starting to have their first baby later in life. As you can see in the graph below and at 2:02 in my video, there’s been a rise in women having babies when they’re in their late 30s and 40s.

    We used to think that women’s ovarian reserve of eggs stayed relatively stable until a rapid decline at about age 37, but now we know it appears to be more of a gradual loss of eggs over time. The graph below and at 2:22 in my video charts a steady loss starting at peak fertility in one’s 20s.

    This measures “antral follicle count,” which is an ultrasound test where you can count the number of “next batter up” eggs in the ovaries, as you can see below and at 2:31 in my video. It is probably the best reflection of true reproductive age. It’s a measure of ovarian reserve—how many eggs a woman has left.

    What does this have to do with diet? Researchers at Harvard looked at the association of various protein intakes with ovarian antral follicle counts among women having trouble getting pregnant. “Even though diminished ovarian reserve is one of the major causes of female infertility, the process leading to reproductive senescence [deterioration with age] currently is poorly understood. In light of emerging population trends towards delayed pregnancy, the identification of reversible factors (including diet) that affect the individual rates of reproductive decline might be of significant clinical value.”

    The researchers performed ultrasounds on all the women, studied their diets, and concluded that higher intake of dairy protein was associated with lower antral follicle counts—in other words, accelerated ovarian aging. The graph below and at 3:39 in my video shows what counts look like in nonsmokers: Significantly lower ovarian reserve (12.7 antral follicle counts) at the highest dairy intake, which would be like three ounces of cheese a day, compared to the lowest dairy intake (16.9 antral follicle counts).

    What do these numbers mean in terms of biological age? Is 16.9 down to 12.7 really that much of a difference? As you can see below and at 3:58 in my video, when you look at women with really robust ovaries, a follicle count of 16.9 is what you might see in a 36- or 37-year-old, whereas 12.7, which is what you can see in women eating the most dairy, is what you might see in a really fertile 50-year-old. So, we’re talking year’s worth of ovarian aging between the highest and lowest dairy consumers.

    While it wasn’t possible for the researchers to “identify the underlying mechanism linking higher dairy protein intake to lower AFC,” antral follicle count, they had educated guesses. (1) It could be the steroid hormones and growth factors or (2) “the contamination of milk products by pesticides and endocrine disrupting chemicals that may negatively impact” the development of these ovarian follicles and egg competence.

    “Regarding the former [the hormones], studies suggest that commercial milk (derived from both pregnant and non-pregnant animals) contains large amounts of estrogens, progesterone, and other placental hormones that are eventually released into the human food chain, with dairy intake accounting for 60–80% of the estrogens consumed. Dairy estrogens overcome [survive] processing, appear in raw whole cow’s and commercial milk products, are found in substantially higher concentrations with increasing amounts of milk fat, with no apparent difference between organic and conventional dairy products…” Hormones are just naturally in cows’ bodies, so they aren’t just in the ones injected with growth hormones. And, once these bovine hormones are inside the human body, they get converted to estrone and estradiol, the main active human estrogens. Following absorption, bovine steroids may then affect reproductive outcomes.

    The researchers asserted that further studies are needed and that “it is imperative that these findings are reproduced in prospective studies designed to clarify the biology underlying the observed associations. The latter might be crucial given that consumption of another species’ milk by humans is an evolutionary novel dietary behavior that has the potential to alter reproductive parameters and may have long-term adverse health effects.”

    The video I mentioned about the effects of these estrogens and progesterone in men and prepubescent children is The Effects of Hormones in Dairy Milk on Cancer.

    I talk about the effect of dairy estrogen on male fertility in Dairy Estrogen and Male Fertility.

    How else might diet affect fertility? See related posts below. 

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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • The Best Tips For A Flexible Body

    The Best Tips For A Flexible Body

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    Work at home, work at office, driving, all things which puts our body in awkward positions for long period of times.  Flying coach, doing tech work, or the couch is doubling as the office, all ways your back and body pays the price.  So how do you get your body back to where you can move it without hurting? Well, here are the best tips for a flexible body.  Your body and brain will appreciate it.

    RELATED: 5 Morning Activities To Help You Feel Happier

    Being flexible and open to new experiences allows people to learn new things. It also helps people adapt to changing circumstances, which can help people function more effectively in their environments. People can better let go of negative or unhelpful thinking and behavior patterns by staying psychologically flexible.

    How to start

    It is not hard to start stretching and moving.  Making it a point to take a mini walk every couple of hours or going online and taking some simple starter stretch or yoga class, anything is better than nothing.

    One of the best ways  is static stretching. This is where you come into a stretch and hold it without movement for a certain period of time. Even adding static stretching into your routine on its own can make a powerful difference in how your body feels.  It opens your body and restores some muscle movement.

    Photo by rawpixel.com

    Stretching is boring for most people because you have to hold these positions for long periods of time for them to have an effect. Try to hold your stretches for a minimum of 30 seconds, really feeling the strain in your muscles. To make this process more manageable, focus on completing that amount of time and on not pushing your muscles too hard. If you can’t hold a pose because it hurts too much, try applying less pressure.

    RELATED: What You Should Know About CBD Massages

    Consume your proteins

    Foods and shakes that are rich in proteins can help your body post work out, preventing pain and muscle loss during the recovery process. These elements are also necessary for building muscles and repairing the tissue that was damaged. Proteins are filling and help you stay mobile as you age and lose body mass.

    Don’t skip on the cool down process

    It’s very common for people to walk out of a spinning or boxing class before completing their post-workout stretches. This is bad for your joints and muscles, and will likely leave you in pain during the day after. Stretches help in speeding up your recovery process while also increasing your mobility and flexibility. Once you’ve completed your cardio, your body is warm and more likely to stretch than during other times of the day.

    Take a warm bath

    'Bathleisure' Is Now A Fashion Trend And We Don't Know Why
    Photo by Sarah Pflug via Burst

    RELATED: 5 Cheap Ways To Practice Self-Care

    While warm baths alone won’t help you become more flexible, they will trick your body into feeling relaxed, which is key for developing flexibility. When trying out a new stretch or  putting strain on a muscle you rarely use, your body’s natural response will be to clamp up. A warm bath can help you stay relaxed and put your muscles in a more willing mood that will allow you to push yourself when you stretch at the end or beginning of your day.

    Try new workouts

    The easiest way to work on your flexibility is to practice a workout that targets these muscles and skills, such as yoga, Tai Chi or pilates. These exercises can add some variety to your workout schedule and can even add more to your performance on other activities, improving your jogging, boxing or spinning skills.

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  • What Is the 30-30-30 Rule? Nutritionists Break It Down – POPSUGAR Australia

    What Is the 30-30-30 Rule? Nutritionists Break It Down – POPSUGAR Australia

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    When it comes to fitness trends, there’s plenty of advice to sort through out there to help see you through your journey. Unfortunately, it can be hard to tell which information is legitimate and what’s not worth your time. The 30-30-30 rule is getting plenty of buzz on TikTok, raising a lot of questions about whether there’s something to this.

    The 30-30-30 rule first popped up in Timothy Ferriss’ bestselling book, “The 4-Hour Body.” But this method really took off after biologist Gary Brecka started promoting it on TikTok.

    According to Brecka, following the 30-30-30 rule (sometimes referred to as the 30-30-30 method) can help you manage your blood sugar, lose weight, and have more energy than other eating plans.

    Of course, it’s understandable to be wary of anything promoted on TikTok, especially when it comes to health and fitness advice. But nutritionists say there’s something to this method. Here’s what the 30-30-30 rule involves, plus risks and benefits to be aware of.

    What Is the 30-30-30 Rule?

    The 30-30-30 rule is simple. It involves eating 30 grams of protein within the first 30 minutes after you wake up. That’s followed by 30 minutes of exercise.

    You can eat whatever else you want with your breakfast, but the 30 grams of protein is key. The exercise part of this plan is very specific: The 30-30-30 rule recommends that you do steady-state cardiovascular exercise, which means low-intensity cardio that raises your heart rate a little but keeps it at or under 135 beats per minute. That includes doing things like cycling, walking, or jogging.

    Nutritionists say there’s something to the concept of the 30-30-30 rule. “I love that this rule is encouraging people to get daily exercise and have a significant amount of protein in the morning,” says Christy Brissette, RD, founder of 80 Twenty Nutrition in Laguna Beach, CA.

    “Getting protein in the morning is good,” agrees Scott Keatley, RD, co-owner of Keatley Medical Nutrition Therapy. “Your body before exercise is generally able to absorb about 20 grams in a sitting. After exercise it can increase significantly.”

    But Keatley the specific recommendations seem a bit arbitrary. Protein and carbs have about the same caloric value, he says. “Why not have 15 grams of both 15 minutes after waking up and exercising for 15 minutes?” Brissette agrees that the specifics around timing “don’t make sense.”

    What are the Benefits of 30-30-30?

    Despite the arbitrary recommendations, there are “solid benefits” to following this eating plan, says Karen Ansel, RDN, author of “Healthy in a Hurry: Simple, Wholesome Recipes for Every Meal of the Day”.

    “Most of us skimp on protein at breakfast, so the plan can be a helpful way to squeeze in protein earlier in the day which can help with [feeling full],” Ansel says. “And who can’t benefit from some exercise first thing in the morning?”

    Protein helps with feelings of fullness, but it generally is best when you combine it with fat and carbohydrates as well, Keatley says. “You will have a pool of amino acids-what protein breaks down into-available when you’re done working out, which can help build muscle and increase your metabolic rate,” he says.

    The current international recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, regardless of age. That means that a 150-pound adult should aim to get about 55.5 grams of protein a day. With the 30-30-30 rule, you’ll be front-loading your protein intake at the start of your day.

    There is some data to support the general idea of the 30-30-30 rule. Research has found that going on a high-protein diet that includes cardiovascular exercise can help people lose weight and improve their blood sugar control, although it doesn’t specify timing of workouts and eating.

    But Brissette says it’s helpful to get in good nutrition and movement early in your day. “Many clients come to me with low energy and overeating later in the day because they fast all morning,” she says. “Having breakfast and 30 grams of protein can help them to feel less hungry later in the day and supports more stable energy levels.”

    What Are the Risks of 30-30-30?

    People’s protein needs vary, and not everyone needs or can absorb 30 grams of protein in one sitting, Keatley says.

    Some people can also get a stomachache if they have a lot of protein and then work out right away, Brissette says. “When you eat, your body sends blood to your stomach to help with digestion,” she explains. “If you’re exercising at that time, the blood will move to your working muscles instead, making digestion happen more slowly. This could lead to bloating or stomach pain.”

    The 30-30-30 rule also may not be a good fit for people who have to limit protein because of health conditions like chronic kidney disease, Ansel says.

    The source of the protein matters, too. “Many high protein breakfast ingredients, such as cheese and sausage, are heavy in saturated fat which is problematic for heart health,” Ansel says.

    While Keatley says the overall risks of following this eating method are minimal, he points out that it could spiral into disordered eating if people are too rigid about following the rule.

    Can the 30-30-30 Rule Help You Lose Weight?

    It’s important to say this: Your weight is something that’s between you and your doctor, and you should never feel outside pressure to drop pounds beyond personal reasons or health gains. Unfortunately, weight loss hacks often promise fast results, which is inherently unhealthy. (Nutritionists and doctors generally recommend losing weight at a slow and steady pace for lasting results.)

    “The concept of fast weight loss in and of itself is concerning,” Ansel says. “Often, when people are trying to lose weight, those pounds have crept up over the years, so it’s unrealistic to think they will melt right off. That’s not the way the body works and any kind of severe restriction to try to drop pounds quickly is unlikely to be successful and might even backfire because of rebound hunger and muscle loss.”

    Brissette also recommends being wary of TikTok weight-loss tricks. “You need to do what’s best for you and your unique body,” she says. “Many of my clients come to me with damaged metabolisms and are completely confused about food after years of following what diet culture has dictated. We need to learn to work with our bodies rather than trying to ‘trick’ them.”

    There are many different healthy eating plans out there, and finding what’s best for your body – and your overall health – is much more than whether it helps you to lose weight.

    Should You Try the 30-30-30 Rule?

    If you’re interested in trying the 30-30-30 rule, nutritionists say the risks are relatively low. “If getting up and getting at your day right away works for you, there is little harm in giving it a try,” Keatley says. Brissette agrees. “If you’re someone who thrives with consistency, getting 30 minutes of exercise each morning could be a great routine for you,” she says. Brissette also suggests waiting an hour after eating before you start exercising or doing your morning cardio fasted so you don’t end up with a stomachache. But if weight-loss is your primary goal, every body is different and plan can guarantee you’ll loose weight. If you have concerns about your health, it’s best to consult your healthcare provider to figure out what’s best for your body.

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    Korin miller

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  • Positive Psychology Tools Are Most Effective For Those Who Practice Long-Term

    Positive Psychology Tools Are Most Effective For Those Who Practice Long-Term

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    A new study finds that a “Science of Happiness” university course, designed to teach students a variety of happiness hacks, provides the most long-term benefits when participants stick with the tools and exercises after completion.

    There have been many experiments showing the short-term benefits of positive psychological interventions like gratitude, meditation, kindness, and journaling, but not many studies have looked into these effects on a longer timeline.

    At the University of Bristol, there’s a popular course known as “The Science of Happiness” that aims to teach students how to use various happiness hacks to improve their mental health and well-being. This course has been running since 2019 and has been offered both online and in-person.

    The program balances practical advice with important information on topics such as: the nature of happiness, the role of biology and environment, cognitive biases, brain mechanisms, problem-solving, and the importance of social connection. At the end of each week, students are instructed to try evidence-based activities or “happiness hacks,” as a way of fostering positive mental well-being.

    In previous years, individuals who took the course reported significantly increased mental well-being from the first week to the final week, as shown by a 10-15% increase in their scores on the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale. Participants also reported reduced loneliness and anxiety. A follow-up after six weeks continued to show sustained benefits, but it was unclear how long these positive effects lasted.

    In a new study published in the journal Higher Education, researchers analyzed 228 undergraduate students from various disciplines who had completed the positive psychology course either 1 or 2 years ago. Interestingly, while most students reported short-term benefits, later group analysis revealed that these benefits did not persist uniformly across all participants during the long term follow-up period.

    A deeper look at the data revealed a crucial factor behind the program’s success: continued engagement. Approximately 51% of the students who actively practiced the recommended activities taught during the course maintained their increased mental well-being over the follow-up period. These students consistently applied positive psychology principles in their daily lives at least a year after they completed the class.

    Here’s a chart from the study illustrating the findings:

    As you can see, those who continued to follow the “happiness hacks” maintained their gains in subjective well-being during the long term follow-up.

    The most commonly reported technique that students continued to use was gratitude (37.17%), including writing letters of gratitude to others and making lists of things that they were grateful for (“three good things”). Other commonly reported techniques were mindfulness/meditation (33.63%), exercise (21.24%), journaling (17.70%) and kindness (10.62%).


    How to Create Sustained Positive Change

    The study recommends that schools and institutions consider the long-term impact of psychoeducational courses. While initial benefits are essential, sustained effects depend on prolonged engagement and commitment.

    Course designs should incorporate mechanisms to encourage continued practice:

    The goal of psychology – whether it’s with a course, book, article, therapist, or coach – is always to take what you learn and integrate it into your real world living.

    In the moment, learning about these tools and exercises can provide a nice temporary boost of relief, but then we quickly get bored, forget about them, stop applying them, and lose out on their benefits over time.

    Much like a diet or exercise regimen, you need to create a mental health system in your life that works for you and is sustainable into the future. Quick fixes are a myth. You’ll always snap back to your old ways if you don’t choose a course of action you can follow continuously and indefinitely.

    In theory, choose habits you can do for the rest of your life. That’s the mindset you need for continuous growth, happiness, and well-being. Gratitude, kindness, meditation, exercise, and journaling can become habits that are just as second-nature to you as tying your shoes or driving a car. Make self-care an everyday occurence.

    Ultimately, if you want to build a happy life, you have to be in it for the long haul.


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    Steven Handel

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  • Burn Away Negative Beliefs (PDF)

    Burn Away Negative Beliefs (PDF)

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    The simple act of writing down your negative beliefs and watching them burn away right in front of you can disempower them and help you let go. Most people feel an instant relief. Try it out for yourself!


    This content is for Monthly, Yearly, and Lifetime members only.
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    Steven Handel

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  • The Immovable Mind: Schopenhauer’s Daily Routine For 27 Years

    The Immovable Mind: Schopenhauer’s Daily Routine For 27 Years

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    What does the daily life of a legendary philosopher look like? Learn about Arthur Schopenhauer’s unique routine that he consistently followed for over 27 years.

    Arthur Schopenhauer was a major figure in German philosophy throughout the 19th century along with Friedrich Nietzsche and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

    While he’s known for his pessimism and negative outlook on life, there’s no denying that Schopenhauer was an intellectual powerhouse of his time who influenced many great thinkers, philosophers, and artists long after his death.

    His book Essays and Aphorisms is a great introduction and overview of his philosophical ideas. It explains his core metaphysical belief of “world as appearance,” continuing the legacy of other idealist philosophers like Plato, Kant, and Indian philosophy, which warn about viewing the world strictly through a materialist lens.

    The beginning of the book provides a nice biography of Schopenhauer’s family background, education, and life history. There’s one interesting section on his daily routine that caught my attention and wanted to share; it’s always fascinating to gain insights into the habits and lifestyles of influential figures, especially potential role models we can emulate and borrow from.

    This specific routine characterizes the last third of Schopenhauer’s life:

      “From the age of 45 until his death 27 years later Schopenhauer lived in Frankfurt-am-Main. He lived alone… every day for 27 years he followed an identical routine.”

    Keep in mind, I’m only sharing this for educational purposes. I don’t necessarily recommend this way of living, but there are interesting lessons to takeaway from it, including how some of these habits relate to Schopenhauer’s overall philosophy.

    Arthur Schopenhauer’s Daily Routine

    Here’s a breakdown of Schopenhauer’s daily routine for the last 27 years of his life:

    • “He rose every morning at seven and had a bath but no breakfast;
    • He drank a cup of strong coffee before sitting down at his desk and writing until noon.
    • At noon he ceased work for the day and spent half-an-hour practicing the flute, on which he became quite a skilled performer.
    • Then he went out to lunch at the Englischer Hof.
    • After lunch he returned home and read until four, when he left for his daily walk:
    • He walked for two hours no matter what the weather.
    • At six o’clock, he visited the reading room of the library and read The Times.
    • In the evening he attended the theatre or a concert, after which he had dinner at a hotel or restaurant.
    • He got back home between nine and ten and went early to bed.”

    While Schopenhauer mostly kept to this strict routine unwaveringly, he was willing to make exceptions under specials circumstances such as if he had friends or visitors in town.

    Key Lessons and Takeaways

    This daily routine seems fitting for a solitary and introspective philosopher, but there are key lessons that fit with conventional self-improvement wisdom:

    • Early Rising: Schopenhauer started his day at 7 a.m., which aligns with the common advice of many successful individuals who advocate for early rising. This morning ritual is often associated with increased productivity and a sense of discipline.
    • No Breakfast: Skipping breakfast was part of Schopenhauer’s routine. While not everyone agrees with this approach, it resonates with intermittent fasting principles that some find beneficial for health and mental clarity.
    • Work Routine: Schopenhauer dedicated his mornings to work, writing until noon. This emphasizes the importance of having a focused and dedicated period for intellectual or creative work, especially early in the day.
    • Creative Break: Taking a break to practice the flute for half an hour after work highlights the value of incorporating creative or leisure activities into one’s routine. It can serve as a refreshing break and contribute to overall well-being.
    • Outdoor Exercise: Schopenhauer’s daily two-hour walk, regardless of the weather, emphasizes the significance of outdoor exercise for both physical and mental health. This practice aligns with contemporary views on the benefits of regular physical activity and spending time in nature.
    • Reading Habit: Schopenhauer spent time reading each day, reflecting his commitment to continuous learning and intellectual stimulation.
    • News Consumption: Reading The Times at the library suggests Schopenhauer valued staying informed about current events. It’s worth noting that he limited his news consumption to a specific time of day (but it was easier to restrict your information diet before the internet).
    • Cultural Engagement: Attending the theater or a concert in the evening indicates a commitment to cultural engagement and a balanced lifestyle.
    • Regular Bedtime: Going to bed early reflects an understanding of the importance of sufficient sleep for overall health and well-being.

    While Schopenhauer’s routine may not be suitable for everyone, there are elements of discipline, balance, and engagement with various aspects of life that individuals may find inspiring or applicable to their own lifestyles.

    The Immovable Mind

    Schopenhauer was known for his persistence and stubbornness – his consistent daily routine is just one manifestation of this.

    He wrote his magnum opus The World as Will and Representation in 1818 when he was only 28 years old, and he never fundamentally changed his views despite continuing to write and publish until his death at 72.

    Schopenhauer has been described as an “immovable mind,” never letting himself deviate from the course he was set out on.

    His two hour walk routine in any weather is one of the most popular examples of this. From the biography in the book:

      “Consider the daily two-hour walk. Among Schopenhauer’s disciples of the late nineteenth century this walk was celebrated fact of his biography, and it was so because of its regularity. There was speculation as to why he insisted on going out and staying out for two hours no matter what the weather. It suggests health fanaticism, but there is no other evidence that Schopenhauer was a health fanatic or crank. In my view the reason was simply obstinacy: he would go out and nothing would stop him.”

    While this immovability has its disadvantages, you have to admire the monk-like discipline.

    Schopenhauer was a proponent of ascetism, a life without pleasure-seeking and mindless indulgence. A lot of his philosophy centers around a type of “denouncement of the material world,” so it’s not surprising that a little rain and wind wouldn’t stop his daily walk.

    This way of living is reminiscent of the documentary Into Great Silence, which follows the daily lives of Carthusian monks living in the French mountains while they eat, clean, pray, and fulfill their chores and duties in quiet solitude.

    One of the hallmarks of a great routine is that it’s a sustainable system. The fact that Schopenhauer was able to follow this regimen for the rest of his life is a testament to its strength and efficacy, and something worth admiring even if it’s not a lifestyle we’d want to replicate for ourselves.


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    Steven Handel

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  • Putting Alternate-Day Intermittent Fasting to the Test  | NutritionFacts.org

    Putting Alternate-Day Intermittent Fasting to the Test  | NutritionFacts.org

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    Does eating every other day prevent the metabolic slowing that accompanies weight loss, or does it improve compliance over constant, day-to-day caloric restriction? 

    Rather than cutting calories day in and day out, what if you instead ate as much as you wanted every other day or for only a few hours a day? Or, what if you fasted two days a week or five days a month? These are all examples of intermittent fasting regimens, as you can see below and at 0:10 in my video Alternate-Day Intermittent Fasting Put to the Test, and that may even be how we were built. Three meals a day may be a relatively novel behavior for our species. For millennia, “our ancestors could not eat three meals every day. They consumed meals much less frequently, and often consumed one large meal per day or went for several days without food.” 

    Intermittent fasting is often presented as a means of stressing your body—in a good way. There is a concept in biology called hormesis, which can be thought of as the “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” principle. Exercise is the classic example: You put stress on your heart and muscles, and as long as there is sufficient recovery time, you are all the healthier for it. Is that the case with intermittent fasting? Mark Twain thought so: “A little starvation can really do more for the average sick man than can the best medicines and the best doctors. I do not mean a restricted diet, I mean total abstention from food for one or two days.” 
     
    But, Twain also said, “Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.” Is the craze over intermittent fasting just hype? Many diet fads have their roots “in legitimate science,” but over time, facts can get distorted, benefits exaggerated, and risks downplayed. In other words, “science takes a back seat to marketing.” At the same time, you don’t want to lose out on any potential benefit by dismissing something out of hand based on the absurdist claims of overzealous promoters. You don’t want to throw the baby out with the baby fat. 
     
    Religious fasting is the most studied form of intermittent fasting, specifically Ramadan, a month-long period in which “Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise until sunset.” The effects are complicated by a change in sleeping patterns and also thirst. The same dehydration issue arises with Yom Kippur when observant Jews stop eating and drinking for about 25 hours. The most studied form of intermittent fasting that deals only with food restriction is alternate-day fasting, which involves eating every other day, alternating with days consuming little or no calories. 
     
    At rest, we burn about a 50:50 mix of carbohydrates and fat, but we usually run out of glycogen—our carbohydrate stores—within 12 to 36 hours of stopping eating. At that point, our body has to shift to rely more on our fat stores. This metabolic switch may help explain why the greatest rate of breakdown and burning of fat over a three-day fast happens between hours 18 and 24 of the 72 hours. The hope is to reap some of the benefits of taking a break from eating without the risks of prolonged fasting. 
     
    One of the potential benefits of alternate-day fasting over chronic calorie restriction is that you get regular breaks from feeling constant hunger. But might people become so famished on their fasting day that they turn the next into a feasting day? After your fasting day, if you ate more than twice as much as you normally would, that presumably would defeat the whole point of alternate-day fasting. Mice fed every other day don’t lose weight. They just eat roughly twice as much food in one day as non-fasted mice would regularly eat in two days. That is not, however, what happens in people. 
     
    Study participants were randomized to fast for a day and a half—from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. the second morning after beginning. Fasting for 36 hours only led to people eating an average of 20 percent more the day after they broke the fast, compared to a control group who didn’t fast at all. That would leave the fasters with a large calorie deficit, equivalent to a daily caloric restriction of nearly a thousand calories a day. This particular study involved lean men and women, but similar results have been found amongst overweight or obese subjects. Researchers typically found only about a 10 to 25 percent compensatory increase in calorie intake over baseline on non-fasting days, and this seems to be the case whether the fasting day was a true zero-calorie fast or a modified fast day of a few hundred calories, which may lead to better compliance. 
     
    Some studies have found that participants appeared to eat no more, or even eat less, on days after a day-long mini-fast. Even within studies, great variability is reported. In a 24-hour fasting study where individuals ate an early dinner and then had a late dinner the next day after skipping breakfast and lunch, the degree of compensation at the second dinner ranged from 7 percent to 110 percent, as you can see in the graph below and at 4:40 in my video. This means that some of the participants got so hungry by the time supper rolled around that they ate more than 24 hours’ worth of calories in a single meal. The researchers suggested that perhaps people first try “test fasts” to see how much their hunger and subsequent intake ramp up before considering an intermittent fasting regimen. Hunger levels can change over time, though, dissipating as your body habituates to the new normal. 


    In an eight-week study in which obese subjects were restricted to about 500 calories every other day, after approximately two weeks, they reportedly started feeling very little hunger on their slashed calorie days. This no doubt helped them lose about a dozen pounds on average over the duration of the study, but there was no control group with whom to compare. A similar study that did have a control group found a similar amount of weight loss—about ten pounds—over 12 weeks in a group of “normal weight” individuals, which means overweight on average. For these modified regimens where people are prescribed 500 calories on their “fasting” days, researchers found that, from a weight-loss perspective, it did not appear to matter whether those calories are divided up throughout the day or eaten in a single meal. 
     
    Instead of prescribing a set number of calories on “fasting” days, which many people find difficult to calculate outside of a study setting, a pair of Iranian researchers came upon a brilliant idea of unlimited above-ground vegetables. Starchy root vegetables are relatively calorie-dense compared to other vegetables. Veggies that grow above the ground include stem vegetables (like celery and rhubarb), flowering vegetables (like cauliflower), leafy vegetables (like, well, leafy vegetables), and all of the fruits we tend to think of as vegetables (like tomatoes, peppers, okra, eggplant, string beans, summer squash, and zucchini). So, instead of prescribing a certain number of calories for “fasting” days, researchers had subjects alternate between their regular diet and helping themselves to an all-you-can-eat, above-ground vegetable feast (along with naturally non-caloric beverages, like green tea or black coffee) every other day. After eight weeks, the subjects lost an average of 13 pounds and two inches off their waist, as you can see below and at 6:59 in my video. 


    The same variability discovered for calorie compensation has also been found for weight loss, as seen in the graph below and at 7:10 in my video. In a 12-month trial in which subjects were instructed to eat only one-quarter of their caloric needs every other day, weight changes varied from a loss of about 37 pounds to a gain of about 8 pounds. The biggest factor differentiating the low-weight-loss group from the high-weight-loss group appeared to be not how much they feasted on their regular diet days, but how much they were able to comply with the calorie restriction on their fast days. 

     
    Overall, ten out of ten alternate-day fasting studies showed significant reductions in body fat. Small short-term studies show about a 4 to 8 percent drop in body weight after 3 to 12 weeks. How does that compare with continuous calorie restriction? Researchers compared zero-calorie, alternate-day fasting head-to-head to a daily 400-calorie restriction for eight weeks. Both groups lost the same amount of weight, about 17 pounds, and, in the follow-up check-in six months later after the trial had ended, both groups had maintained a similar degree of weight loss; both were still down about a dozen pounds, as you can see below and at 8:10 in my video. 


    The hope that intermittent fasting would somehow avoid the metabolic adaptations that slow weight loss or improve compliance doesn’t seem to have materialized. The same compensatory reactions in terms of increased appetite and a slower metabolism plague both continuous and intermittent caloric restriction. The longest trial of alternate-day fasting found that “alternate-day fasting may be less sustainable” than more traditional approaches. By the end of the year, the drop-out rate of the alternate-day fasting group was 38 percent, compared to 29 percent in the continuous calorie-restriction group.  

    Although alternate-day fasting regimens haven’t been shown to produce superior weight loss to date, for individuals who may prefer this pattern of calorie restriction, are there any downsides? Find out in my video Is Alternate-Day Intermittent Fasting Safe?. 
     
    I packed a lot into this one. Bottom line: Fasting doesn’t appear to provide an edge over traditional calorie cutting, but if you prefer it, why not give fasting a try? Before you do, first check out Is Alternate-Day Intermittent Fasting Safe?.  

    What about total fasting? For that and even more, check out the related videos below.

    I have a whole chapter on intermittent fasting in my book How Not to Diet—order now! (All proceeds I receive from my books are donated to charity.) 



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    Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

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  • Thinking of running the Broad Street Run for the first time? Or trying to notch a personal best? Experts offer advice

    Thinking of running the Broad Street Run for the first time? Or trying to notch a personal best? Experts offer advice

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    Snagging a bib for the Broad Street Run – one of the largest and liveliest 10-milers in the country – requires some luck. But avoiding injury and running a personal best calls for careful planning.

    Philadelphia officials expect approximately 40,000 people to race in this year’s Independence Blue Cross Broad Street Run, starting at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 5. Registration opened Thursday morning and closes at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 15.

    Registered runners will get bibs for the race through a lottery system, with notification the week of Feb. 19. Individuals or teams also may run on behalf of a charity.

    Revelers, bands and occasional mummers cheer runners along the race course that stretches from Somerville Avenue and Broad Street down to the Navy Yard. Broad Street is a fast course, according to veteran racers. Still, runners need to follow a training plan to avoid injuries and improve racing times.

    The first step for new runners is to find comfortable shoes, said Ross Martinson, co-owner of the four Philadelphia Runner stores.

    “You don’t want the shoes to be what stops you from going for a run,” he said. “Try on multiple pairs.”

    Then comes finding the motivation to run. Having a partner or a group to head out with often helps.

    Philadelphia Runner offers a training program for beginning and intermediate runners with Wednesday evening and Saturday morning group runs staring in mid-February. People can sign up here or through the store’s web site.

    “You may not want to go for a run, but you always feel great that you did,” Martinson said, adding that “every kind of exercise counts … If you like lifting weights, keep doing that and add in some runs.”

    Megan Williams, a Philadelphia native and veteran racer who has run Broad Street more times than she can recall, said novices should start training several months in advance, using a four week “build” cycle. Run three to four times a week, making one of the runs a longer run.

    “I always find that after I hit City Hall, I am in a bit of a dead zone,” Williams said, referencing the 6-mile mark. “The downhills are over and there is still a lot of real estate left to race.”

    Experienced runners trying to improve their Broad Street times should choose workouts that blend tempo and speed, Williams said. She favors “The Michigan,” detailed by Outside.

    “Remember, it is OK to walk,” Williams said, but only until you recover. Then pick up your pace again.

    To avoid injuries while training, it’s best to gradually adjust the intensity, frequency and duration of the running in order to accommodate pain, said Dr. Arthur R. Bartolozzi, director of sports medicine at Jefferson Health’s 3B Orthopaedics.

    Seventy percent of runners have some kind of knee pain, the most common being “runner’s knee,” patellofemoral pain related to the knee cap often due to core muscle weakness or quadriceps weakness, said Bartolozzi – also a former team physician for the Eagles and the Flyers.

    Shin splints occur from excessive stress on the muscle attached to the inner side of the shin bone, sometimes leading to more serious stress fractures. Running also can aggravate previously existing arthritis of the hip, knee or foot, Bartolozzi said.

    One way to avoid such injuries is to make sure your running shoes are not worn out. Also, “most foot problems can be managed with over-the-counter foot supports,” Bartolozzi said.

    “The key is to pay attention to your body,” Bartolozzi said. “Most people who are avid runners know what comfortable pain is. But anything that lasts for more than an hour, or keeps you awake at night, that’s not normal pain.”

    Neither is sharp pain or incapacitating pain – signals that runners should halt training. Cross-training is an effective way to prevent overuse injuries by providing a “better platform of stability,” Bartolozzi said.

    Broad Street is “very much a local run,” Martinson said. “It’s amazing that 40,000 people run it, and it feels like everybody is from Philly” – or nearby. “It’s long enough that it’s a great goal and challenging without killing yourself,” Martinson said.

    “I really love this race,” Williams said. “You get to run on streets that are never open. You literally run a cross-section of the city.”

    To stay warm while getting to the race and waiting for the start, runners should wear a layer of clothes they’re willing to discard. The city collects cast-offs for donation.

    The race website has answers to other frequently asked questions about the race and information about how to register.

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    Courtenay Harris Bond

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  • 6 Aspects Of A Balanced Person: A Complete Picture of Well-Being

    6 Aspects Of A Balanced Person: A Complete Picture of Well-Being

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    What are the six aspects of a balanced person? Physical, mental, emotional, social, work/financial, and meaning/spiritual. Learn more about each one and how to improve it!

    In life, there isn’t one single area that we need to focus on that is going to magically fix all of our problems.

    Instead there are multiple dimensions behind every “good life.” Each dimension requires our attention and each contributes to our overall happiness and well-being.

    Here are six aspects of life that come together to create a “balanced person.” By being more aware of these different dimensions in life, we can determine which areas we need to focus on more and work to improve.

    The different aspects of a balanced person include: 1) Physical, 2) Mental, 3) Emotional, 4) Social, 5) Work/Financial and 6) Meaning/Spiritual.

    If we focus too much on any one area, then we risk neglecting another one. For example, if you become solely focused on just work and money, you may end up spending less time taking care of your physical and mental health, or less quality time with family and friends.

    This is a common trap people fall into. They focus all of their energy and effort into one area in life while completely ignoring another. Often they need to reconfigure their core values and priorities before making a meaningful change.

    This is why practicing balance in all things is so important.

    Each of these areas is one piece of a much larger puzzle, and only when you have all of these areas working together harmoniously can you finally build a complete life that serves all of your needs.

    Here’s a detailed breakdown of each aspect of a “balanced person,” along with tips, tools, and practical advice on how you can start improving each one.

    While reading ask yourself, “Which aspect do I need to focus on the most right now? What’s one small change I can make to improve that area?”

    Now let’s dive in…

    1. PHYSICAL WELL-BEING

    health

    The “physical” aspect of life is all about taking care of our health, especially exercise, diet, and sleep.

    This includes what types of foods and drinks we consume on a daily basis, how often we exercise and keep our bodies moving, personal hygiene and cleanliness, as well as minimizing alcohol, smoking, and other harmful habits to our physical health.

    Our body is one of the most precious gifts we have – and without it we can’t exist. If we don’t stay healthy, we often can’t fully enjoy all the other aspects of life such as family, work, traveling, or leisure.

    Our health can often have a spillover effect into all the other aspects of our lives – for that reason, taking care of our physical health is often an essential first step on any road to self-improvement.

    No matter what the current state of our health is, it’s never too late to start changing our habits, even if it’s something small like stretching in the morning, taking daily walks outside, or starting an active hobby like Yoga, marathon running, or playing sports.

    A healthy body is a healthy mind. When we take better care of our bodies, we also feel more confident, motivated, and energized overall. That’s the beginning of bringing out your best self.


    Things to do:

    • Identify small ways to be more physically active. Often our days are filled with opportunities to be more active, we just need to take advantage of them. Try to cultivate an “everything counts” mindset when it comes to exercise, even if it just means taking a walk around the block, or stretching in the morning, or doing push-ups before lunch. Any physical activity is better than none at all – so seek out small and convenient ways to keep your body moving throughout the day. If you find yourself sitting for long periods of time, get up and do chores, take a walk around the office, or make a phone call while standing up. A sedentary lifestyle is one of the biggest risk factors when it comes to poor health, so finding any reason to stand up more is better than sitting.
    • Find exercise that “clicks” with you and your personality. Different things work for different people. Some people need to commit themselves to a gym membership to get themselves off the couch, while others prefer to work out in the comfort of their own homes. Your personality shapes what exercise you like, so it’s important you find activities that resonate and “click” with you, rather than trying to force yourself to do something you really don’t enjoy. All you need is that one hobby to take your fitness to the next level, whether it be finding an enjoyable sport (like Tennis, or Baseball, or Basketball), or even exercising through video games (such as Wii Fit or Dance Dance Revolution). Try to think of physical activities you enjoyed as a kid, that can often be a good place to rekindle motivation.
    • Keep a healthy and consistent sleep schedule. Sleep is one of the most important habits when it comes to your overall physical and mental health. Research shows that those who don’t get sufficient sleep (between 6-10 hours every night) often suffer worse health outcomes like a weaker immune system, higher risk of obesity, lower energy and stamina, and more stress and anxiety. If your sleep habits aren’t healthy or consistent, it will likely have a negative “ripple effect” on almost every other aspect of your day. When you’re tired and fatigued, you’re more likely to make mistakes at work or argue with your spouse. It’s important not only to get between 6-10 hours of sleep each night, but also to maintain a consistent schedule. If you don’t sleep much on the weekends, it’s difficult to “catch up” on those lost hours throughout the week. Try to go to bed and wake up around the same time each day if possible. Here are more important lessons behind a good night’s sleep, including recognizing that some people are natural “early birds” or “night owls,” and that’s something you need to recognize and work with.
    • Pay attention to your food and diet. There are many different diets out there to choose from – and people can have long debates about which one is better – but the most important thing is to not eat too much, especially junk food, fast food, soda, sweets, and lots of processed food. Use your commonsense. Experiment with different diet changes and see what works best for you. Different diets work better for different people – so there’s no “one size fits all” solution to what exactly you should eat or not eat. One simple diet change is to substitute all your soda/juice/sugary drinks with water instead. Drinking plenty of water is never a bad place to start – most people don’t recognize how dehydrated they can be throughout the day and how it effects them. If you’re trying to lose weight, one popular option you can consider is intermittent fasting where you allow yourself to eat for an 8 hour window each day and fast for the remaining 16 hours. You can also try the “One Meal A Day” approach, where you restrict yourself to just one big meal (with minimal snacking). In general, pay attention to how your body responds to the things you eat: What foods leave you tired and feeling like crap? What foods make you energized and feeling good?
    • Take care of personal hygiene and cleanliness. Proper hygiene is another important aspect of physical health. While it can seem like commonsense, basic habits like taking a shower, brushing your teeth, getting a haircut, trimming your nails, and washing your face are are all important things not to neglect. Not only does cleanliness prevent you from catching germs and getting sick, you also feel better about yourself when you present yourself in the best way possible (and smell good). Often we are surprised by how much better we feel after a fresh new haircut, or clean new clothes, or new cologne/perfume. When mental health is low, we sometimes neglect these basic habits out of laziness or apathy, which is why they are a crucial first step in self-improvement if we aren’t paying enough attention to them.
    • Minimize your bad habits. No one is 100% perfect and we all have a couple bad habits, whether it be eating too many sweets, or drinking alcohol, or staying up late, or smoking cigarettes. In general, it’s important to quit (or minimize) our unhealthy habits as much as possible. “Choose your crutches wisely.” Keep in mind the long-term consequences of your habits – while it may not feel like they are hurting you right now, their effects can often catch up to you in the future. When trying to quit any bad habit, identify your triggers and work from there to change to change your patterns. Often by creating more boundaries between you and your bad habits, you can overcome your urge to do them (until it’s no longer an automatic habit anymore). If you find that you have a serious problem with addiction or drug abuse, consider professional help (such as a therapist, psychologist, or counselor) – there are often local resources available in your area if you do a quick search.

    Please don’t underestimate the importance of keeping your body in the best shape possible. As Socrates famously said, “No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

    Physical health is about much more than just looking and feeling good about yourself – it’s about living a life of vitality and longevity. You can have everything else in your life figured out, but if you don’t maintain your health you won’t be around very long to use or enjoy it.

    2. MENTAL WELL-BEING

    mental

    If you don’t take care of your body then it will slowly deteriorate – and the same is true for your mind.

    Just because you don’t have to go to school anymore doesn’t mean you can’t keep learning new things, keeping your brain sharp, and challenging your intellect.

    Reading books. Learning about new topics. Having deep conversations. Attending lectures and workshops. Following the news. These are all commonsense ways to keep our minds active and continue to update our knowledge and belief system as we move through life.

    Learning is a lifelong endeavor. Balanced people are always seeking new things to dig into and learn more about like a new hobby, new game, or new skill such as painting, chess, learning a new language, or playing a musical instrument.

    In addition, research shows that continuing to challenge our brain is an important way to prevent cognitive decline as we get older, including lower the risk of dementia and memory loss.


    Things to do:

    • Read more books. Reading is one of the best ways to keep your mind sharp and learn new things. Nonfiction books about science, history, philosophy, or self help can grow your knowledge and broaden your perspective on life; and reading fiction has been shown to have many cognitive benefits such as boosting empathy, creative thinking, and expanding your vocabulary. If you haven’t read a book in awhile, try to make it a goal to read at least one book this year. You can start with a book you already own but never got a chance to read, or ask a friend for a book recommendation, or get a card from your local library and explore countless books for free. Find a topic or subject that interests you and start there!
    • Learn a new skill. Learning multiple skills is a hallmark of being a balanced and well-rounded person. It’s never too late in life to dive into something completely new, such as playing a musical instrument, learning a new language, writing poetry, painting, or playing chess. A jack of all trades mindset can make you stand-out from others in unique ways. Many people have a talent or passion for at least one thing, but when you start combining talents and cultivating multiple interests it shows your range and flexibility as a person. Don’t limit yourself. There’s no pressure to become a “professional” or “expert” in everything you do, just stay on a learning path, have fun while doing it, and enjoy seeing the growth as you go.
    • Watch documentaries. Documentaries are a fun and easy way to explore new topics and learn about interesting things you otherwise wouldn’t experience. Depending on what you like, there are many different subjects to choose from: history, sports, biographies, science, inspirational stories, or nature documentaries (which have also been shown to boost positive emotions like joy, gratitude, and awe). I’ve made a lengthy list of recommended documentaries which I try to keep updated as I discover new ones. Check it out and choose one that catches your eye!
    • Monitor your information diet. Our current world is overloaded with information, including a lot that is wrong, misleading, or straight up lies and propaganda. Now more than ever we need to pay close attention to the information we consume on a daily basis. Try to find trustworthy news and educational sites where you can easily verify what they are saying from other sources. Beware of going down esoteric “rabbit holes” where people only confirm their own biases and beliefs. Actively seek out information from multiple sides so you’re at least aware of different perspectives and counter-arguments. The information pyramid is a great guide on how you should prioritize certain sources over others. In general, a peer-reviewed scientific study should be given more weight than some random influencer on social media. Keep in mind it’s also possible to consume too much and become an information junkie, where you’re addicted to learning new things, but you never act on it or put it into practice.
    • Spend time in active reflection. Give yourself time to think and digest, even if it’s just for 10 minutes while sitting with your first cup of coffee in the morning. You don’t always need to be filling your brain with facts to be a smarter person, you also need to know how to step back and contemplate what you know. Active and engaged minds are always taking advantage of opportunities for everyday reflection when sitting on the bus, taking a shower, or walking the dog. Often your best ideas and insights come in moments when you’re not trying to solve a problem directly but just mulling it over in your mind. Schedule time for solitude every now and then and don’t be afraid to sit alone with your thoughts.
    • Learn how your mind works. One essential component to being a more intelligent thinker is knowing how your mind works. We naturally believe we understand ourselves best, but psychology and neuroscience can sometimes reveal counter-intuitive facts and tendencies. To start, our minds are very susceptible to cognitive biases and logical fallacies that can muddy our thinking and understanding of reality. One of the most common errors is black and white thinking, where we believe a situation needs to be either “A” or “B,” but a third perspective, “C,” is the more accurate view. Our minds like to over-simplify things when reality can often be more nuanced and complex. Show intellectual humility. Be open to being wrong and be open to changing your mind in the face of new evidence and experience.

    Take your education seriously. Maintain a healthy and active brain. Even if you were never a good student in school, that doesn’t mean you can’t improve your knowledge and intelligence, especially once you find subjects you are deeply passionate about. Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

    3. EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING

    emotional

    In the “Mental” section we covered how to keep our brains active and be more intelligent thinkers, but there’s also a whole other side of our psychology that we need to pay attention to as well: our “Emotional” side.

    Emotions can often seem like something that we have limited power over, but being a more emotionally intelligent person means becoming more self-aware and learning how to better respond to our emotions in the moment.

    We can’t ignore our emotions or push them aside forever, they are a necessary facet of life and we must learn to navigate our emotional world effectively if we want to live the best life possible.

    Remember that emotions are a resource, not a crutch. Every emotion serves a function or purpose, and if we channel our emotions in a constructive direction we can make great things happen.

    One important lesson is that even negative emotions like sadness, anger, guilt, or fear are helpful to a better life if we approach them from the right perspective.


    Things to do:

    • Learn the basics of emotional intelligence. There are 4 fundamental pillars of emotional intelligence that we need to cultivate: 1) Self-awareness (recognizing our emotions when they happen), 2) Self-regulation (knowing how to respond to our emotions and channel them in a positive direction, 3) Empathy (being aware of other people’s emotions and internal states), and 4) Social Skills (knowing how to respond to other people’s emotions in a healthy and constructive way). Certain people may be strong at some of these and not for others. For example, someone may be really empathetic and caring, but not know how to regulate their own mood and emotions, leading to burnout and emotional fatigue. An emotionally intelligent person must work on all four of these pillars.
    • Improve body awareness. All emotions have a physical component to them. When you learn how to identify the physical sensations behind each emotion, you’ll be much more attuned to your feelings in the moment as you’re experiencing them. This helps you to be more aware of your feelings before acting on them, and to recognize how emotions often want to push or pull you in a certain direction (“do this” vs. “don’t do that”). Every feeling serves a different function depending on its emotional valence (“positive” vs. “negative”) and arousal level (“high energy” vs. “low energy”). With practice, this improved body awareness can also boost your intuition, making you a better reader of your “gut feelings” and what they are telling you.
    • Learn to channel negative emotions. Negative emotions can serve a positive function if you know how to respond to them in a constructive way. If you struggle with any specific negative emotion (sadness, fear, guilt, or anger), then create a plan for how you will respond to it the next time it arises. For example, “If I’m angry, then I’ll go exercise,” or “If I’m sad, then I’ll write in my journal.” Emotions are energy that can be channeled in multiple directions. Write a list of the many ways you can respond to any negative emotion. Remind yourself you have a choice, and you don’t have to keep following the same pattern between negative emotion → negative behavior. One popular technique is opposite action, where you intentionally do the opposite of what a feeling is telling you to do (to reverse the cycle of negativity).
    • Practice meditation and daily mindfulness. Meditation is a great avenue for better understanding and regulating your emotions. It teaches you how to step back and just observe your thoughts and feelings without needing to immediately react to them. This space between “feelings” and “actions” is crucial for being a more emotionally intelligent person; it’s the main principle behind discipline, willpower, and self-control. Never forget that just because you feel a certain way doesn’t mean you need to act on it. If you’re completely new to meditation, start with the 100 breaths meditation – a simple exercise where you just focus on your breathing. It’s also helpful to learn grounding techniques for when you feel overwhelmed, such as mindful stretching or a 5 senses meditation.
    • Embrace creative expression. It’s difficult to describe many emotions with only words so it’s important to embrace other ways of expressing yourself, such as through music, photography, dance, painting, drawing, acting, or film. Often when I meet people who don’t feel fully connected to their emotional self, they usually lack ways of expressing themselves through art and creativity. A creative outlet is often a prerequisite to better understanding and navigating your emotional world, even if you don’t typically think of yourself as a “creative person.”
    • Savor all of your positive experiences. Life is filled with many joys and pleasures throughout the day and we should try to savor them as much as possible. We have many positive emotions to choose from – joy, gratitude, peace, awe, excitement, laughter, and wonder – and there are a variety of activities that can lead to more positive emodiversity in our lives. Don’t just chase after the same positive experiences over and over again, seek new experiences, new hobbies, and new ways of enjoying life. Learn how to savor happiness as much as possible by being more present in the moment, creating positive memories, and reminiscing on good times.
    • Relax and manage daily stress. Last but not least, it’s necessary we cover stress management as an essential component to mental health and emotional intelligence. Stress is a normal part of everyday life, but if you don’t know how to manage it in a healthy way it can often have a negative influence on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors by making you more sensitive, irritable, angry, and bothered (even by little things that don’t really matter). Recognize when to push yourself vs. when to step back and recharge. In the complete guide on daily stress, you’ll find a great framework for reframing your “fight, flight, or freeze” response by viewing stress as a signal to pay attention to and guide you throughout the day. Don’t underestimate the importance of your comfort zone and use it as a place to recharge after a challenging or overwhelming day.

    Emotions can “make us” or “break us” depending on how emotionally intelligent we are. They are a fundamental part of life, but we often have more power over them than we realize. Learn how to channel your emotions in a healthy and constructive way – become a master of them, not a slave to them.

    4. SOCIAL WELL-BEING

    social

    Healthy and positive relationships are an essential ingredient to happiness and well-being.

    No matter who you are, you crave some type of social connection; even the most introverted person on the planet will have a tough time finding happiness all by themselves.

    There used to be a time when I believed “I don’t need people to be happy, all I need is myself.” But over the years I’ve learned more and more that having social support and a sense of belonging is a basic human need that can’t be avoided.

    How strong is your current social circle? Here’s advice to get you started.


    Things to do:

    • Stay connected with friends and family. You should try your best to stay in touch with people who you already have a strong relationship with, especially family and old friends. There’s a simple power in checking in on people and preserving social connections you’ve already established. It doesn’t take much time or effort to show you’re thinking about someone: a simple text, email, or phone call is all you need to let people know you still care and value your relationship with them. You’d be surprised by how much other people appreciate you reaching out to them, even if you haven’t spoken to them in a really long time.
    • Embrace small social interactions. Every time you leave your home, there is opportunity for social interaction. To build your social muscles, embrace the power of 10 second relationships, such as saying “Hi,” to a neighbor or coworker, small talk with a cashier or cab driver, or sparking up a quick conversation while waiting for the train or bus. Research shows even super tiny social interactions can boost positive emotions and feelings of social connectedness. This can also be a great exercise for people who are very introverted (or have a lot of social anxiety) and want to start being a more social person. Make a plan to have a pleasant interaction with at least one new person every day.
    • Learn how to have endless conversations. One big concern for people when it comes to meeting new people is, “What do I say? What if I run out of things to talk about?” One popular technique known as conversation threading provides an excellent framework so that you never run out of topics to talk about. The basic idea is that every sentence contains multiple “threads” we can go down, and often the art of good conversation is being able to 1) Listen to what people say, and 2) Choose a thread to talk more about. Rinse and repeat and a conversation can go on forever. Also consider improvisation exercises so that you can be a faster and more creative thinker in the moment.
    • Improve communication and conflict resolution. It’s a cliché, but communication is everything in relationships. If you don’t know how to express your thoughts and feelings in an honest and constructive way, you’ll have trouble building genuine and healthy connections with others at home, work, or wherever you need to cooperate and work together with people. In romantic relationships, it’s important to know how to communicate your feelings without manipulating or being dramatic. In family and work environments, it’s important to know how to defuse heated arguments before they spiral out of control. The truth is people can be difficult and you’re not going to like everyone’s company. That’s natural. Conflicts have the potential to arise in any social situation, because people have different beliefs, values, and personalities that may be incompatible with each other. What’s most important is to teach yourself the best methods for conflict resolution so you can better navigate the complexities of your social world.
    • Find opportunities to meet new people. Most people make friends through work or school. Once we get older, it can become more difficult to find new connections or become a part of new social circles. Recent research shows that most adults claim to have “less than 5 close friends.” If you’re looking to expand your circle, there are many opportunities available to you. Depending on your likes, hobbies, and interests, consider going out more to music shows, bars, coffee shops, workshops, church/religious services, bowling leagues, adult education classes, sports events, or book clubs. Seek out local groups in your area or volunteer somewhere. You can also take advantage of websites like Meet Up to connect with like-minded people who live close-by. All it takes is one new friend to introduce you to an entirely new social circle. Be patient and don’t worry if you don’t initially hit it off with the first couple people you meet. Finding the right relationships that fit into our lives can take time.
    • Use social media and the internet to connect. The internet can be a great place to connect with like-minded people who we’d never meet in the real world. Online communities on social media, message boards, or video games can often provide a valuable source of social interaction, especially for people who don’t have many “real life” friends. The internet can be particularly helpful for connecting with others who have rare or eccentric hobbies, such as fans of a specific author, athlete, music genre, or comic book franchise. Unfortunately, many online communities can also become negative, competitive, and toxic (see the online disinhibition effect), so it’s necessary you build a positive digital environment that works for you. That doesn’t mean hiding in your own “echo chamber,” but it does mean cultivating a feed and followers who ultimately add value to your life and don’t subtract it. First focus on topics you’re naturally interested in such as science, technology, sports, or movies. Try not to be a passive consumer of information, actively enter conversations by asking questions or sharing knowledge with others. Often times we can build meaningful connections with people online that are just as important as those we find in the real world. However, while online relationships can have many benefits, we shouldn’t see them as a substitute for real world “face to face” interactions.

    Always remember that quality of relationships > quantity of relationships.

    You don’t need to be super popular or the life of the party to have a healthy social life. All you need is a couple really close friends who support you, trust you, and enjoy your presence. That’s everything you need to be socially satisfied.

    Healthy relationships are a fundamental aspect of happiness and well-being for everyone. Our need to belong to a “tribe” or group is hardwired into our brain, biology, and evolution. Like every other aspect of a balanced person, it can’t be ignored.

    Are your daily social needs being fulfilled?

    5. WORK / FINANCIAL WELL-BEING

    work

    Another fundamental aspect of a balanced person is work, money, and material concerns.

    At the most basic level, we depend on food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, and other necessities so we can live a healthy and dignified life.

    People that struggle to make a living can often hurt in many other areas: physical health (can’t afford good foods, healthcare, or medicine), relationships (can’t support family, no money for dating), as well as our mental and emotional well-being (stress, anxiety, and low self-esteem).

    Unless you win the lottery or have someone else to provide for you, finding a steady job or career is often one of the most focused on areas in life. From childhood up until we finish high school or college, we are constantly asked, “What do you want to do for a living?”

    A few people find jobs they love, many find jobs they like, and most find jobs they can at least tolerate. Balancing psychological needs with financial needs can be a difficult task depending on your current situation.

    While we don’t always get a choice in what we do for a living, there are important ways to give ourselves more power over our work life and financial life. Here are important guidelines to keep in mind.


    Things to do:

    • Focus on your strengths. Everyone has a place in this world where they add value. Before you decide what type of work you’d like to do for a living, it’s important to know what your natural strengths, skills, and talents are. If you’re friendly and good with people, you may excel at managing, customer service, or human resources type jobs. If you’re more introverted and creative, you may want to focus on writing, graphic design, computer programming, or freelance work. What type of activities are you typically good at (or at least above average)? What were your best subjects in school? What do you enjoy doing and why? Complete the strengths worksheet to discover more about your natural skillset. Ultimately, knowing your strengths will influence what types of jobs or career choices will suit you best – including where you contribute the most value.
    • Value education and experience. No matter what your job is, there are always new ways to learn and improve. The best workers in life are those who are always growing and mastering their craft. College is still an important part of education, but what’s even more important is to stay self-motivated and continue learning after school. Many people I know have landed successful jobs that had virtually nothing to do with what they studied in college. In several cases, they were people who taught themselves coding/programming, built a portfolio to show their work to potential employers, and climbed their way up the company ladder from there. All self-taught. You can also consider going to trade schools, workshops, mentorships, internships, and other forms of gaining knowledge and experience that are outside of the traditional college model. Any work experience is better than none at all – you just need to start somewhere and begin building yourself up.
    • Make the most of your job. While it’s rare for any of us to get our “dream job,” we can always make the most of our work life by being a good employee and doing our best. Use nudges to keep yourself motivated and productive throughout the day, learn mental strategies for getting things done that you normally “don’t like” doing, and make friends at work with bosses, coworkers, clients, or customers, because those are the people you’re going to be spending a lot of time with and it’s crucial you have healthy and functioning relationships with them. No matter what your job is try to see the underlying purpose or meaning behind it. What value does it add to the world? Are you proud of the work you do?
    • Live within your means. Regardless of how much money you make, one of the most commonsense rules for financial well-being is living within your means. This includes keeping a budget that you can maintain (for food, rent/mortgage, bills, gas, clothes, and leisure expenses), and not buying too much stuff you can’t immediately afford. Debt can be common at some point in our lives (due to student loans, credit card debt, medical emergencies, etc.), but try to be mindful to not put yourself in a hole that you can’t climb out of. Avoid luxury expenses that put you at financial risk. We sometimes over-extend ourselves due to social comparison and a “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality. We think if our friend or neighbor gets a brand new car or goes on an expensive trip, then we need to “one-up” them with a similar purchase. Many times people fall into massive debt because they are trying to chase status, fame, luxury, or exorbitant pleasures. In general, keep track of all your monthly expenses and find ways to cut back on spending that isn’t necessary. Learn about spending biases that can lead to overconsumption (like the allure of “FREE!,” the “Relativity Trap,” and “One Click” purchases). Big corporations are masters of psychology and persuasion. If we aren’t vigilant about our spending habits (especially if you enjoy retail therapy), then we’ll often fall for tricks that cause us to spend more money than we should.
    • Create a healthy relationship with material things. This article is about being a balanced person. Work and money are very important aspects of life, but materialistic beliefs can also backfire to hurt us. No one lays down on their deathbed wishing they spent more time in the office. Work-a-holics can end up focusing so much on their career that they neglect giving enough attention to their family, health, and well-being. Never forget that there is a lot more to a good life than just money and material things, despite what you may see glamorized in movies, TV shows, or commercials. Psychology research shows that after a certain point, increased wealth and income has very little effect on our overall happiness and life satisfaction. Being rich sounds awesome, but it won’t necessarily make you any happier than if you earned less with a stable and secure life. Take the materialism quiz to see if you have a healthy relationship with money and stuff.

    Remember, money is important but it isn’t everything.

    Financial well-being will often look radically different depending on the person. Certain people may be content with modest and minimal living, while others crave more luxury, adventure, and pleasure. Whichever lifestyle you choose, it’s necessary that money finds the proper role in your life without being completely consumed by it.

    One succinct way to define true financial well-being is “not needing to think about money all the time.”

    6. MEANINGFUL / SPIRITUAL WELL-BEING

    spiritual

    The meaningful or spiritual aspects of life can often be overlooked.

    We may occasionally ask ourselves big questions like, “Who am I?” “Why am I here?” or “What’s my purpose?” but we rarely translate these questions into our daily lives through action.

    For many people, religion is their main source of spirituality and meaning. Attending church, being part of a local community, prayer, and volunteering or giving to charities are common ways people boost meaning in their daily lives. Religion has been shown to improve happiness and well-being by creating a strong sense of purpose and community.

    However, we don’t need religion to have a meaningful life. There are many other sources of meaning, including art, culture, philosophy, literature, music, relationships, activism, introspection, and creativity.

    Where do you get your meaning in life?


    Things to do:

    • Learn the pillars of a meaningful life. One excellent guide on how to live a meaningful life outlines five different pillars to focus on, including 1) A sense of belonging (having healthy relationships with those around you), 2) A sense of purpose (feeling that you contribute to a larger whole), 3) Storytelling (the life story we tell about ourselves, as well as stories and myths about the world we live in), 4) Transcendence (experiencing “awe” and “inspiration” in the presence of great things), 5) Growth (having a sense that you are evolving and moving forward as a person). All five pillars contribute to a rich and meaningful existence.
    • Spend more time in nature. Nature reminds us that we are part of something larger than ourselves, a whole process known as “life.” Nature is a fantastic source of meaning because it continuously inspires positive emotions like joy, amazement, gratitude, and awe. The best part is that nature is all around us – we don’t need to plan a weekend camping trip to experience it – instead just pay attention to everyday nature that is all around you: trees on the drive to work, birdwatching in your backyard, or spending time in your garden over the summer. Having pets to care for is another easy and wonderful source of nature and connection, even if it’s just a small fish tank to maintain. Nature also includes enjoying the beauty of a nice view such as sunrises, sunsets, mountaintops, storm watching, and star-gazing.
    • Take a complete picture perspective. Finding meaning requires being able to look at things from a big picture perspective. What influence do your actions have in the long-term? What type of impact will you leave on the world after you die? When you keep the complete picture in mind, you recognize that even super small actions can add up and have big results in the future. Your life doesn’t begin at birth nor end at death, you are part of an intergenerational chain of cause-and-effect that has stretched thousands of years. That’s a powerful thought if you can see the true significance behind it.
    • Embrace art, music, and culture. Artists are the creators of new meanings, especially famous painters, musicians, filmmakers, photographers, authors, playwrights, and dancers. Pursuing a creative hobby of your own is one fantastic way to infuse new meaning into your life. You can also embrace art and culture more by going to museums, art galleries, music concerts, and theaters. A lot of beautiful art is archived in online art and cultural exhibits, so you can discover a lot of new inspiration by just sitting in the comfort of your own home. Artists of all forms teach us how universal the human condition is. It’s a huge inspirational boost when you realize a book written over a hundred years ago resonates exactly with how you feel today. One of my strongest memories is attending a music concert of my favorite band with thousands of others listening and singing along. Creativity is one of humanity’s greatest gifts and there’s a lot of wisdom, beauty, and feelings of universal connection it can offer us.
    • Signs, symbols, and synchronicity. A meaningful life can be more about feeling inspiration and empowerment rather than thinking only logically and factually about the world. Embrace things you can’t always explain. If you feel like you’re getting a “sign” from the universe, accept it. Our minds often think unconsciously through the power of symbols, especially through reoccurring dreams or nightmares that may be trying to tell you something important. Meaning can be created anywhere if you have the right perspective. Many of my favorite moments in life are when I experience synchronicity, which is finding a connection between two things that seem completely unrelated at first. For example, if I start reading a book and then someone brings up the same book randomly the next day, I try to see that as a sign that I’m on the right path. It may or may not be true, but it is a simple and easy way to add more meaning to the little things in life.
    • Have faith that life is good. Faith may not have any role in science, but it does play an important role in good living. At the end of the day, one of the most important beliefs we can have is that “life is good” and things will generally work out in the end. One of my personal favorite quotes is, “Pray to God, but row to shore.” It shows us to have hope and faith in life, but still take action and try our best in the moment. Both faith and action are necessary ingredients to a happy and fulfilling life. A belief in God or a higher power can make this whole process easier. However, even if you can’t bring yourself to accept “metaphysical” or “supernatural” ideas, at least try to sense the oneness and interconnectedness of all things. These ideas are an endless source of power, strength, and resilience, even in the face of incredible hardships and tribulations.

    A “meaningful life” can be one of the most difficult areas of life to improve, especially while living in a world that is filled with nihilism, hedonism, and materialism.

    However, once you build a strong spiritual core you can withstand almost any difficulty or hardship. It can empower you to a whole new level that non-spiritual people don’t usually have access to.

    CONCLUSION

    To sum things up we must invest time and energy in all six of these aspects if we want to live a happy and balanced life.

    Once again, these six aspects of a balanced life include: 1) Physical, 2) Mental, 3) Emotional, 4) Social, 5) Work/Financial, and 6) Meaningful/Spiritual.

    Which area are you the strongest in? Which area are you the weakest in?

    Keep this framework in mind as you embark on a lifetime of self-improvement. Try the Daily Routine (PDF) exercise and use this resource as a guideline.


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    Steven Handel

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  • 10 Bodybuilding Myths That Are Widely Believed by Aspiring Body Builders

    10 Bodybuilding Myths That Are Widely Believed by Aspiring Body Builders

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    Truth behind some of the common bodybuilding myths 💪10 Bodybuilding Myths That Are Widely Believed…

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  • ‘If Exercise Could Cure This, I Would Have Been Cured So Quickly’

    ‘If Exercise Could Cure This, I Would Have Been Cured So Quickly’

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    In the weeks after she caught COVID, in May 2022, Lauren Shoemaker couldn’t wait to return to her usual routine of skiing, backpacking, and pregaming her family’s eight-mile hikes with three-mile jogs. All went fine in the first few weeks after her infection. Then, in July, hours after finishing a hike, Shoemaker started to feel off; two days later, she couldn’t make it to the refrigerator without feeling utterly exhausted. Sure it was a fluke, she tried to hike again—and this time, was out of commission for months. Shoemaker, an ecologist at the University of Wyoming, couldn’t do her alpine fieldwork; she struggled to follow a movie with a complex plot. She was baffled. Exercise, the very thing that had reliably energized her before, had suddenly become a trigger for decline.

    For the majority of people, exercise is scientifically, physiologically, psychologically good. It boosts immunity, heart function, cognition, mood, energy, even life span. Doctors routinely prescribe it to patients recovering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart attacks, managing metabolic disease, or hoping to stave off cognitive decline. Conditions that worsen when people strive for fitness are very rare. Post-exertional malaise (PEM), which affects Shoemaker and most other people with long COVID, just happens to be one of them.

    PEM, first described decades ago as a hallmark of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), is now understood to fundamentally alter the body’s ability to generate and use energy. For people with PEM, just about any form of physical, mental, or emotional exertion—in some cases, activities no more intense than answering emails, folding laundry, or digesting a particularly rare steak—can spark a debilitating wave of symptoms called a crash that may take weeks or months to abate. Simply sitting upright for too long can leave Letícia Soares, a long-hauler living in Brazil, temporarily bedbound. When she recently moved into a new home, she told me, she didn’t bother buying a dining table or chairs—“it just felt useless.”

    Read: How much less to worry about long COVID now

    When it comes to PEM, intense exercise—designed to boost fitness—is “absolutely contraindicated,” David Putrino, a physical therapist who runs a long-COVID clinic at Mount Sinai, in New York, told me. And yet, the idea that exertion could undo a person rather than returning them to health is so counterintuitive that some clinicians and researchers still endorse its potential benefits for those with PEM; it’s dogma that Shoemaker heard repeatedly after she first fell ill. “If exercise could cure this,” she told me, “I would have been cured so quickly.”

    The problem is, there’s no consensus about what people who have PEM should do instead. Backing off physical activity too much might start its own downward spiral, as people lose muscle mass and strength in a phenomenon called deconditioning. Navigating the middle ground between deconditioning and crashing is “where the struggle begins,” Denyse Lutchmansingh, a pulmonary specialist at Yale, told me. And as health experts debate which side to err on, millions of long-haulers are trying to strike their own balance.

    Though it’s now widely accepted that PEM rejiggers the body’s capacity for strain, scientists still aren’t sure of the precise biological causes. Some studies have found evidence of impaired blood flow, stymieing the delivery of oxygen to cells; others have discovered broken mitochondria struggling to process raw fuel into power. A few have seen hints of excessive inflammation, and immune cells aberrantly attacking muscles; others point to issues with recovery, perhaps via a slowdown in the clearance of lactate and other metabolic debris.

    The nature of the crashes that follow exertion can be varied, sprawling, and strange. They might appear hours or days after a catalyst. They can involve flu-like coughs or sore throats. They may crater a patient’s cognitive capacity or plague them with insomnia for weeks; they can leave people feeling so fatigued and pained, they’re almost unable to move. Some of Shoemaker’s toughest crashes have saddled her with tinnitus, numbness, and extreme sensitivity to sound and light. Triggers can also change over time; so can people’s symptoms—even the length of the delay before a crash.

    But perhaps the worst part is what an accumulation of crashes can do. Rob Wüst, who studies skeletal-muscle physiology at Amsterdam University Medical Center, told me that his team has found an unusual amount of muscle damage after exertion in people with PEM that may take months to heal. People who keep pushing themselves past their limit could watch their baseline for exertion drop, and then drop again. “Every time you PEM yourself, you travel a little further down the rabbit hole,” Betsy Keller, an exercise physiologist at Ithaca College, told me.

    Read: Long COVID has forced a reckoning for one of medicine’s most neglected diseases

    Still, the goal of managing PEM has never been to “just lay in a bed all day and don’t do anything,” Lily Chu, the vice president of the International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (IACFS/ME), told me. In the 1960s, a group of scientists found that three weeks of bed rest slashed healthy young men’s capacity for exertion by nearly 30 percent. (The participants eventually trained themselves back to baseline.) Long periods of bed rest were once commonly prescribed for recovery from heart attacks, says Prashant Rao, a sports cardiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Massachusetts. But now too much rest is actively avoided, because “there’s a real risk of spiraling down, and symptoms worsening,” Rao told me. “I really fear for that, even for people with PEM.”

    There is no rulebook for threading this needle, which has led researchers to approach treatments and rehabilitation for long COVID in different ways. Some clinical trials that involve exercise as an intervention explicitly exclude people with PEM. “We did not feel like the exercise program we designed would be safe for those individuals,” Johanna Sick, a physiologist at the University of Vienna who is helping run one such trial, told me.

    Other researchers hold out hope that activity-based interventions may still help long-haulers, and are keeping patients with PEM in experiments. But some of those decisions have been controversial. The government-sponsored RECOVER trial was heavily criticized last year for its plan to enroll long-haulers in an exercise study. Scientists have since revised the trial’s design to reroute participants with moderate to severe PEM to another intervention, according to Adrian Hernandez, the Duke cardiologist leading the trial. The details are still being finalized, but the plan is to instead look at pacing, a strategy for monitoring activity levels to ensure that people stay below their crash threshold, Janna Friedly, a physiatrist at the University of Washington who’s involved in the trial, told me.

    Certain experimental regimens can be light enough—stretching, recumbent exercises—to be tolerable by many (though not all) people with PEM. Some researchers are trying to monitor participants’ heart rate, and having them perform only activities that keep them in a low-intensity zone. But even when patients’ limitations are taken into account, crashes can be hard to avoid, Tania Janaudis-Ferreira, a physiotherapist at McGill University, in Quebec, told me. She recently wrapped a clinical trial in which, despite tailoring the regimen to each individual, her team still documented several mild to moderate crashes among participants with PEM.

    Read: Long COVID is being erased—again

    Just how worrisome crashes are is another matter of contention. Pavlos Bobos, a musculoskeletal-health researcher at the University of Western Ontario, told me that he’d like to see more evidence of harm before ruling out exercise for long COVID and PEM. Bruno Gualano, a physiologist at the University of São Paulo, told me that even though crashes seem temporarily damaging, he’s not convinced that exercise worsens PEM in the long term. But Putrino, of Mount Sinai, is adamant that crashes set people back; most other experts I spoke with agreed. And several researchers told me that, because PEM seems to upend basic physiology, reduced activity may not be as worrisome for people with the condition as it is for those without.

    For Shoemaker, the calculus is clear. “Coming back from being deconditioned is honestly trivial compared to recovering from PEM,” she told me. She’s willing to wait for evidence-based therapies that can safely improve her PEM. “Whatever we figure out, if I could get healthy,” she told me, “then I can get back in shape.”

    At this point, several patients and researchers told me, most exercise-based trials for long COVID seem to be at best a waste of resources, and at worst a recipe for further harm. PEM is not new, nor are the interventions being tested. Decades of research on ME/CFS have already shown that traditional exercise therapy harms more often than it helps. (Some researchers insisted that more PEM studies are needed in long-haulers—just in case the condition diverges substantially from its manifestation in ME/CFS.) And although a subset of long-haulers could be helped by exercise, experts don’t yet have a great way to safely distinguish them from the rest.

    Even pacing, although often recommended for symptom management, is not generally considered to be a reliable treatment, which is where most long-COVID patient advocates say funds should be focused. Ideally, Putrino and others told me, resources should be diverted to trials investigating drugs that might address PEM’s roots, such as the antiviral Paxlovid, which could clear lingering virus from long-haulers’ tissues. Some researchers are also hopeful about pyridostigmine, a medication that might enhance the delivery of oxygen to tissues, as well as certain supplements that might support mitochondria on the fritz.

    Those interventions are still experimental—and Putrino said that no single one is likely to work for everyone. That only adds to the challenge of studying PEM, which has been shrouded in disbelief for decades. Despite years of research on ME/CFS, Chu, of the IACFS/ME, told me that many people with the condition have encountered medical professionals who suggest that they’re just anxious, even lazy. It doesn’t help that there’s not yet a blood test for PEM; to diagnose it, doctors must ask their patients questions and trust the answers. Just two decades ago, researchers and physicians speculated that PEM stemmed from an irrational fear of activity; some routinely prescribed therapy, antidepressants, and just pushing through, Chu said. One highly publicized 2011 study, since widely criticized as shoddy science, appeared to support those claims—influencing treatment recommendations from top health authorities such as the CDC.

    The CDC and other organizations have since reversed their position on exercise and cognitive behavioral therapy as PEM treatments. Even so, many people with long COVID and ME/CFS are still routinely told to blow past their limits. All of the long-haulers I spoke with have encountered this advice, and learned to ignore it. Fighting those calls to exercise can be exhausting in its own right. As Ed Yong wrote in The Atlantic last year, American society has long stigmatized people who don’t push their way through adversity—even if that adversity is a medically documented condition that cannot be pushed through. Reconceptualizing the role of exercise in daily living is already a challenge; it is made all the more difficult when being productive—even overworked—is prized above all else.

    Read: Fatigue can shatter a person

    Long-haulers know that tension intimately; some have had to battle it within themselves. When Julia Moore Vogel, a researcher at Scripps, developed long COVID in the summer of 2020, she was at first determined to grit her way through. She took up pilates and strength training, workouts she at the time considered gentle. But the results were always the same: horrific migraines that relegated her to bed. She now does physical therapy to keep herself moving in safe and supervised amounts. When Vogel, a former competitive runner, started her program, she was taken aback by how little she was asked to do—sometimes just two reps of chin tucks. “I would always laugh because I would be like, ‘These are not exercises,’” she told me. “I’ve had to change my whole mental model about what exercise is, what exertion is.”

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    Katherine J. Wu

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  • There Are Too Many Ways to Exercise

    There Are Too Many Ways to Exercise

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    This year, I’m going to get into shape. It does not matter that I’ve made this same resolution every year for more than a decade, or that I gave up after a month each time. In 2024, I mean it. Unlike years past, my motivation is not aesthetic but utilitarian: I want to get fit so I stop feeling like garbage. As I enter my late 30s, I’m struggling with the health issues that come with the terrain—high blood pressure, lower-back pain, and persistently achy joints. On top of those, I’m a new mom, chronically sleep-deprived and exhausted. My six-month-old son saps all my energy but also steels my resolve to protect it.

    With all my new motivation, I first had to find a workout regime. Scrolling through social media for inspiration, I saw athletes of every variety across my feed. There were people sweating it out at a Navy SEAL–style workout, a Muay Thai–inspired kickboxing class, and a workout designed and taught by former inmates. Yoga isn’t just yoga anymore; it can be hot, aerial, acrobatic, Drake, and even goat. Personal trainers shout commands through media including YouTube, VR headsets, and, uh, mirrors. You can work out alone or in a group (or alone in a group, if Peloton is your thing). For the graceful, there is barre; for the nerds, there is a Lord of the Rings–themed app that logs exercise as movement from the Shire to Mordor.

    We are living in a golden age of fitness: With workouts to accommodate every skill level, interest, time commitment, and social capacity, it should be easier than ever for novices to find one and get started. But it’s not. Instead of finding a workout that suited me, choice overload left me even more inert, and less motivated, than I was when I started my search. If you’re serious about committing to a fitness regime, choosing one isn’t just about moving your body. It could shape your future schedule, lifestyle, and even identity. To others, the way you exercise might say something about who you are, whether that’s a marathon maniac or a #PelotonMom. To the exercise newbie, this can make the stakes feel dauntingly high.

    The stakes are high. Exercise will lead to results only if you do it consistently, potentially spending hours on it each week. It’s essential to pick right. I was never fitter than when I played in a basketball league in my early 20s and was held accountable for going to games and practice. Since then, I’ve only dabbled in activities—like kickboxing, spinning, and something called Dance Church. None of them stuck. In the search for the ideal workout, baseline criteria include practical concerns such as location and affordability. No matter how exciting the class, a gym that’s out of the way or prohibitively expensive is not one you will attend regularly. Then there is what I call doability—as in, Can my body do that? Answering honestly can eliminate unlikely options, such as the grueling circuit that turned actors into Spartans for the movie 300. Being too pragmatic, however, can also stifle fitness aspirations. If your goal is an eight-pack, the “lazy-girl workout” probably isn’t going to cut it.

    Ruling out options based on practicality only whittles the list down so much. The next step is harder: figuring out what you actually want to do. For a goal as broad as “get in shape,” you can drive yourself crazy trying to find the answer. Picking a workout that ticks all the boxes is virtually impossible, because there will always be other options that seem better. At first, streaming Yoga With Adriene in my living room seemed like a cheap, enjoyable, and physically demanding option, but it lacked a social component to hold me accountable. Programs inspired by high-intensity interval training (HIIT), such as F45, promise to get people ripped—fast!—but exercising under a constant deadline is my idea of hell. I found flaws in workouts as varied as rock climbing, rugby, Orangetheory, Tabata, Aqua Tabata, and Tabata-style spinning.

    Adding to the gravity of the decision is what it signals about who you are. Personal fitness is rarely personal these days. Stereotypes inform the culture of certain workouts and how their adherents are seen: Indoor rock climbing is associated with tech bros, running with intensely driven morning people, weight lifting with gym rats. Many boutique workouts come with even more distinct personality types, perpetuated by the communities they spawn in real life and on social media. Perhaps the most recognizable is the CrossFit Bro, an aggressive, bandanna-wearing jock who can’t stop talking about CrossFit. Pure Barre and SoulCycle call to mind lithe, athleisure-clad smoothie drinkers; Peloton, the kind of person who can afford a Peloton.

    New identities can also form by virtue of the lifestyle shifts that these workouts can bring about. Friendships are nurtured by sweat spilled during class; exercise may even shift eating habits. For some, fitness programs become so embedded in daily life that they begin to resemble institutionalized religion. In an extreme case of life imitating exercise, a couple who met at CrossFit got married and served a paleo cake at their wedding, which was held during a CrossFit competition. Because exercise is so good at fostering community, the search for a workout is sometimes described as finding “your tribe.”

    Read: The church of CrossFit

    These stereotypes are not always true, of course, and they can also be aspirational. Embarrassed as I am to admit it, I would love to be a smoothie girl. But the notion of joining a tribe makes pedaling on a stationary bike or joining a rock-climbing gym feel much more consequential than the activities themselves. I was getting nowhere in my own fitness search, so I turned to experts for a reality check. Selecting from a multitude of fitness options is “quite a dilemma,” Sarah Ullrich-French, a kinesiology professor at Washington State University, told me, but the way out is to focus on what feels good, physically and psychologically. Fitness identities, however palpable, only have to mean something if you want them to. If the stereotype of the intensely focused predawn runner inspires you to get up for a morning jog, lean into it. But if it seems like an annoying downside to running, it’s okay to treat it as such. Pay attention to workouts that bring up anxiety and dread; even if you aspire towards a certain identity, “negative associations and feelings will often win over our goals and what we think we should do,” Ullrich-French said.

    Part of my problem was having a goal that was too diffuse. Theoretically any workout could help me get fit, but if I refined my ambition to, say, “getting up the stairs to work without heaving,” doing so would narrow my options to exercises that optimize stamina and strength. Instead of immediately signing up for a weekly running club, start with small, attainable goals, such as taking the time to stretch each morning, Adam Makkawi, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, told me.  Small goals are easier to achieve, and can help make more workout options a real possibility.

    My biggest mistake was to treat choosing a workout as an intellectual endeavor, sort of like shopping for a new vacuum by reading endless online reviews. Test several options, and when you’ve found one that you like, customize its intensity and frequency until it suits you, Catherine Sabiston, a professor of kinesiology and physical education at the University of Toronto, told me. The likelihood you’ll stick to it, she added, boils down to competency—how well you feel you can accomplish a task—and enjoyment, both of which can be known only through experience.

    Choice overload is real, but it can also be a powerful excuse to stay inert. Although a little self-reflection about fitness identities can be helpful, fixating on them can rule out perfectly viable options. In this spirit, I compiled a list of doable, challenging, and conceivably fun workouts to try—and even mustered up excitement for a fitness identity that brought me joy. This week, I begin my search in earnest, embarking on a virtual Lord of the Rings running journey across the rugged terrain of Middle Earth.

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    Yasmin Tayag

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