How scrolling destroys sleep • I recently reconnected with a friend from medical school, Dr. Kamran Boka. Kamran is a pulmonary / critical care doc and engaging writer. Check out his Substack page. Start with this post about light and sleep. Put down the phones at night! Rain • Ever feel a boost in your mood when…
Tomorrow • Powerful one-minute video from Alan Watts, a British-American philosopher who popularized Eastern philosophies like Zen and Taoism for Western audiences. • In this clip he essentially describes the Tomorrow Fallacy, thinking you will relax or enjoy life “once everything finally made sense.” Totally worth the 70 seconds. Listen to it a few times. It…
Anti-efficiency • Another excellent post from Billy Oppenheimer on ditching the obsession with efficiency. From German artist Christoph Niemann: I really try and savor the inefficiency. I can be efficient with my work day and technology and everything, but one thing you must not – and cannot – be efficient with is creating. Once you start thinking…
Boredom • Boredom is an essential part of our evolution, helping humans see the world in a new way and invent pretty much everything. But we are in danger of losing all of those boring, productive moments. • In the Harvard Business Review, Arthur Brooks writes about the Dan Gilbert study where subjects chose to shock themselves…
GoRuck end of year sale • GoRuck continues to have many items on sale. I highly recommend the Rucker 4.0 backpack. It normally costs $245 to $255. • The 20L standard size only has one color (black) left. But they have 3 colors in the 25L (for taller people) and 3 colors for the 15L (for…
Resilience • I was amazed by the tragic but uplifting story of David Fajgenbaum, MD, a tenured professor at U. Penn. I don’t want to give away all of the details from this episode of the Shawn Ryan Show, but Dr. Fajgenbaum speaks about his personal battle with Castleman disease and how he discovered a treatment…
Weight Vests and Backpacks • I get a lot of questions about carrying weight for exercise. If I’m choosing between a vest or backpack, I would get a backpack. Looks more normal, burns more calories, probably safer, better ventilation, etc. • Choosing one is easy, just get this backpack. It comes in 15Liter, 20Liter, or 25Liter. The…
Ladders • We used to always love the bicep curls ladder. Grab a preloaded barbell and a partner. Curl 1 rep, then hand-off for your partner to curl 1 rep. Then curl 2 reps, hand-off, etc. The more reps per set, the more rest time you get. Biceps will be on fire by the top…
Protein makes us feel full • This study had 21 healthy adults eat one of two different ultra-processed diets for exactly 54 hours: 1) high protein (30% of calories) or 2) “normal” protein (13% of calories). The diets had equal amounts of fat, so the differences in protein were offset by different percentages of carbohydrate. The participants…
Creatine • A few people have sent me this 2025 study that questions the utility of creatine for muscle growth. We never change medical practice based on one study; but this well-done study does raise some questions about how much of the benefit of creatine is due to actual muscle hypertrophy from resistance training (RT). • Multiple…
