The things you do, each with the evidence for it, how much to do, and the cheapest way in. If you would rather start from what you want to work on, go through Optimize; if something is wrong, start with a condition.
Find a practice
Highlights, by how soon you feel it
strongest evidence firstSame-day
Felt today
- Hydration and Electrolytes: How Much Water You Need, and When Salt Actually Matters Strong
- Caffeine: What It Does, the One Catch for Sleep, and How to Use It Well Strong
- Sun Exposure: Vitamin D, the Body Clock, and Skin Cancer Strong
- Blood Tests: Which Markers Change a Decision, and Which Panels Do Not Strong
Weeks
Builds over weeks
- Sodium Reduction & DASH Diet: What Lowers Blood Pressure, and How to Do It Strong
- Acupuncture: What the Evidence Shows, Where It Helps Most, and How to Start Strong
- Tai Chi and Qi Gong: What They Do, the Falls Evidence, and How to Start Strong
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: What It Treats, How Strong the Evidence Is, and How to Start Strong
Months
Compounds over months
- Quitting Smoking: What It Does to the Body and the Methods That Actually Work Strong
- The Mediterranean Diet: What It Does, Why It Works, and How to Start Strong
- GLP-1 Medications: What They Do, the Trade-offs, and How to Use Them Well Strong
- Tretinoin: What It Does for Sun-Aged Skin and Acne, How to Use It, and Who Should Not Strong
Training
- Yoga: What It Does, What the Trials Found, and How to Start $ · Moderate Posture, breath and attention, with randomized trials behind much of it: back pain, mood, blood pressure, balance in older adults, and lately sleep, blood sugar in diabetes, and breast-cancer recovery.
- Tai Chi and Qi Gong: What They Do, the Falls Evidence, and How to Start Free · Moderate Tai chi and qi gong, the Chinese movement practices with the most randomized evidence: about 20% fewer falls in older adults, relief in fibromyalgia and knee arthritis, steadier balance in Parkinson's.
- Pelvic Floor Muscle Training: What It Does, Why Technique Makes It Work, and How to Start Free · Moderate What pelvic-floor training does for bladder control, prolapse, pregnancy, prostate-surgery recovery and sex; why the female stress-incontinence evidence is so strong; and how to find and train the right muscle.
- Grip Strength Training Free · Moderate Training the muscles that grip: the blood-pressure effect that gripping itself produces, why a weak grip predicts death and disease without causing them, and how to train grip.
- The Eight Brocades (Ba Duan Jin): The Research, the Movements, and How to Start Free · Easy One standardized eight-movement qi gong routine, gentle and free, with a moderate trial base: systolic pressure about 8 to 11 mmHg lower over months, plus modest gains in sleep, mood and balance.
- Resistance Training: What It Does, the Low Dose That Works, and How to Start Free · Hard What resistance training does for strength, muscle, bone, blood sugar, mood and staying independent, why most of the benefit arrives at a strikingly low dose, and how to start free with bodyweight.
- Walking: How Many Steps You Need, and Where the Curve Flattens Free · Easy What the step-count research shows: where the mortality curve flattens by age, what walking lowers in randomized trials, what it does not do for bone and muscle, and how to fit more steps into a full day.
- The Minimum Effective Dose of Strength Training Free · Moderate The smallest amount of strength training that works: a single hard set of a few movements, twice a week, close to failure. Why a little goes so far, and the free bodyweight version.
- VO2max Training: The Fitness That Best Predicts a Long Life, and How to Build It Free · Hard VO2max, your peak oxygen use, is among the strongest predictors of how long and well you live, and it is trainable at any age. How much it climbs, the 4x4 interval protocol on a base, and how to measure it.
- Isometric Handgrip Training for Blood Pressure $ · Easy Squeezing a gripper at part of your max, held two minutes and repeated four times a few days a week, is one of the best-studied non-drug ways to lower resting blood pressure. The exact protocol, and the free versions.
- Rucking: Walking Under Load, and What the Evidence Covers $ · Moderate Walking with a weighted pack turns an ordinary walk into moderate cardio and loads the bones more than walking alone. Where the evidence is solid, the bone question, and how to start at about a tenth of bodyweight.
- Breaking Up Sitting: Movement Snacks Through the Day, and What They Change Free · Easy Getting up for two or three minutes every half hour lowers the blood-sugar rise across a working day, whether or not you also exercise, and why a daily workout does not free the rest of the day.
- Zone 2 Cardio: What the Training Does, and Where the Claims Run Ahead of the Evidence Free · Moderate Easy aerobic training at a conversational pace: what Zone 2 is, how to find it, the endurance and fitness it builds, and why the mitochondrial and metabolic claims rest on mechanism ahead of trials.
- Sprinting and Power Training: What Fast, Forceful Work Does Free · Hard Short all-out sprints and jumps raise fitness and blood sugar in little time, load the hip bones, and build fast power that steady cardio and slow lifting do little for. High-force work that needs a base first.
- High-Intensity Interval Training: What HIIT Does, and How to Do It Well Free · Hard HIIT is the time-efficient way to raise aerobic fitness and blood-sugar control with short hard bursts. What it does well, where it only matches more steady cardio, and the 4x4, sprint and REHIT protocols.
- Mobility and Stretching: What It Reliably Does, and How to Build Usable Range Free · Easy Stretching reliably increases range of motion, but it does not prevent injury or next-day soreness, and long static holds right before lifting slightly weaken you. How to build usable range.
- The Post-Meal Walk: How Soon, How Long, and What It Actually Lowers Free · Easy A short easy walk soon after eating lowers that meal's blood-sugar rise, more than the same walk before eating, and even two to three minutes helps. How soon to start, how long, and which meal.
Intake
- The Mediterranean Diet: What It Does, Why It Works, and How to Start $ · Moderate The best-tested eating pattern there is: olive oil, vegetables, beans, fish, nuts and whole grains. What the trials found for the heart, brain and a longer life, and how to start this week on ordinary groceries.
- Sodium Reduction & DASH Diet: What Lowers Blood Pressure, and How to Do It Free · Moderate Less salt and the DASH pattern both lower blood pressure, and together lower it more, most in salt-sensitive people. The dose that works, the salt-substitute trial that cut strokes, and potassium's role.
- Is Buying Organic Worth It? $$ · Easy Buying organic reliably lowers the pesticide residues measured in your body, most in children. The nutrient content is about the same, and the step from lower exposure to better health is thin. Where it matters most.
- Green Tea and Matcha: What It Does, and the One Catch $ · Easy Daily green tea lowers cholesterol and blood pressure a little, and the theanine-plus-caffeine pairing gives calm alertness. Weight-loss and cancer effects are small; the concentrated EGCG extract has injured livers.
- Protein and Muscle: the dose, the sources, and building it $ · Moderate How much protein builds and holds muscle, where the 1.6 g/kg figure comes from, why training beats timing, what changes after 65, and how plant sources and the kidneys fit in.
- Seed Oils: What the Evidence Shows $ · Easy Seed oils are the vegetable oils high in the omega-6 fat linoleic acid: soybean, sunflower, corn and canola among them. The online claim that they are toxic and inflammatory runs against the trials.
- Alcohol and Your Health: What the Evidence Shows Now Free · Hard For years a daily drink looked good for the heart; corrected analyses trace that to a study artifact and find no benefit at low intake. What the research shows across cancer, the heart, sleep and the brain.
- Whole Foods and Ultra-Processed Foods: What the Evidence Shows and How to Eat Well $ · Moderate A locked-in feeding trial had people gain weight on an ultra-processed diet matched for nutrients, and cohort studies tie those foods to more disease and earlier death. Building meals from whole food is a reliable move.
- Hydration and Electrolytes: How Much Water You Need, and When Salt Actually Matters Free · Easy How much water you actually need, why the eight-glasses rule is a round number not a measured need, what electrolytes do and the two times salt matters, and the risk of drinking too much.
- Caffeine: What It Does, the One Catch for Sleep, and How to Use It Well Free · Moderate What caffeine does for alertness, endurance and long-term health, how long it lingers (half gone in 2 to 10 hours), the one catch for sleep, and how to get the timing right.
- Dietary Fiber: What Each Type Does and How Much to Eat $ · Moderate Fiber is several different things: soluble fiber lowers LDL and blunts blood sugar, insoluble fiber moves the bowels, fermentable fiber feeds gut bacteria. Why wheat bran does nothing for IBS while psyllium helps.
- Clean Water and Remineralization $ · Easy Filter the contaminants that matter, lead, PFAS, disinfection byproducts, arsenic. Reverse osmosis strips minerals too, so add calcium and magnesium back. What the evidence supports, and how filter types differ.
- The Wahls Protocol ◆ $$ · Hard A physician with progressive MS built an intensive diet-and-lifestyle program and, by her account, went from a wheelchair to cycling. The trials are small, short and mostly her own. What they show, and where evidence stops.
- The Carnivore Diet: What It Is, What People Report, and What Is Actually Known Free · Hard The carnivore diet means eating only animal foods and no plants. What a strict elimination diet does in the first weeks, and what the one large user survey actually shows.
- The Low-FODMAP Diet: What It Is, How the Three Phases Work, and What the Evidence Shows Free · Hard A low-FODMAP diet is the best-tested diet for IBS, easing bloating and pain in half to two-thirds of people. It runs in three phases and is temporary, a two-to-six-week reset, not a permanent diet.
- Cleanses and Detoxes: What Your Liver Already Does, the Herbs That Help, and Which Products Do Nothing Free · Easy The old practice of lightening the diet and herbs like milk thistle holds up in parts, but commercial cleanse products mostly do nothing, and several cause harm. What the research backs, and what to skip.
- Dietary Nitrate and Beetroot Juice: The Research, the Practice, and How to Use It $ · Easy Nitrate-rich beetroot juice and greens lower blood pressure a few points and cut the oxygen cost of exercise, through a pathway tongue bacteria run, which is why antibacterial mouthwash switches it off.
- Time-Restricted Eating: What It Does, Where to Place the Window, and How to Start Free · Hard Eating inside a shorter daily window. What the calorie-matched trials show, why where the window sits matters more than how long it is, a window you can keep, and who should take care.
- Ketogenic Eating: Proven for Childhood Epilepsy, Supervised in Type 2 Diabetes, Modest for Weight $$ · Hard Eating almost no carbohydrate so the body runs on fat and ketones.
- Fermented Foods: What Feeding Your Microbiome With Food Actually Does Free · Easy Yogurt, kefir, kimchi and sauerkraut, sold as a gut cure. The strongest trial found a high-fermented-food diet raised gut diversity and lowered inflammation; most food-specific benefits rest on observational data.
- Coffee Enemas: What They Are, the Evidence, and the Risks $ · Moderate A coffee enema is cooled coffee put into the rectum, promoted to detoxify since the 1930s. Research finds no detox benefit, and the record includes serious harm: colitis, burns, perforation, infection, and deaths.
Exposure
- Heat Exposure: What Sauna and Hot Baths Do, and How to Start $ · Moderate What regular sauna and hot-bath heat does for your arteries, blood pressure, mood and long-term health, how strong each finding is, the dose that works, and the infrared-versus-traditional question.
- Heat Without a Sauna Free · Easy How to get the well-evidenced benefits of heat when you do not have a sauna: the hot-bath protocol with the best data, hot tubs, heated exercise, and timing before bed.
- Sun Exposure: Vitamin D, the Body Clock, and Skin Cancer Free · Easy Sunlight makes vitamin D, lowers blood pressure through nitric oxide, sets the body clock and lifts mood, and sun avoiders died sooner in one cohort. Against that, burning raises melanoma. The workable middle path.
- Red Light Therapy (Photobiomodulation) $$ · Easy Red and near-infrared light panels, graded by evidence. The best-supported use is preventing oral mucositis in cancer care; skin, hair and pain show modest signals; the fat-loss and hormone claims are thin.
- Cold Exposure: what it does, the risks, and how to start Free · Hard Cold showers, plunges and winter swimming: what the research supports for soreness, mood and sick days, where the metabolism and brown-fat claims run ahead of the evidence, and the safety risks.
- Time in Nature: Green Space, Forest Bathing and What Holds Up Free · Easy Green space, the 120-minutes-a-week figure, forest bathing, gardening and time by the water, each graded on its own evidence. How to tell the effect of the setting from the effect of the walk.
- Forest Bathing (Shinrin-Yoku) Free · Easy Shinrin-yoku, an unhurried walk among trees. What the small Japanese trials show for calm, blood pressure and mood, where the immune claims stand, and how much of it is simply time in nature.
- Grounding and Earthing: What the Evidence Actually Shows Free · Easy Skin contact with the earth, and whether it lowers inflammation or improves sleep. The small trials mostly come from one group with product ties; where the electron-transfer idea stands, and how to try it free.
- Heat and Cold: Contrast Therapy Free · Moderate Sauna and cold plunge, together and apart. What the longevity trend gets right, where it runs ahead of the evidence, the recovery and mood benefits, and the strength-training tradeoff.
- Whole-Body Cryotherapy ◆ $$ · Easy A few minutes standing in air below minus 148F, sold as recovery and wellness. What the trials actually show, where the evidence is thin, how it compares with a cold-water bath, and the safety hazards.
Drug
- GLP-1 Medications: What They Do, the Trade-offs, and How to Use Them Well $$$ · Easy What GLP-1 and dual GLP-1/GIP drugs like semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound) do for weight, blood sugar and the heart, how they work on appetite, the trade-offs (gut effects, muscle loss, regain after stopping, cost), what is not yet known, the Chinese medicine view, and why starting one is a decision made with a prescriber.
- Metformin: A Proven Diabetes Drug and the Open Longevity Question ◆ $ · Easy Metformin is a cheap, decades-old diabetes drug that lowers blood sugar, cut heart attacks and deaths in overweight type 2 diabetes, and cut progression from prediabetes to diabetes by about a third.
- SGLT2 Inhibitors: Kidney Glucose Drugs at the Edge of the Longevity Question ◆ $$ · Easy Empagliflozin, dapagliflozin and canagliflozin block a kidney transporter so glucose leaves in the urine, and in large trials the class consistently cuts heart-failure hospitalization and kidney decline, some of it in people without diabetes.
- Rapamycin: The Strongest Animal Longevity Drug, and Where the Human Evidence Stands ◆ $$ · Moderate Rapamycin extends lifespan in mice more reliably than any other drug, even when started late in life, and it is an approved medicine for organ transplant and for a few specific diseases.
- Senolytics: Clearing Worn-Out Cells, the Mouse Data, and Where the Human Trials Are ◆ $$ · Moderate Senolytics aim to clear senescent cells, the worn-out cells that build up with age and leak inflammation. The mouse data are strong; the human evidence is two tiny pilots. What the research shows, and where it stands.
- Ivermectin: A Nobel-Winning Antiparasitic, and the COVID Story in Full ◆ $ · Moderate Ivermectin is a Nobel-honored antiparasitic that has protected hundreds of millions of people from river blindness, lymphatic filariasis, strongyloidiasis, scabies, and lice, and is very safe at approved doses.
- Low-Dose Naltrexone (LDN): What the Evidence Shows, and Where It Stops ◆ $$ · Moderate Naltrexone at 1 to 4.5 mg, far below the addiction dose, is prescribed off-label for fibromyalgia, Crohn's and MS symptoms. The small single-site trials look promising, but no regulator has approved the use.
- Acarbose: The Old Diabetes Drug That Extends Life in Mice ◆ $ · Easy Acarbose is a decades-old type 2 diabetes drug that blunts carbohydrate absorption and lowers post-meal blood sugar. Its glycemic record is modest, and STOP-NIDDM showed it delays diabetes.
- Growth Hormone Secretagogues: What Ibutamoren and the GH Peptides Do ◆ $$$ · Hard Growth hormone secretagogues like MK-677 raise your own GH and IGF-1. The best trial added lean mass without strength and worsened blood sugar, and lower lifelong IGF-1 tracks with longer life, against the anti-aging pitch.
- Peptides: The Few Approved Drugs and the Many Unregulated Ones ◆ $$$ · Hard Peptides are not one thing. A few are approved, tested drugs like the GLP-1 medicines and insulin.
- Tretinoin: What It Does for Sun-Aged Skin and Acne, How to Use It, and Who Should Not $ · Moderate What topical tretinoin does for fine sun lines, rough texture, uneven color and acne, how it rebuilds collagen, how to use it without wrecking your skin, and why it is avoided in pregnancy.
- GHK-Cu (Copper Peptide): What It Does for Skin, the Evidence, and Why the Injected Form Is Untested $ · Easy What the copper peptide GHK-Cu does for skin firmness and repair, why the case rests mostly on cell and animal work with only small human trials, and why injected use is untested and sold grey-market.
- Ketamine and Esketamine for Depression ◆ $$$ · Hard What the trial evidence shows for ketamine and esketamine in depression: the FDA-approved esketamine nasal spray for treatment-resistant depression, the rapid antidepressant effect of intravenous ketamine, the fast reduction in suicidal thoughts, why the benefit fades without repeated dosing, how it works on the NMDA glutamate receptor, where the law stands, the Chinese medicine view, and the risks, including bladder toxicity.
- Psilocybin: What the Trials Show for Depression and End-of-Life Distress ◆ $$$ · Hard What the trial evidence shows for psilocybin, the classic psychedelic studied for depression and the distress of a life-threatening illness: the largest controlled trial in treatment-resistant depression, the head-to-head against a standard antidepressant, the cancer trials whose benefit lasted about six months, the weak trial blinding that likely inflates the numbers, where the law stands, and the risks.
- MDMA-Assisted Therapy for PTSD ◆ $$$ · Hard What the trial evidence shows for MDMA-assisted therapy in post-traumatic stress disorder: two phase 3 trials with moderate-to-large benefit over placebo with therapy, the functional unblinding that inflates the effect, the 2024 FDA decision to decline approval and ask for another trial, how MDMA works on serotonin, the Chinese medicine view, and the risks.
- Psychedelics in Mental Health ◆ $$$ · Hard What the trial evidence shows for psychedelics in mental health: psilocybin for depression, MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, the approved relative esketamine, and psilocybin for end-of-life distress, set beside the blinding limits, the 2024 FDA decision, where the law stands, and the risks.
- Ayahuasca: What the Depression Research Shows, and Why It Carries Serious Risk ◆ $$$ · Hard One tiny randomized trial and a few open-label studies point to a rapid antidepressant signal.
- Ibogaine for Addiction: The Signal, the Cardiac Risk, and the Law ◆ $$$ · Hard What the research shows for ibogaine, from Tabernanthe iboga, studied for opioid and substance-use disorder: an early signal that a single dose reduces withdrawal and craving, set beside a documented risk of fatal heart-rhythm disturbance, the absence of any randomized trial, and its Schedule I status.
Stimulation
- Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) $$$ · Clinical Transcranial magnetic stimulation treats medication-resistant depression with magnetic pulses in daily clinic sessions. About three in ten respond and one in five reach remission; a 3-minute version matches the older one.
- Vagus Nerve Stimulation $$ · Moderate The vagus nerve helps turn inflammation up or down. Implanted stimulation is established for drug-resistant epilepsy and depression; the ear-clip version is early research, while breathing and cold raise vagal tone.
- Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy (PEMF): Devices and Mats $$ · Easy PEMF graded at the strength the research supports. Its best-evidenced use is bone, for fractures that will not heal; knee-arthritis pain shows a small mixed benefit; and the full-body wellness mats rest on thin trials.
- Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) $$ · Easy Where electrical muscle stimulation helps, rehab and disuse when you cannot train normally, and where whole-body-EMS workout marketing claims more than the evidence supports. The three devices, graded per claim.
Services
- Stem Cells and Exosomes: The Proven Uses, the Clinic Market, and Where the Harm Is ◆ $$$ · Clinical Stem cells and exosomes span an established, approved field, from bone-marrow transplant to corneal repair. A separate market sells unapproved injections for aging and joints that have caused blindness and infections.
- Therapeutic Plasma Exchange and the Young-Plasma Trend: Established Medicine and the Longevity Frontier ◆ $$$ · Moderate Plasma exchange is established, sometimes life-saving treatment for diseases like TTP and Guillain-Barre. The separate anti-aging use rests on mouse work and one mixed trial; the FDA warns against young-plasma clinics.
- Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy: What It Treats, and Where the Wellness Claims Exceed the Evidence ◆ $$$ · Hard Hyperbaric oxygen is an effective treatment for a defined set of approved conditions: decompression illness, carbon monoxide poisoning, non-healing diabetic foot ulcers, radiation tissue injury, sudden hearing loss, and certain infections.
- Prolotherapy and Regenerative Injections ◆ $$$ · Moderate Prolotherapy, PRP and related injections are sold to regrow joints, but the trials show something narrower: inconsistent but measurable pain relief, best supported for knee osteoarthritis and some tendon problems.
- IV Vitamin Drips and NAD+ Therapy: What the Evidence Shows ◆ $$$ · Moderate Wellness IV drips and NAD+ infusions are sold for energy and anti-aging, but in people who are not deficient the benefit evidence is thin and much is passed in urine. NAD+ moves a blood marker with no clear payoff.
- Ozone Therapy: What the Evidence Shows ◆ $$$ · Moderate Ozone therapy is sold for pain, wounds and detox, but trials support only a few local uses at low quality. The broad claims are unproven, breathing ozone harms the lungs, and injecting it has caused stroke.
Bodywork
- Acupuncture: What the Evidence Shows, Where It Helps Most, and How to Start $$ · Moderate Acupuncture has more randomized evidence than almost any Chinese-medicine practice. For chronic back, neck, knee and headache pain it beats a fake needle and no treatment, and the relief lasts about a year.
- Acupressure and Self-Massage: The Research, the Points, and How to Use Them Free · Easy Pressing acupoints and rubbing sore muscles you can reach yourself. The best evidence is the P6 wrist point for nausea, with a thinner signal for some pain, sleep and anxiety. How to do it for free.
- Moxibustion: What the Research Shows and How It Is Used $ · Moderate Burning mugwort over acupoints is one of the oldest Chinese-medicine tools. Its most-studied use is turning a breech baby, where evidence is promising but low-quality and a large Western trial was null.
- Cupping Therapy: What It Does, What the Evidence Shows, and How to Use It $ · Easy Suction cups on the skin: a home Chinese-medicine practice with modest short-term pain signals on low-quality evidence. Why it beats doing nothing but shows no clear edge over a sham, and the marks explained.
Breath
- Pranayama: What Yogic Breathing Does, the Techniques, and How to Start Free · Easy What pranayama does for blood pressure, anxiety, vagal tone, and asthma and COPD, the techniques worth learning first, why the forceful methods call for care, and how to start free.
- Nasal Breathing and Mouth Taping: What Each One Does, and the Safety Line on Taping Free · Easy Breathing through the nose warms, filters and slows the air and draws sinus nitric oxide into the lungs. Why it does not raise exercise power in small studies, and what to make of mouth taping: thin evidence, real risk.
- Breathwork and HRV: The Research, the Practice, and How to Start Free · Easy Slow breathing near six breaths a minute, the mechanism that makes that rate work, what a heart-rate-variability reading can and cannot tell you, and a protocol to follow.
Mind
- Meditation and Mindfulness Free · Moderate What meditation and mindfulness do, at the modest size the research supports: help for anxiety, low mood and stress, strongest for preventing depression relapse, and how to start for free.
- Yoga Nidra and NSDR: What Guided Deep Rest Does and How to Start Free · Easy What yoga nidra (NSDR) does for stress, mood and sleep, on modest, preliminary evidence, plus how to start free and when to be careful.
Sleep
- Evening Light and Screens: What Helps Your Sleep, and Where the Gadgets Fall Short Free · Easy How evening light and screens affect the body clock, what helps (a dim warm evening, bright morning light, the phone out of the bed), and where the blue-light and blue-blocker story is weaker than the headlines.
- Morning Light: What It Does for Your Sleep, Mood, and Body Clock, and How to Get It Free · Easy Bright light in your eyes within an hour of waking sets the body clock: sleep comes earlier, winter mood lifts, and you feel more alert. Get it outdoors, or from a 10,000-lux box in dark winters.
- The Sleep Environment: What Changes How You Sleep, the Free Fixes, and When to Buy $ · Easy The four things a bedroom does to your sleep all night, temperature, light, noise and air, plus the bed itself. What the research supports, and the cheap changes that carry most of the benefit.
- Sleep Regularity: Why a Steady Schedule May Matter More Than Hours Free · Moderate Going to bed and waking at the same times, day after day. The evidence that regularity predicts survival better than sleep duration, what it does for metabolism and mood, and how to hold a fixed wake time.
- Napping: How Long to Nap, When to Take It, and What the Heart-Disease Studies Are Measuring Free · Easy A short early-afternoon nap of 10 to 20 minutes reliably lifts alertness, mood and thinking, and it is free. Why longer naps leave you groggy, how the caffeine nap works, and the truth about napping and heart disease.
Connection
- Social Connection: isolation, loneliness, and a longer life Free · Moderate What the research shows about relationships and a long life, the difference between being isolated and feeling lonely, how much of the risk is underlying health, and what actually reduces loneliness.
- Purpose and Meaning: One of the Best-Correlated Things in Health Research, and It Costs Nothing Free · Moderate A sense of purpose tracks with living longer and better across a large, consistent body of research. Why its observational nature matters, whether purpose can be built, and free ways to cultivate it.
- Volunteering and Helping Others: A Free Habit Linked to Better Mood, Sharper Aging, and a Longer Life Free · Easy Giving time to others tracks with better mood, steadier later-life thinking, lower blood pressure and even lower mortality, and it is free. Why the benefit is clearest when the motive is other-focused, and how to start.
- Gratitude Practice Free · Easy What a gratitude practice actually does for mood and sleep: a modest, reliable lift that shrinks against an active control, the free ways to do it, and when a loss of feeling is a signal to get help.
Learning
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: What It Treats, How Strong the Evidence Is, and How to Start Free · Moderate A short, structured talking therapy with more randomized trials behind it than almost any other non-drug treatment for the mind.
- Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS): What the Program Is and What the Evidence Shows $$ · Hard What DNRS is, the central-sensitization idea behind it, what related brain-retraining trials found, why no trial has tested DNRS itself, and the cost.
- CBT-I: What It Does for Long-Term Insomnia, Why It Beats Pills, and How to Do It Free · Hard CBT for insomnia is the first-line treatment for long-term insomnia, and its benefit outlasts a sleeping pill. The parts that carry the effect, and the sleep-restriction protocol you can run yourself.
- Pacing: How Staying Within Your Energy Envelope Prevents Crashes in ME/CFS and Long COVID Free · Moderate Activity pacing is the frontline self-management approach for ME/CFS and long COVID.
Care & Protection
- Quitting Smoking: What It Does to the Body and the Methods That Actually Work $ · Hard Quitting smoking is the biggest single improvement most people can make to their health, and the body starts recovering within a day. What quitting does, and the methods ranked by how well they work.
- Protecting Your Hearing $ · Easy Noise damage is permanent because the hair cells do not grow back. How loud is too loud, why hearing loss is among the largest modifiable dementia risks in midlife, and how to protect your ears.
- Oral Health: What Protects Your Teeth and What the Mouth-Body Link Shows $ · Easy Fluoride toothpaste, brushing, cleaning between the teeth, and cutting how often you eat sugar prevent most tooth decay and gum disease — cheap, old steps with the firmest evidence.
Measure
- Blood Tests: Which Markers Change a Decision, and Which Panels Do Not $$$ · Easy A guide to the blood markers that inform a real decision, from ApoB and Lp(a) to HbA1c and hs-CRP, and the full-body panel that big trials found leaves outcomes unchanged. How to avoid the harms of over-testing.
- Continuous Glucose Monitoring: A Powerful Tool in Diabetes, a Curiosity in Health $$$ · Easy A sensor that reads your blood sugar around the clock. In diabetes it lowers HbA1c; in healthy people the wellness pitch rests on meal-response variation, but no trial shows eating to the readings improves health.
Supplement
Popular Right Now
- CBD: Strong Evidence for Rare Epilepsies, Weak Everywhere Else $$ · Easy Prescription cannabidiol has strong evidence for three rare epilepsies and early evidence for acute anxiety. For chronic pain and sleep it is much weaker than product claims imply, and labels often miss the real content.
- Bovine Colostrum: What the Trials Show and the Marketing Around It $$ · Easy Bovine colostrum, a cow's first milk, is sold for immunity, gut and muscle. The steadiest finding is fewer respiratory-infection days in hard-training athletes; the muscle and anti-aging claims do not survive digestion.
- Apple Cider Vinegar: What the Blood-Sugar Evidence Shows $ · Easy A spoonful of vinegar with a starchy meal blunts the post-meal blood-sugar rise a little. The viral weight-loss claim rests on one small trial, and a widely shared 2024 study was retracted.
- NMN and NR: Oral NAD+ Precursors, and What Raising the Marker Does $$ · Easy Oral NAD+ precursors, nicotinamide mononucleotide and nicotinamide riboside, reliably raise blood NAD+ in human trials, a replicated pharmacological result.
- Tongkat Ali: What the Trials Actually Show $ · Easy Tongkat ali has small trials showing lower cortisol and a modest testosterone rise in older, low-testosterone men, with early libido signals. The effect is largest in men who started low; thin in the normal range.
Foundations
- Creatine: What It Does, How Much to Take, and the Kidney Question $ · Easy Creatine monohydrate adds strength and lean muscle alongside training, helps older adults hold muscle and memory, and has one of the longest safety records of any supplement. How much to take, and which form.
- Omega-3 and Fish Oil: Clear on Triglycerides, Mixed on the Heart $ · Easy Oily fish is good for you; whether a fish-oil capsule protects your heart is mixed. Big trials found a daily supplement did little for most people; one high-dose EPA drug cut events in high-risk patients.
- Collagen: What It Does for Skin, Joints, and Bone, and What It Does Not $ · Easy Collagen supplements show small, mostly industry-funded skin gains and mixed help for knee arthritis. But eaten collagen is digested into amino acids like any protein; it does not travel to your skin as collagen.
- Glucosamine and Chondroitin: What the Best Trials Show for Joint Pain $ · Easy Glucosamine and chondroitin are the most-taken joint supplements, cheap and safe. But across independent trials the average pain relief is below what a person can feel, and the best results came from maker-funded studies.
Vitamins & minerals
- Iodine: How Much Your Thyroid Actually Needs $ · Easy Iodine is the mineral your thyroid uses to make hormones, and it matters most in pregnancy. Most people who use iodized salt get enough; too much, from kelp or high-dose drops, can turn the thyroid under- or overactive.
- Magnesium: What It Does, Which Form to Take, and How Much $ · Easy Magnesium's best-proven use is as a laxative; it also helps prevent migraines and lowers blood pressure a little. For sleep and cramps the best trials show little. Start with food, and match the form to your goal.
- Vitamin B12: Who Actually Needs It, and What It Fixes $ · Easy A true B12 deficiency causes anemia, nerve damage and memory changes, reversible if caught in time. Who needs it: vegans, older adults, long-term metformin and acid-blocker users. High-dose oral often equals injection.
- Vitamin K2 $ · Easy Vitamin K2 routes calcium into bone and away from arteries. A modest MK-7 dose slowed bone loss in postmenopausal women, but the artery-calcification trials came back null. Where it stands, and the warfarin caution.
- Choline: The Nutrient for the Liver and the Developing Brain $ · Easy Choline is an essential nutrient that protects the liver and builds the fetal brain, and most people eat less than recommended. What the pregnancy trials found, the real story on eggs and TMAO, and the foods that cover it.
- Multivitamins: What They Do, What the Big Trials Found, and Who Benefits $ · Easy Daily multivitamins are cheap and safe, yet large trials find little disease-prevention benefit in already-nourished people. A small memory signal is being studied; the clearest value is filling specific dietary gaps.
- Zinc: What It Helps, the Right Dose, and the Copper Ceiling $ · Easy Zinc is an essential mineral the immune system runs on. Started fast at the right dose, lozenges may shorten a cold, and correcting a real deficiency helps immunity and healing. Sustained high doses drain copper.
- Iron: When It Helps, How to Take It, and Why to Test First $ · Easy Iron fixes iron-deficiency anemia and can lift fatigue when your stores are low, even before anemia. Taken when you are not deficient it does nothing for energy and adds risk. How to take it so you absorb it.
- Selenium: A Trace Mineral With a Narrow Safe Range $ · Easy Selenium is essential in small amounts, and where soil is poor, deficiency causes real disease it prevents. But most people get enough, and in the replete extra selenium raised diabetes risk with no cancer benefit.
- Vitamin C: What It Actually Does, Colds, and the Right Dose $ · Easy Vitamin C is essential and best-proven for preventing scurvy and boosting iron absorption from plants. It does not prevent everyday colds, shortens them only slightly, and grams a day raise stone risk in some men.
Adaptogens & botanicals
- Saffron for Mood: What the Trials Show and How to Take It $ · Easy In trials for mild-to-moderate depression, about 30 mg of saffron a day matched fluoxetine and beat placebo, with smaller signals for PMS and SSRI side effects. The trials are small and mostly Iranian.
- Panax Ginseng: What the Root Does, and What the Trials Show $ · Easy Asian ginseng, Ren Shen, is an ancient Chinese tonic and one of the more studied herbs. Trials point to modest help with fatigue and erectile function, a small glucose drop, and a big product quality problem.
- Ginkgo Biloba: What the Big Memory Trials Actually Found $ · Easy Ginkgo is sold as a memory herb, but the large trials found no dementia prevention and no slowing of decline in healthy adults. The defensible signals are smaller, and it thins the blood, the caution that matters most.
- Berberine: What It Does for Blood Sugar and Cholesterol $ · Easy Berberine, the active compound in the Chinese herb Huang Lian, lowers HbA1c about 0.6 to 0.9 points in type 2 diabetes and lowers LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.
- Lion's Mane: A Traditional Food-Medicine and the Nerve-Growth Research $ · Easy Lion's mane is a mushroom used in China and Japan for the stomach and as a tonic. Modern research is testing its nerve-growth compounds in small memory and mood trials. What the tradition holds, and what those trials show.
- Medicinal Mushrooms: What Reishi, Cordyceps, Chaga and Turkey Tail Can and Cannot Do $ · Easy The mushroom supplements sold together differ, and so does their evidence: turkey tail has the strongest data as a chemo adjunct, cordyceps and reishi are small and mixed, chaga is animal work. Plus the quality problem.
- Turmeric and Curcumin $ · Easy Turmeric's clearest result is osteoarthritis pain, where standardized extracts matched anti-inflammatory drugs head to head. It absorbs poorly, so formulation matters, and concentrated extracts carry a rare liver risk.
- Ashwagandha: What the Evidence Shows for Stress, Sleep, and Strength $ · Easy Ashwagandha, an Ayurvedic root for stress and sleep, lowers stress scores and cortisol and adds modest strength in men in small trials, but the evidence is weak and mostly industry-funded. Liver and thyroid cautions apply.
- Shilajit: The Ayurvedic Mineral Tonic, and What the Research Shows $$ · Easy Shilajit is a Himalayan mineral resin used for centuries in Ayurveda, now taken for testosterone and energy. One trial found a testosterone rise in men, but products have repeatedly tested high in lead and arsenic.
- Rhodiola: What It Does for Fatigue and Stress $ · Easy Rhodiola is a cold-climate root with a long Scandinavian and Soviet-era record for fatigue and stress, and small trials point the same way. What they found, how much to take and when, and who should take care.
Longevity & cellular
- Cocoa Flavanols: What They Do for Blood Pressure, Arteries and Memory $ · Easy The flavanols in cocoa lower blood pressure a couple of points and relax the arteries within hours. But most chocolate carries little flavanol and a lot of sugar, so the effect belongs to cocoa, not a candy bar.
- NAC and Glycine: A Proven Antidote, a Steady Mucolytic, and the GlyNAC Longevity Story $ · Easy N-acetylcysteine is the hospital antidote for acetaminophen overdose and a mild COPD mucolytic, with moderate evidence in trichotillomania and low mood. GlyNAC shows early, unreplicated promise in older adults.
- Alpha-Lipoic Acid: Strongest for Diabetic Nerve Pain $ · Easy Alpha-lipoic acid's best evidence is for diabetic nerve pain, where an IV course or a 600 mg capsule eases symptoms over weeks. Add small weight and blood-sugar changes, and a real hypoglycemia risk on insulin.
- Taurine: The Aging Headline, and What the Evidence Shows $ · Easy A 2023 Science paper made taurine famous by extending middle-aged mice's lifespan. The firmer human evidence is smaller: a modest blood-pressure drop, better blood sugar in diabetes, a small endurance edge.
- Urolithin A: What It Does for Mitochondria and Muscle $$ · Easy Urolithin A is made by gut bacteria from pomegranate and walnuts, and it switches on mitophagy. Human trials show modest muscle gains, but the two largest missed their primary endpoint, and few people make much from food.
- Fisetin and Quercetin: The Senolytic Supplements, and What Humans Actually Have $ · Easy Two plant flavonoids sold as anti-aging senolytics. Fisetin has striking mouse results and no human efficacy trial; quercetin has a modest record, a few mmHg off blood pressure, and a long-known absorption problem.
- Sulforaphane and Broccoli Sprouts: Strong Mechanism, Early Human Evidence Free · Easy Sulforaphane switches on the body's phase-2 antioxidant defenses. The human trials are smaller and mixed: faster clearance of some air pollutants and a blood-sugar signal. How you prepare it sets the dose.
- Resveratrol: The Red-Wine Longevity Story, and What the Trials Show $ · Easy Resveratrol became famous through the sirtuin theory and the French paradox, but almost none of a swallowed dose reaches the blood, and dietary resveratrol showed no tie to longevity. Where each claim really stands.
- Methylene Blue: A Century-Old Medicine and Its Modern Wellness Trend $ · Moderate Methylene blue is a century-old synthetic dye and medicine, the standard antidote for methemoglobinemia and a low-dose mitochondrial and memory research subject.
- Spermidine: A Strong Lab Case and a Thin Human Record $ · Easy Spermidine switches on autophagy and extends lifespan in yeast, flies and mice. In people it is thinner: higher dietary intake tracks with lower death, and the one larger memory trial was null. Food-first sources.
- Coenzyme Q10: What the Trials Show for Heart Failure, Migraine, and Statin Muscle Pain $ · Easy CoQ10 is a cheap, well-tolerated supplement with a clear signal in heart failure and migraine prevention, and a statin muscle-ache reputation the better randomized trials do not support.
- Ergothioneine: The Mushroom Antioxidant and the Longevity-Vitamin Question $ · Easy Ergothioneine is a diet-derived antioxidant the body concentrates in its tissues, and people with more of it live longer. But that is observational, no trial shows a benefit, and mushrooms are by far the richest source.
Sleep & calm
- Melatonin: The Body's Darkness Signal $ · Easy Melatonin is a circadian timing signal that helps most with jet lag and a delayed clock, and only modestly with ordinary insomnia. Low doses work as well as the 5 to 10 mg sold, and timing matters more than amount.
- L-Theanine: The Calm-Alert Amino Acid in Tea, and What It Does $ · Easy L-theanine, an amino acid found almost only in tea, works best for calm, focused attention, clearest taken with caffeine, and for blunting the stress response to a task. Anxiety and sleep signals are smaller.
Gut & whole-food
- Probiotics: Which Strains Work, For What, and Who Should Take Care $ · Easy Probiotics have a few well-supported uses, mostly around antibiotics and the gut, and the benefits belong to particular strains for particular jobs. Which strains have the evidence, and where large trials found nothing.
- Irish Sea Moss: What It Contains, the Iodine Catch, and How to Use It Well $ · Easy Irish sea moss is an iodine-rich red seaweed used as a folk tonic for two centuries. Its iodine is both its main thyroid value and, in excess, its main risk, so the amount and source decide whether it helps.
- Greens Powders (AG1, Green Vibrance): What Is In The Scoop $ · Easy A greens powder is dried vegetables, algae and added vitamins in a tub. A scoop raises blood antioxidant levels, but a controlled test found no improvement in vessel function or blood sugar, and blends hide the doses.
Peptides
- BPC-157: What the Peptide Is and What the Evidence Actually Shows $$$ · Hard BPC-157 is a synthetic peptide marketed to heal tendons and gut, but nearly all the evidence is from rats and cells. No adequate human trial has tested it; it is an unregulated research chemical, banned in sport.
- TB-500: A Synthetic Thymosin Beta-4 Fragment Sold for Injury Recovery $$$ · Hard TB-500 is a synthetic peptide sold online for injury recovery, from thymosin beta-4. The healing research is animal and cell work; it is an unapproved research chemical of uncertain content, banned in sport.
More
- Apigenin: The Chamomile Flavonoid Sold for Sleep, and What Is Actually Known $ · Easy Apigenin, a chamomile flavonoid sold for sleep and calm, binds the same brain site as valium-type drugs, but no trial has tested the isolated capsule. The human evidence is on chamomile extract: small and mixed.
153 practices published. Educational content, not medical advice.