Arnold Schwarzenegger's Crash Diet

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Today’s Health Upgrade

Monday motivation
Best of 2025
Three numbers to fix your sleep
Does life get better after a certain age?
Your favorite workout of the year

Arnold’s Corner
Monday Motivation: Arnold’s Crash Diet

This week, I’m asking all of you to go on a diet. A crash diet.

I know, it’s shocking, because we always tell you that those quick fixes aren’t the way to sustainable success. We’ve never recommended one of those wild spicy soup plans or zero-carb programs for a reason.

But this isn’t a diet that will stop you from having a couple of cookies at your New Year’s celebration.

It’s a diet for your brain.

I’m asking you to go on an all-out, no-holds-barred, Zero Negativity Diet for one week. I want you to get a taste of what life can be when you don’t allow pessimism, cynicism, outrage, and all of those other mood-killers in.

Because let’s be honest for a second: all of the negativity we are surrounded by today isn’t just a mood-killer.

It is literally killing you.

In a 30-year study, people with high levels of cynicism had higher rates of cardiovascular disease, elevated inflammation, and, yes, died earlier. Other studies have backed this up: negativity is associated with the same inflammation markers that cause heart disease and neurodegenerative diseases.

We know from other studies that doomscrolling on social media increases depression and anxiety. The impacts on mental health from social media are even worse when people focus on political content.

We also know there is another way.

Harvard scientists found that optimistic people live 11 to 15% longer. They have 50-70% higher odds of living to 85 or beyond.

I can already see the cynics debating this one, so let’s be clear: even when the researchers controlled for diet, exercise, smoking, and socioeconomic status, the optimists outlived the pessimists.

Finally, let’s destroy one myth that I’ve heard over and over before I give you your diet and get you set up for the week: cynicism is not a sign of intelligence.

I know many people believe that it is smart to doubt everything and find the problems with the world. In fact, in multiple studies, cynics score worse on cognitive tests, possibly because being in a constant negative state disrupts their brains. So if you’re in the camp that thinks it is cool to be negative, it is time to stop telling yourself that being cynical makes you smarter; it’s much more likely that it is making you dumber.

Now, let’s lay out this week’s diet. It’s going to be hardcore. It’s one week. You don’t have to keep it all going beyond this week, but I have a feeling you’ll want to keep some of it once you feel the impact.

Step 1: No Doom Scrolling — Cut all Outrage and Comparison

For our crash diet, I want you to pull way back on your social media scrolling. I won’t ask you to eliminate it. I want you to give yourselves a morning, afternoon, and evening block of 10 minutes each to check your social media feeds. Be strict with yourself. Cut it off after ten minutes. You can do this for 7 days. Trust me.

Now, there is one exception to your ten-minute rule. If you find yourself getting outraged about anything you see, or if you find yourself comparing your real life to someone’s fake life on Instagram, stop scrolling immediately. Your ten-minute block is over the second it adds any stress to your life.

When the negativity hits you, I want you to pivot immediately and watch something positive. Here are two options:

My video with Frank

One of my favorite commercials that always brings a happy tear to my eye

Step 2: Reframing Negativity into a Map Forward

We’ve talked before about how a victim mentality can bring people down. Studies show it stops people from being active, chasing their goals, or making long term plans or visions.

I don’t want to pretend your life is going to be all rainbows. All of us have shitty times, and you may be in the middle of one right now.

All I want you to do is to actively look for what you can do instead of passively being pissed off. Just switching from passive to active makes you more positive.

Let me take you back to my easy, non-invasive heart valve replacement where I was supposed to walk out of the hospital that day but woke up in the ICU with a ventilator because they’d made a mistake and had to do a full open heart surgery to save me.

It would have been very, very easy to be pissed off at everyone involved, and to wallow in depression when I found out that I couldn’t even touch weights for 3 months.

That wouldn’t have helped me recover in any way, though. So I told myself no whining, and I drew a map for my recovery on the nurse’s board in my ICU room: I would do the breathing exercises 5 times a day to avoid pneumonia, I would do 10 walks around the nurse’s station every day, and I would mark each time off on my board.

With that one change, suddenly, I wasn’t looking back at the disaster. I was looking forward at the solution, and that was all I needed to snap out of the pessimism. I had my map in front of me.

Whatever you’re going through, sit down and draw your map. If you’re unemployed, just write down 3 places you can apply next week and work on your resume. If you’re injured or ill, write down your recovery steps you’ll take every day like I did.

Find your path.

Step 3: Do a couple of gratitude reps every day

I also know that there are some times when there is no map forward.

It sucks.

Even when it feels like there is nothing you can do, I want you to do one thing: write down one thing you are grateful for.

Practicing gratitude has been researched over and over, and the results are almost crazy. The simple act of finding a couple of things to be grateful for breaks the mental loops that keep people stuck in negative thoughts. It reduces inflammation and heart rate. It improves relationships and decision-making and sleep.

If it came in a pill that promised all of those things, you’d take it without a second thought, so I think we can all agree it’s worth three minutes of work a day.

Every day, you will write down “I am grateful for __________.”

It could be just that you’re alive and able to keep trying. It could be a friend or a family-member who reached out. It could be that you were able to put food on the table.

You don’t have to be grateful for anything big, and I don’t want any toxic positivity where people pretend, because we know that doesn’t help. I want you to find one real thing a day, even if it is as simple as being able to breathe so that you’re ready for your next round of your fight against whatever is going on in your life.

And here’s a really radical idea: you can be grateful for the challenges. The obstacles. The disasters. Because the reality is, every problem you face is making you stronger, just by surviving.

It’s why I’ve talked before about being grateful to my dad for my tough upbringing. It made me stronger, and it made me want to escape, and those two things made me the Arnold you know. I wouldn’t exist without that struggle.

Those are your three steps for this week’s Arnold Crash Diet:

Cut the doom-scrolling. Switch to positivity when it turns negative.
When things feel negative, draw your map forward.
Practice gratitude.

This is a crash diet that you can do for 7 days, and if you make it, I guarantee, it will feel like a weight is lifted off of your shoulders.

If you want to share how it is going, tell me during your 10-minute block on social media with #ArnoldsCrashDiet — people will be really confused — but it will help all of you taking on this challenge find each other, and it will help me find you and keep pushing you.

This week, we are terminating negativity. Every day, we will be sharing studies and information to help you stay committed to your diet.

Your brain and your body will thank me.

Best of 2025

Throughout the week, we’ll be sharing some of the most popular items of 2025. Whether you’re new to APC, missed them the first time, or need a reminder, each day we’ll highlight the tips, research, and advice you clicked on the most.

Best of Start Your Week Right
Three Numbers That Fix Your Sleep

The 4-7-8 method is a breathing technique that calms your body, and research suggests it improves your heart rate and HRV (an important measure of recovery) and lowers anxiety and blood pressure.

This breathing combination puts you in a more relaxed state, which can help you fall asleep faster and have higher quality sleep.

Want to give it a try? Here’s how it works:

Breathe in through your nose for a count of four seconds.
Hold your breath for seven seconds. (If you can't hold for this long, start with three to four seconds)
Exhale for eight seconds, making a "whoosh" sound through pursed lips. (Again, if this is too hard, exhale for a shorter time period.)
Repeat up to four times.

Best of Longevity
Does Life Get Better At A Certain Age?

Young people are often told, “These are the best years of your life.” But the data says that might not be true.

Scientists found that well-being doesn’t peak in youth — it improves steadily with age.

In the most extensive study of its kind, researchers tracked more than 200,000 people from 22 countries for five years to measure what it means to flourish. Scientists examined happiness, purpose, relationships, and even generosity.

While past research showed a U-shaped curve — higher well-being in youth, a dip in middle age, and a rebound later in life — the new data paints a different picture. Flourishing appears to be relatively equal from ages 18 to 49, but increases significantly after 50. That includes areas like:

Inner peace
Optimism
Mastery
Meaning and purpose
Gratitude
Relationship quality

Researchers suspect two reasons for this shift: rising mental health challenges in young people and increasing fulfillment that comes with life experience.

It might sound surprising to some, but if you see aging as a gift, it could be a competitive advantage that increases your well-being with each passing year.

Don’t dread getting older. Instead, shift your mindset to see it as something to look forward to. And if you’re younger and struggling, you’re not alone. Flourishing isn’t fixed. It often takes time and struggles, but the best is still ahead.

Fitness
Best Of Workout Of The Week

We shared 51 unique workouts this year, and we had many favorites. But this dropset sequence was your favorite of the year.

You might feel the need to lower the weight as you get tired. But with the right type of exercise selection, you can perform mechanical drop sets where the movement becomes easier, which means you can keep the weight the same or even go heavier. That means more intensity, less time wasted, and a quick and effective way to get the most out of your muscles without wasting sets and reps.

You can do this as entire workout, or add any of these mechanical dropsets to a workout, or complete as a short-on-time training session.

How to do it
Complete one set of each exercise, resting as little as possible between sets. After you do all three movements, rest, and then repeat once more. Then, move on to the next dropset.

Dropset #1