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Today’s Health Upgrade

• Number you won’t forget

• The sleep quiz: what’s your sleep position?

• Weekly wisdom

• The best time for your most important conversations

The Catch
Find Today’s Answer And Win

Every week, we feature “The Catch,” where we hide a trivia question in an email and then randomly select and reward those who submit the correct answers. Here is this week’s Catch:

Today's email reveals that a common health issue affects 1 in 5 U.S. adults — and a simple anatomical fact explains why one sleeping position makes it worse. What specific feature of your anatomy explains why sleeping on one side reduces acid reflux compared to the other?

Submit your answer here. Three people who answer correctly will be randomly selected to receive a $20 gift to the Pump Club store.

Nutrition
Number You Won’t Forget: 4 Hours

Cutting carbs at night has become its own form of conventional wisdom. The social media gurus will tell you to keep them off the dinner plate if you want to lose fat. 

The problem is that's not how fat loss works. And in chasing the wrong idea, most people miss what the research on carbohydrates actually shows: when you eat them, and what kind, may have a meaningful effect on how well you sleep.

A controlled trial found that eating carbohydrates a few hours before bed could help you fall asleep faster and get more high-quality rest.

Researchers gave participants either high- or low-glycemic rice meals either four hours or one hour before sleep. The high-glycemic meal — think jasmine rice — significantly cut the time it took to fall asleep when consumed four hours out. The same meal one hour before bed? No effect. 

But it wasn’t just one study. A systematic review and meta-analysis pooled data from 11 studies and confirmed that the carb-sleep relationship is real, with one important nuance: total sleep time wasn't necessarily affected by carbohydrate intake. What changed was the kind of sleep.

When you have carbs within a few hours of bedtime, it appears to increase REM sleep. 

Eating some carbs about three to four hours before bed gives your body time to settle, and the gentle rise in blood sugar seems to quiet the brain signals that keep you alert, which may help you fall asleep a little faster. Having that fuel on board also appears to support more dream-stage (REM) sleep, since the brain burns more energy during that phase. Think of it as a mild nudge that works for some people, not a guaranteed sleep switch

If you’re wondering what to eat, the quality of carbs appears to matter. In a large observational study of nearly 5,000 adults, people who ate the most fiber-rich whole foods showed better sleep on nearly every measure compared with those who ate the lowest-quality carbs.

One more reason not to feel like you must completely overhaul your diet. Include carbs at dinner — from white rice to whole grains, legumes, fruit — and give your body several hours to do the work and process before you sleep.

Together with BEDGEAR
The Sleep Quiz: How Your Sleep Position Affects Your Body

You have a sleep position. You probably settled into it years ago, and you've barely thought about it since. It's just how you sleep. Most people are the same way.

What doesn't get much attention is what that position is actually doing to your body while you're unconscious. 

Three independent studies spanning digestive, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal health found that your sleep position might shape your health in ways you never thought about. 

A systematic review and meta-analysis found that sleep position is associated with the amount of stomach acid that reaches your esophagus overnight. Specifically, left-side sleeping was linked to less acid exposure compared to sleeping on the right side or on your back.

The reason is simple geometry: your stomach sits slightly left of center. Sleep on your left, and gravity keeps acid where it belongs. Roll to your right, and that same acid has an easier path upward. An estimated 20% of U.S. adults deal with acid reflux, and most have never been told that the side they sleep on has anything to do with it.

Your sleep position is also linked to your cardiovascular health. An analysis of nearly 15,000 adults tracked for 15 years with sensor-measured position data found that sleep position is connected to heart conditions, but the study was observational, so you can’t assume causation.  

And your upper-body aches and pains could be due to sleep issues. A 2024 case series found that 89% of patients with confirmed rotator cuff tears were habitual side sleepers, well above the general population's roughly 60% rate of side sleeping. The proposed mechanism is what you expect: shoulder pressure. 

Lying on your side compresses the space where rotator cuff tendons live, potentially limiting blood flow to the tissue that's supposed to repair overnight.

Regardless of how you sleep, the takeaway is that proper support and alignment are key to your health. Your sleep position changes the kind of support your body needs night after night.

Knowing your sleep position is step one. Making sure your pillow and sleep system actually support the way you sleep is the part most people miss.

Your sleep position creates specific physical demands, and the little things matter. A pillow built for a back sleeper isn't built for a side sleeper. Body type, shoulder width, whether you run hot or cold — all of these change what "good support" means for your body specifically. 

If you need help understanding your sleep and finding a pillow that fits your body and sleep position, take this sleep quiz.

We love working with experts who are obsessed with one thing. BEDGEAR has spent over 15 years building sleep products around one principle: one size does not fit all. 

Their quiz — seven questions about your sleep position, body type, and temperature preferences — helps you understand your body’s needs. 

The quiz is free and takes about two minutes. And if nothing else, you’ll know a little more about your body, which can give you more clarity. 

You've been sleeping the same way for years. It's worth knowing what your body needs for a great night's rest. 

Mindset 
Weekly Wisdom

The sentence people say most often when they're about to give up on themselves doesn't sound like giving up. It sounds like honesty.

I'm just not a morning person. 
I've never been disciplined. 
Exercise just isn't for me.

It’s framed as self-knowledge. But it's not self-knowledge. It's a story you've told yourself so many times it calcified into a fact.

Here's what de Beauvoir was pointing at, not in the context of fitness, but in the larger project of being human: 

Identity isn't something you discover. It isn't buried inside you, waiting to be excavated. It's built. Slowly. Through repeated action. Through what you do when no one's watching and when every part of you would rather not.

Which means the person who "just doesn't exercise" hasn't found their true self. They've rehearsed a version of themselves until it started to feel permanent.

The trap isn't laziness. It's certainty.

Most people trying to build a new habit approach it as if they're fighting against who they really are, white-knuckling through workouts, bedtimes, or meal prep. That's exhausting, because it's framed as a battle. You vs. you.

But if identity isn't fixed — if you become rather than simply are — then none of this is a fight against your nature. It's the act of authoring it.

The research backs this up in ways that feel almost uncomfortably literal. Studies on identity-based behavior change show that people who shift their self-concept — who say "I'm someone who moves my body" rather than "I'm trying to exercise" — are significantly more consistent over time. 

Not because the words are magic, but because the framing changes the decision. 

A person exercising despite who they are will quit when motivation dips. A person exercising as who they are treats it like maintenance, not willpower.

De Beauvoir didn't use the word "habit." But she understood what researchers would eventually confirm: 

You don't find yourself at the end of a long journey of self-reflection. You build yourself through unglamorous, unremarkable choices primarily made on ordinary days.

The person you'll be in a year is already being assembled. You're deciding which parts go in.

Turn Wisdom Into Action

Pick one behavior you've been writing off as "not who you are." Not the hardest one, but the one closest to your reach.

Don't tell yourself you're trying to do it. Tell yourself you're someone who does it, and then do it.

You're not proving anything. You're rehearsing.

That's the thing about becoming: it doesn't require a transformation. It requires a decision, repeated until it no longer feels like a decision.

Health
The Best Time of Day to Have Your Most Important Conversations

Sometimes, you can prepare perfectly and still fall flat or feel like you were at your best. And if you follow the science, the problem might not be the quality of preparation, but the timing of your performance. 

Scheduling your most important conversations, presentations, and decisions during your biological peak window (mornings for early risers, evenings for night owls) could make you more compelling to others.

In a two-study investigation, researchers measured how chronotype, your built-in biological preference for morning or evening activity, interacts with time of day to shape both how leaders behave and how followers perceive them. Using a validated questionnaire to classify participants as morning or evening types, scientists tracked charismatic leadership behaviors and follower perceptions at different points throughout the day. 

When leaders operated in their biological peak window, followers rated them as significantly more charismatic. The follower's own timing mattered equally: people perceived leaders as more compelling during their own peak hours. 

Why does timing have this kind of pull? Your internal clock governs attention, alertness, emotional tone, and cognitive output throughout the day, not just when you sleep. 

A 2023 review found that people perform better on analytically demanding tasks during their peak hours across attention, memory, decision-making, and persuasion. The benefit is strongest for effortful, high-stakes work. 

And chronically working against your biology carries real costs: misalignment between your internal clock and your daily schedule is linked to metabolic disruption, including higher rates of obesity in large population studies.

Figuring out your “type” is fairly direct. If you naturally wake up around or before 6 a.m. and feel your sharpest before noon, then you’re most likely a morning type. If you start slow and have peak energy in the late afternoon or evening, that suggests you’re an evening type. 

From there, treat your calendar as a biological tool. When possible, move the conversations, negotiations, and creative work that matter most to your peak window. Routine email and low-stakes tasks can fill the rest.

Your chronotype isn't a make-or-break variable. So don’t overthink or sweat it when your schedule doesn’t perfectly align. But it can be a small change that gives you a real working advantage. 

The Positive Corner of The Internet
About Arnold’s Pump Club Editorial Standards

We do things a bit differently here, starting with transparency.

1. The Content: All APC emails are researched, written, and fact-checked by the APC editors (see bottom of the email), with written contributions from Arnold (noted with “Arnold’s Corner”). Links take you to original studies (not second-hand sources).

2. Does AI play a role? Not for the primary content, but it is used in two ways. The main items are original content written by the APC team. The summaries at the end are AI-generated based on the human-written content above. We also use an AI tool to review our interpretations of the research and ensure scientific accuracy. We don’t assume AI is right, but we use technology to hold ourselves accountable.

3. Yes, we have partners (all clearly noted by “Together With”). Why? Because it allows us to keep the APC emails free. We first test products, and then reach out to potential partners who offer ways to help you improve every day. The bar is set high, and to date, we have turned down millions in ad deals. (Example: we will not partner with any non-certified supplements or those without evidence in human trials). If we won’t buy the product, we won’t recommend it to you. And if there’s no evidence it works, then there’s no place for it here.

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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger​

Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell