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Win Prizes: “The Catch”
How closely did you read today’s email? We want to put it to the test and reward those who learned something new. View this like a scavenger hunt of today’s newsletter. Submit the correct answer for the question below, and we’ll randomly select 10 correct answers (not the first 10 people to answer correctly) with a $20 gift card to the Pump Club store.
The Catch: A controlled sleep-lab study on pre-bed phone use challenged the assumption that screens harm sleep. Which age group's melatonin recovered before they fell asleep?
Please submit your answer here.
Today’s Health Upgrade
How to use your phone before bed (without disrupting sleep)
Weekly wisdom
Weekend workout challenge
A calorie-free way to curb hunger?
Fact Or Fiction
Number You Won’t Forget: 60 Minutes
Can You Still Use Your Phone Before Bed Without Disrupting Sleep?
You've been told — convincingly and repeatedly — that using your phone before bed is a fast track to worse sleep and a foggier brain. This is not about suggesting you use your phone more. But if you want it to affect you less, a controlled study suggests the story is more layered than some make it seem.
Researchers found that how long you’re on your phone and when you cut off screen time before sleep time both influence whether your sleep is harmed.
Researchers put young participants in a sleep lab for three nights. Before each night, participants spent 90 minutes doing one of three things: reading on a smartphone without a blue-light filter, with an active blue-light filter, or from a physical book. Full-night brain monitoring, salivary melatonin samples, and a word-pair memory test were administered before bed and the next morning to assess their impact.
The immediate melatonin suppression from unfiltered phone use was real in both groups. But roughly 50 minutes after the phones were off, the teenagers had recovered. The young adults had not.
Despite that, sleep architecture, sleep quality, and overnight memory consolidation were not affected by the phone use.
The scientists believe the gap between phone use and sleep onset may give melatonin enough time to partially recover before the brain starts its overnight work. Why teenagers bounce back faster remains unclear, though it could be because sleep architecture changes as we age, suggesting that phone use might be more draining as we get older.
There are two important details to keep in mind: first, phone use was limited to 90 minutes, and it focused on reading. It was not hours scrolling through social media, which might have a different impact on your brain.
Also, participants stopped using their phones about 1 hour before bed, suggesting that cutting off devices far in advance is essential if you don’t want to disrupt your rest.
And remember, these were younger individuals, and the melatonin didn’t recover as well for those in their twenties. So if you want to protect your sleep, cutting off screens even earlier or spending less time on them overall could help improve rest and recovery.
Mindset
Weekly Wisdom
The cashier takes forever. The driver doesn't wave when you let them in. Your partner answers a question with a tone. Someone cuts in line.
Your shoulders tighten. Your jaw sets. The story writes itself in about a second: They should know better.
This is where MacLaren's quote usually gets misread. We treat it as a moral nudge (be nice because people might be suffering) and file it next to the coffee mug it came on. But the line isn't about rare tragedy.
The battle most people are fighting isn't dramatic. It's fatigue. An argument they had this morning. A back that's been hurting for a month. A kid who woke them up at 4 a.m. The accumulated friction of being a person.
We know how to extend grace to visible struggle. The grieving friend. The colleague going through a divorce. The stranger with a cane. Those are easy.
The harder cases are the ones we judge instantly: the coworker who's "just being difficult," the partner who "should know better," the driver who's "always like this."
Here's what the quote is really offering, and almost no one reads it this way: kindness isn't a gift you give them. It's a regulation tool for you.
Research on positive reappraisal and small acts of kindness shows they shift your physiology. Lower cortisol. Better heart rate variability. A faster return to baseline after something rattles you.
When you choose curiosity about someone's behavior instead of judgment, your body calms down. Their behavior doesn't have to change. Yours does.
That flips the whole quote. MacLaren isn't asking you to sacrifice for others. He's handing you an escape hatch. Every time you assume the worst, your body pays the bill. Every time you extend a little grace ("maybe they're having a hard morning"), you get to exhale.
Turn Wisdom Into Action
The test of this isn't the stranger. The stranger is easy. The test is the person you live with. The one whose battle you think you already know. The one you've decided doesn't have one. That's where we withhold what we freely give to people we'll never see again, because familiarity breeds certainty, and certainty is the enemy of curiosity.
The hardest version of this quote is the one we never say out loud: Be kind to yourself, because you are also fighting a hard battle.
The grace you offer other people usually outpaces what you offer yourself. Fix that ratio and something shifts.
Beyond kindness to yourself, pick one person this week. Not a stranger, but someone you live with, work with, or love. The next time they do something that would normally activate you, pause for three seconds and ask yourself one question: What's the battle I can't see?
You don't need the answer. Asking the question is the whole intervention. Notice your shoulders. Notice your breath. Notice the story you were about to tell yourself, and how quickly it softens when you hold it loosely.
You can't win anyone else's battle. But you can stop making it heavier. And your own gets lighter in the process.
Together With Rogue
Weekend Workout Challenge: Everyone's Doing EMOMs Wrong (The Rest Is The Point)
EMOM stands for Every Minute on the Minute. The minute part matters more than people think.
Here's how most people run an EMOM: they pick an exercise, do as many reps as they can, rest for whatever scraps of time is left, and repeat until they're cooked. By the end, the sets look nothing like the beginning, the rest has shrunk to almost nothing, and the whole thing has turned into a slow grind dressed up in interval clothing.
The real version works differently.
You pick a rep count you can complete in roughly 20 to 30 seconds. The goal is crisp, fast, quality reps.
That leaves you 30 to 40 seconds of actual rest before the next minute starts. You repeat this for time, usually about 8-12 minutes, and volume piles up without chasing fatigue.
The rest isn't a concession. The rest is the mechanism.
EMOM Workout Tips
Pick a number you can finish in under 30 seconds
Start every round at the top of the minute, no matter what. That's what makes it an EMOM and not just "sets with breaks."
The reps should look similar in the final minute as the first, just with more fatigue limiting how many you can do.
5 EMOM Variations
Pick one exercise. Run it for 10 minutes to start.
Pull-ups or chin-ups: Choose a rep count that's about 50–60% of your max. So, if you can do 10 pull-ups, start with 5 per minute.
Barbell or dumbbell deadlift: 3-5 reps per minute, heavier than you'd use for high-rep work. Each set is short, focused, and loaded. Think of it as skill practice that also builds strength.
Kettlebell swings: 10-15 swings per minute. The swing is explosive and short by nature. It fits the EMOM structure perfectly. This is very different from doing 100 swings straight through. The quality of each rep stays high from start to finish.
Pushups: Pick a number that's challenging but not max effort. The volume accumulates quickly. If standard push-ups are too easy, elevate your feet. If they're too hard, elevate your hands. The format scales to wherever you are.
Dumbbell thrusters: The thruster (squat into overhead press) is a full-body movement that earns its rest. Your lungs need the break as much as your muscles do. The weight you choose in minute 1 will feel very different by minute 8.
Sled Push: Load up the sled. Make it heavy enough to push for 10 to 20 seconds. One movement covers lower-body and upper-body strength, and it’s also a great form of cardio.
The goal this weekend is to understand what the rest is actually doing. And, as always, if you want custom workouts and nutrition guidance, a habit builder, coaching and accountability from Arnold’s hand-picked coaches, and the most positive community, start your free 7-day trial in the Pump Club App.
If you’re looking to upgrade your home gym, here are some of our favorites:
Gym Equipment Upgrades
Nutrition
Does Chewing Gum Actually Curb Cravings?
You know the 3 p.m. pull toward the snack drawer, or the after-dinner itch for something sweet when you aren't really hungry. A new review suggests there may be a low-cost tool worth keeping in your pocket, with an asterisk worth reading carefully.
Chewing sugar-free gum appears to blunt short-term hunger and sweet cravings.
Researchers pooled nine randomized controlled trials on chewing gum and appetite. Five of seven trials measuring hunger found that gum reduced it compared to no-gum controls. Three of four that tracked the urge to eat something sweet saw that desire drop, too.
That's the encouraging part. The more complicated part: not all studies found that gum lowered total daily calories.
Why the disconnect? Researchers think chewing cues satiety pathways in the brain, briefly dialing down hunger signals. But a short-term dip in hunger doesn't automatically translate into eating less over the course of a day. Your body is good at catching up if you’re not eating correctly, sleeping well, or managing stress.
In other words, gum can be an effective tool for managing mindless hunger and cravings. But if you don’t have good foundational habits, it likely won’t be a strong enough distraction to help you control overall calorie intake.
If you tend to snack between meals out of habit more than real hunger, a stick of sugar-free gum is a reasonable experiment. Just don't expect it to replace actual food choices and general healthy habits.
And that’s it for this week. Thanks for being a part of the positive corner of the internet. Remember, you have endless opportunities to get better every day. Don’t overthink it, do something, and repeat. Have a fantastic weekend!
Better Today
Take any of these tips from today’s email and put them into action:
1. Phone Use Before Bed Doesn't Wreck Your Sleep — If You Follow the 60-Minute Rule
In a controlled sleep-lab study, participants who read on their phones for 90 minutes before bed had their melatonin levels suppressed, but their sleep quality, sleep architecture, and overnight memory consolidation remained unchanged. The variable that mattered wasn't the phone itself; it was the hour-long gap between device use and sleep, which gave melatonin time to partially recover before the brain started its overnight work. Arnold's long-standing bedtime discipline holds up here: if you read on your phone, stop at least 60 minutes before lights out — and cut it closer if you're over 25, because melatonin recovery slows with age.
2. The 3-Second Intervention That Lowers Cortisol and Improves Heart Rate Variability
Research on positive reappraisal — the practice of choosing curiosity over judgment when someone frustrates you — shows it measurably lowers cortisol and improves heart rate variability. The reframe matters: kindness isn't a gift you give other people; it's a physiological regulation tool you use on yourself, because every snap judgment about someone else's behavior costs your nervous system. Arnold has been clear for decades that how you respond to friction shapes your performance more than the friction itself. This week, pause for three seconds before reacting to someone close to you and ask what battle you can't see.
3. You're Doing EMOM Workouts Wrong. The Rest Is the Mechanism, Not the Reps
EMOM workouts — Every Minute on the Minute — only work when the rest does, and most people pick a rep count too high, shrink the recovery, and turn what should be crisp interval training into a slow grind. The actual protocol is simple: pick a number of reps you can complete in 20 to 30 seconds, start each set at the top of the minute, and use the remaining 30 to 40 seconds as real recovery — run it for 8 to 12 minutes total. This matches Arnold's long-standing principle that rep quality, not fatigue accumulation, builds strength — use it this weekend with pull-ups, deadlifts, kettlebell swings, push-ups, thrusters, or sled pushes.
4. Review of 9 Trials: Gum Blunts Cravings for Sweets. Here's What It Can't Do
A systematic review of 9 randomized controlled trials found sugar-free gum reduced short-term hunger in 5 of 7 studies and cut cravings for sweets in 3 of 4 — but did not reliably lower total daily calorie intake. The mechanism appears to be chewing itself, which cues satiety pathways in the brain, briefly dialing down hunger signals without changing the underlying drivers of how much you eat over a full day. Gum is a reasonable tool for the 3 p.m. drawer pull or the after-dinner sweet itch — but it only works alongside the fundamentals that Arnold has preached for decades: real food choices, sleep, and stress management do the heavy lifting.
The Positive Corner of The Internet
About Arnold’s Pump Club Editorial Standards
We do things a bit differently here, starting with transparency.
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).
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.
Yes, we have partners (all clearly noted). 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
