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Today’s Health Upgrade
Number you won’t forget
Can you talk your way to a stronger sense of self?
Weekly wisdom
Rethinking good foods vs. bad foods
Connection
Number You Won’t Forget: 2X
People Are Kinder Than You Think. And Knowing That Is More Important Than You Realize
Scroll through any news feed for five minutes, and you'll walk away convinced the world is getting colder. Ruder. More selfish. It feels obvious. It also happens to be wrong.
When researchers dropped wallets in cities around the world, they were returned roughly twice as often as people predicted, suggesting most of us carry an inaccurate picture of how decent other people are. And while your perception of kindness might not appear like a big deal, it has more of an influence than you imagine.
The researchers weren't just tracking kindness. They were tracking what we believe about kindness. And the gap between those two things turns out to be one of the most consequential errors we make.
Belief isn't just a feeling; it's a predictor.
The report found that expecting others to be kind is associated with a larger boost in life satisfaction than doubling your income.
How you see the world shapes how you experience it, and most of us have been seeing it through a lens that's darker than the data warrants.
Performing kind acts is linked to greater well-being. And expecting kindness from others carries even more weight in the data. What you assume about people isn't just a personality trait. It's something closer to a daily tax on your happiness, or a dividend, depending on how you're running the numbers.
This isn't an argument for naivety. It's about a specific, correctable perspective. You've been underestimating people. The research says so. And that underestimation has a cost you've probably never accounted for.
If you need evidence, think of something you're working on, something you've been holding close because you assumed no one would care or help. Reach out to one person about it today or this weekend. Not because the outcome is guaranteed. Because your assumptions about what you'll get back are probably wrong, and the only way to find out is to try.
Together With Babbel
Why Learning a Language Does More Than Improve Communication
Since ChatGPT launched, a reasonable question has been floating around: Why spend months learning a new language when your phone can do it in three seconds?
Researchers took that question seriously, and what they found makes a compelling argument that the translation was never really the point.
Researchers analyzed 105 peer-reviewed studies and discovered six distinct ways that learning a language improves your life.
The benefits include well-being and identity, cognitive function, professional development, intercultural competence, and academic performance.
People who learned a new language didn't just get better at that language. They reported a stronger sense of self. Greater resilience under stress. Deeper social connection, not just with speakers of the new language, but within their existing relationships. Their careers opened up in ways they hadn't predicted. Their thinking sharpened.
The researchers point to something worth understanding: language learning appears to work as a kind of full-spectrum developmental challenge. Unlike passive forms of self-improvement — reading about habits or listening to podcasts about productivity — learning a language requires you to be uncomfortable, wrong, and vulnerable on a regular basis. That friction, practiced consistently, builds something that extends well beyond conjugation.
It's worth being honest about the limitations here. Many of the studies relied on self-reported outcomes, and the evidence is stronger in some domains than in others. This isn't a guarantee. It's a consistent pattern across a wide body of evidence and a meaningful one.
The studies suggest that a small commitment to genuine language learning may be one of the most underrated investments you can make in yourself.
If you’re looking for a place to start, Babbel's method is built around real-life conversation from day one, not rote memorization, not endless vocabulary drills. Bite-sized lessons, grammar you can actually apply, bingeable podcasts, and interactive speaking practice designed to get you talking out loud within three weeks. Not "technically knowing words." Talking. The research consistently shows that engagement and real-world application are what drive the identity and well-being benefits, not passive study.
And right now, Babbel is running its Spring Sale, which gives you 60% off Lifetime access to all 14 languages in the app. Give it a try, commit a little bit of time, and see how it improves your life.
Mindset
Weekly Wisdom
Pay close attention to the words Vonnegut uses. He says create community. And he calls it the most daring thing.
As in: this takes something from you.
As in: most people won't do it.
He also says stable. That word is doing more work than it looks like. A stable community isn't a one-time dinner or a group chat that goes quiet for months. It's the thing that keeps showing up. The recurring workout. The standing call. The people who look out for you, challenge you, and show up for you.
Social media gave us the wrong idea about creating community. We spend time optimizing for reach — more followers, wider networks. And most of us feel more isolated than ever. The research tracks this: loneliness has been climbing even as our social surfaces have expanded.
What's missing isn't more likes. It's connection, community, and continuity. The experience of being known over time, not just encountered.
Here's what makes this hard: creating a stable community requires exactly the kind of vulnerability that loneliness trains you to avoid.
When you're lonely, you start to believe that reaching out is an imposition. That other people have their own full lives, that you'll be a burden. So you wait. You hope the invitation comes to you. And you slowly drift toward a life that's wide but shallow, visible but unseen.
Or, you convince yourself that you don’t need other people. You don’t need to open up. You don’t need to break down barriers or be challenged to grow beyond where you are.
Vonnegut's word — daring — is the antidote to that drift. It names what's actually required. Not charm. Not perfect timing. Courage. The courage to say, “I want to be a part of something, and I want to show up for others.”
That's not soft. That's the hardest social act there is.
Turn Wisdom Into Action
Every weekend in The Pump Club app, Arnold kicks off the weekend schmooze. It’s a chance to share wins and losses. And every Monday in the app, we call our shots, name our goals, and lay it out there so the community can hold one another accountable.
You can join us, or take a page from us and connect with someone you know to talk about wins and losses, or call your shot.
You can do it with a close friend. Or, if you’re feeling daring, identify one relationship in your life that has the potential for stability but hasn't gotten there. A friend you keep meaning to see, a neighbor you always mean to know better, a former colleague who actually matters to you.
Reach out with something specific. Not "we should hang out sometime." Something with a day, a time, a place. Make it easy to say yes. Make it something that could recur.
You're not solving loneliness immediately. You're laying one plank of the thing that does. That's enough for this week.
Because oftentimes, the most daring thing you can do rarely starts with a grand gesture. It starts with one person deciding to stop waiting and choosing to build.
Better Questions, Better Solutions
The Problem Isn't the Pizza. It's the Label. (And Your Verdict)
The old question: How do I stop labeling foods as good or bad?
The better question: What role do I want this food to play in my life: fuel, enjoyment, connection, or comfort?
The label comes first. Then comes the guilt. Then comes the negotiation: the bargaining, the "I'll make up for it tomorrow," the mental math that turns a slice of birthday cake into a character flaw.
Most attempts to fix your struggles with food target the labels themselves: Stop calling foods "bad." Practice food neutrality. Reframe, reframe, reframe. And while the advice in isolation can work, sometimes, it’s better to rethink your approach.
Because for many people, the labels aren't the real problem. The problem is that they hand your eating decisions over to a moral court — one that always has a verdict waiting before you even take a bite.
Food roles work differently. A role isn't a judgment. It's a question about function and intention.
Is this meal fuel? Something to power a long afternoon?
Is it enjoyment? A Saturday morning you actually want to savor?
Is it connection? The thing your grandmother made, the dish your friends order every time?
Is it comfort? Because it's been a hell of a week, and this is what you need?
None of those answers is wrong, depending on how often you excuse behaviors that don’t align with your goals. (Giving in to comfort foods every day is a signal that something is wrong.) But understanding the roles that food can play can tell you something useful about why you're eating, which is the one thing labels never do.
Research on dietary restraint consistently finds that rigid food rules — the mental equivalent of good/bad sorting — are associated with higher rates of binge eating and emotional eating, not lower ones.
Strict rules that require extreme behaviors and no margin for error don't protect you. They prime you. The moment a "bad" food enters the picture, the restriction-to-overcorrection cycle is already in motion.
Roles break that cycle because they require intention instead of permission.
Before your next meal or snack, ask the role question: one honest answer, no judgment attached. You don't have to change anything yet. Just notice.
Then, start tracking the roles you assign to foods. Pay attention to certain trends that pop up. When you are more on track and when you stray. The goal is to find patterns, so you can adjust your behavior. When you do that, you can still find time and place for certain foods while creating habits and routines that support your overall health.
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, do something, and repeat. Have a fantastic weekend!
-Arnold, Adam, and Daniel
Better Today
Take any of these tips from today’s email and put them into action:
1. Expecting Others to Be Kind Boosts Life Satisfaction
In a global wallet-drop experiment, people returned lost wallets roughly twice as often as researchers predicted — revealing a consistent and measurable gap between how kind people actually are and how kind we assume them to be. That gap has a real cost: researchers found that expecting others to be kind is linked to a larger boost in life satisfaction than doubling your income, making optimism about people one of the most underrated variables in well-being.
2. Learning a Language Improves 6 Domains of Your Life, According to a Review of 105 Studies
A review of 105 peer-reviewed studies found that learning a language yields benefits across six distinct domains — cognitive function, professional development, well-being, identity, intercultural competence, and academic performance — none of which an AI translation app can deliver, because the translation was never the actual point. The mechanism the research points to is the friction itself: language learning is one of the few self-improvement practices that requires sustained discomfort, public failure, and vulnerability on a regular basis, and that repeated exposure builds resilience and identity that transfers across all areas of life. The evidence is stronger in some domains than others, and the studies rely partly on self-reported outcomes. But a consistent pattern across 105 studies is a meaningful signal, and the research suggests that 10 minutes of genuine daily practice may be among the most underrated full-spectrum investments available.
3. The Loneliness Epidemic Isn't a Contacts Problem. It's a Connection Problem.
Loneliness has continued to rise even as social surfaces expand — a pattern researchers have consistently documented, and one that points to a specific gap: wider networks, fewer genuine connections. What the evidence links to resilience and long-term well-being isn't more contacts or a larger digital footprint — it's stability: the recurring workout, the standing call, the relationships that don't require a special occasion to show up. Building that kind of community requires the thing loneliness trains you to avoid — the courage to reach out specifically, not someday, and to stop waiting for an invitation before you extend one.
4. Stop Asking If a Food Is Good or Bad. Research Suggests The Question Could Be Part of the Problem.
Research on dietary restraint consistently finds that rigid food rules — mentally categorizing foods as good or bad — are linked to higher rates of binge eating and emotional eating because strict moral categorization primes an overcorrection cycle the moment a "bad" food appears. A more effective framework is role-based: instead of asking whether a food is permitted, ask what function it's serving — fuel, enjoyment, connection, or comfort — a question that requires intention rather than permission and interrupts the restriction-to-overcorrection pattern before it starts. The practical move is to name the role honestly before your next meal, track where patterns emerge, and use that information to build behavioral flexibility, which research consistently shows strict rules fail to produce.
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
