Welcome to the positive corner of the internet. Every weekday, we make sense of the confusing world of wellness by analyzing the headlines, simplifying the latest research, and offering quick tips designed to make you healthier in less than 5 minutes. If you were forwarded this message, you can get the free daily email here.
Today’s Health Upgrade
Number you won’t forget
Do you have a drinking problem?
Weekly wisdom
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Let’s talk about coffee after dessert
Arnold’s Podcast
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Health
Number You Won’t Forget: 240X
You’ll get over being surprised in a heartbeat. You’ll brush off boredom in minutes. But sadness? That emotion hits differently.
Sadness can last up to 240 times longer than most other emotions.
A team of psychologists explored why some feelings last longer than others. To find out, they analyzed 27 different emotions, from joy and gratitude to fear, frustration, guilt, and sadness.
While emotions like shame, irritation, and even surprise can pass within minutes, sadness could linger for hours—or even days. On average, it lasted up to 240 times longer than the shortest emotions.
The researchers found that the duration of an emotion was primarily driven by two factors: how important the triggering event felt and how much people ruminated on it. In other words, if something felt personally meaningful and your brain kept spinning on it, you would likely get stuck in a cycle of sadness.
Emotions like fear or disgust often prompt quick, physical responses, which can help your body “complete the loop” and move on. But sadness doesn’t always offer a physical outlet. Instead, it festers through thoughts, making it harder to process and resolve. The more you think about what happened, the longer the sadness lasts.
But here’s the upside: understanding what keeps sadness alive also reveals how you can break the cycle.
If sadness tends to linger, don’t try to outrun it—acknowledge it, then find a way to shift your attention. Movement, connection, journaling, and perspective-taking (like reframing the meaning of the event) are all proven tools to reduce rumination and emotional inertia.
Just because sadness can last 240 times longer doesn’t mean it has to. If you’re feeling stuck, you’re not broken. You’re human. But with the right tools, you can stop spinning—and start healing.
Together With LMNT
Is Dehydration Quietly Aging You?
While most studies focus on how hydration can affect exercise performance, muscle gain, immunity, and fatigue, the stakes could be even higher.
Research suggests that if you’re not hydrating well, you could silently accelerate aging, increase your risk of chronic disease, and shorten your lifespan.
Researchers followed more than 11,000 adults for 30 years. Rather than just examining how much water people drank, scientists focused on serum sodium levels—a more accurate measure of hydration status. As serum sodium rises, fluid intake typically drops.
The researchers excluded those with obesity or pre-existing conditions that could skew sodium levels and adjusted for factors like age, sex, smoking, and high blood pressure. Then they assessed biological aging across 15 health markers, such as blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, lung function, and inflammation.
Poor hydration was linked to a 15 percent increased risk of being biologically older than your actual age and a 21 percent chance of early death. And that’s likely because there’s a 64 percent greater risk of developing chronic diseases like heart failure, stroke, diabetes, lung disease, and dementia.
The researchers believe this is because chronic low hydration may impair multiple body systems, especially cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune health.
While the study doesn’t prove that drinking more water will automatically extend your life, the connection is strong enough that researchers say hydration deserves more attention.
Most adults benefit from 6 to 9 cups (1.5–2.2 liters) per day for women and 8 to 12 cups (2–3 liters) for men—via water, other fluids, and high-water foods like fruits and vegetables. And if you’re unsure how much is right for you, consider asking your doctor about testing your hydration status, especially if you’re on medications or have conditions that affect fluid balance.
If you struggle with hydration, LMNT replenishes the electrolytes you lose when you sweat, without any added sugar, artificial ingredients, or unnecessary colors. Water can do the trick, but we’ve found that most people struggle to drink enough, and LMNT makes it a more enjoyable experience, which can help you build the habit.
If you’re active, your muscles and neurons need electrolytes, such as sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Sweating depletes your body of electrolytes, which can affect performance and recovery.
As an APC reader, grab a free 8-packet sample pack (all flavors!) with any purchase through this link. If you’re not satisfied, their no-questions-asked refund policy has you covered.
LMNT recently released Lemondade Salt for the summer, and we think it might be their best flavor yet.
As a rule of thumb, drink 16 to 20 ounces of water 1 to 2 hours before training and sip another 8–10 ounces about 15 minutes before your workout.
Mindset
Weekly Wisdom
Turn Wisdom Into Action
Instead of changing goals, look closely at how you spend your time. What habits are holding you back? And, maybe more importantly, what “good” habits aren’t getting the job done? The more you assess how you spend your time, the better you can use that time to shape a more desirable future.
Nutrition
Coffee After Dessert? You Might Want To Hold Off
You might fall asleep just fine after a late cup of coffee. But under the surface, your brain is wide awake — and that could be costing you memory, recovery, and next-day performance.
Taking caffeine within three hours of bedtime shifts your brain into a more chaotic, wake-like state, disrupting sleep quality even if you sleep through the night.
In this new study, researchers investigated how caffeine alters brain activity during sleep by giving participants 200 mg of caffeine (about two small cups of coffee). Using electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring, they tracked changes in brain complexity and “criticality” — a measure of how organized and restful the brain is during sleep.
Caffeine increased brain complexity and decreased the restorative properties of deep sleep. And the older you are, the more caffeine shifts your sleep toward patterns resembling wakefulness, undermining your brain’s ability to recover and consolidate memories.
The researchers suggest that caffeine increases neural noise and disrupts the normal transitions between sleep stages, keeping the brain hyper-aroused. That’s especially problematic for older adults, whose sleep architecture is already more fragmented with age.
But here’s what was most interesting: participants didn’t notice much difference in how well they slept, but their brains did.
If you want better sleep, clearer thinking, and sharper memory, cut off caffeine at least 8 hours before bed. A simple shift in timing could help your brain rest and wake up stronger.
And that’s a wrap for this week, and what a week it has been. Thank you for being a part of the positive corner of the internet, and we hope you all have a fantastic weekend!
-Arnold, Adam, and Daniel
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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell
