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Today’s Health Upgrade

• The search for meaning

• Maybe you should take a few sips

• Have scientists unlocked the way to preserve muscle?

• How to change your relationship with stress

Instant Health Boost
Are You Searching For Meaning? Start Here

You finally check the big box. You accomplish the promotion or the goal you’ve been chasing. But a week later, you're staring at the ceiling, surprised it didn't fill the space you expected. 

Scientists have found that the most consistent ingredient of a meaningful life isn't your big goals. It's the plain sense that your existence makes a difference to someone.

Psychologists suggest that meaning has three parts: mattering (your existence counts), purpose (you've got direction and goals), and coherence (your life makes sense). 

To understand the role each plays, scientists put all three head-to- head. Across three studies, mattering was the one that most consistently predicted whether people later called their lives meaningful. Purpose and coherence still had influence, but they didn't add much if mattering was present. 

The scientists explained that meaning is about significance and feeling that you count. Purpose points you somewhere. Mattering makes the trip feel worth taking.

You don't have to matter to thousands for you to feel the difference. It lives in the call to a friend who depends on you, the coworker you check on, the child you help handle a bad day. It’s not about the scale of your efforts but your impact. 

So if you’re looking for meaning, look at the people who matter to you, and make your difference to them unmistakable. Send the text, show up early, say the specific thing out loud. It's not about the size of the effort. It’s about consistency and intent. 

Together With LMNT
What Happens If You Don’t Rehydrate During Your Workouts?

It's July, you're halfway up a long climb, and you stop for a break. You’re not overly thirsty, but it feels like a drink is the right thing to do. So you wonder: can a few swigs of water do anything, or do you need to refuel?

After sweating, drinking even a little of the fluid you’ve lost can boost performance. And the hotter it is, the more it helps to drink. 

Researchers analyzed 64 trials involving dehydrated adults who lost 1.3 to 4.2% of their body weight and then either drank fluid or didn't before a performance test. For continuous endurance work like cycling or running to exhaustion, taking drinks during your workout made a real difference.

Hydration directly influences how hard you can push, but when the scientists looked into the data, the temperature was the game-changer.

In cool or indoor conditions, drinking didn’t have the same impact. Once it got above about 77°F, the benefit roughly doubled. 

And you don’t need to fully rehydrate. Even partial topping-off helped.

When you sweat in the heat, you're not just losing water; you're losing some of the fluid that makes up your blood. Thinner, lower blood means your heart has to work harder, and your body has to send a bigger share of it to your skin just to cool you down. 

That leaves less for the muscles doing the work. Drink and you refill the tank, which is why it helps most exactly when the heat is draining you fastest.

Sodium is what keeps water in the tank. Replace it along with the fluid and more of what you drink stays in your blood volume, the exact thing the heat was pulling down.

That's not an argument against water. It's the reason a hot, hard session is precisely when electrolytes deliver their greatest value.

For those sweat-depleting workouts, that’s when LMNT works best. Each stick contains sodium, potassium, and magnesium, dosed to replace what you’ve lost.

No sugar. No artificial colors. No fillers. On a hot day or during a hard workout, that's the right way to hydrate to keep your tank full and your body functioning at near-peak performance.

APC readers get a free LMNT Sample Pack, 8 of their most popular flavors, with any drink mix purchase. Click here to claim yours. It's added to your cart automatically, no code needed, and there's a no-questions-asked refund if it's not for you.

On Our Radar
Can a Drug Help You Keep Muscle While You Lose Fat?

There are many reasons we suggest everyone does some form of strength training. It benefits longevity and your brain, and helps fight disease.

And it’s also because when you lose weight, if you’re not lifting weights, you're cutting more than just fat. In general, a quarter to a third of what comes off is muscle, and sometimes — if you’re not eating right or resistance training — it’s even more. 

But science is changing the rules, and a new study suggests we might soon have another way to help preserve more muscle.

Scientists found that combining an experimental antibody with a GLP-1 cut muscle loss roughly in half.

Researchers randomly assigned overweight or obese adults to take tirzepatide (the GLP-1 drug sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound) with a placebo, or combining tirzepatide with an antibody called apitegromab. 

After 24 weeks, the placebo group lost more than twice as much muscle, despite total weight loss almost being identical. Put another way, on tirzepatide alone, 30% of the weight people lost was lean mass. Add apitegromab, and that fell to 15%. 

The antibody targets myostatin, your body's brake on muscle. Apitegromab blocks it from switching on, so you hold onto more lean tissue while the fat comes off.

The drug preserved lean mass, but it didn't do anything for performance. Grip strength and sit-to-stand tests showed no advantage. DEXA also can't separate real muscle from organ tissue and water, so it’s possible that it wasn’t all muscle. 

The research is still early, and needs more testing to verify results and safety, so it’s not exactly something you can look for at your pharmacy. 

Regardless of whether you end up using any of these medications, the proven way to hold onto both muscle and strength is the unglamorous one: lift something heavy at least two or three times a week and eat enough protein, at least 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight.

Better Questions, Better Solutions
Stress Isn't the Problem. Your Relationship to It Is.

You know the feeling before the big meeting. Your palms are sweaty, knees weak, and your arms are heavy. 

Your first instinct is to make it stop. Deep breaths, a walk around the block, anything to get back to calm before you open the door.

That instinct feels responsible. But it might not be the right move.

Old question: How do I get rid of this stress?
Better question: Is this stress preparing me for something that matters?

Your body ramps up in strikingly similar ways whether you're terrified or thrilled: racing pulse, tunnel focus, a flood of energy. The difference maker is the story you tell yourself about what is happening.

If you read the pounding heart as a threat, your body braces to protect you. However, if you see it as your system gearing up, then the same arousal starts working for you.

Alia Crum, a Stanford psychologist, ran a study at a large financial firm during the 2008 financial crisis, as the company weathered a wave of cuts. Over the course of a week, employees were randomly assigned to watch short videos: one group saw stress framed as debilitating (bad for health, focus, and performance), while another saw it framed as enhancing (the thing that helps you rise and perform when it counts). 

Nothing about their jobs changed. Only how they were taught to see the stress.

The employees primed to see stress as enhancing went on to report better health and stronger performance at work. All that was different was the framing of the situation. 

And the shift isn't only in how you feel. In separate lab experiments, the scientists put people through stressful situations, such as public speaking, after framing their mindset as either problematic or positive. Those primed to see stress as enhancing showed a more moderate cortisol response and released more DHEA, a hormone associated with recovery and growth.

You can't always lower the stress in your life. But you can change how you see it and use it.

Try this: The next time your body ramps up before something hard, don't reach for calm. Ask yourself: What is this energy trying to help me do? 

Name the thing that matters and why your system switched on. Then, manage the stress instead of fighting it.

The goal isn't a stress-free life. That's not realistic. But it is possible to turn some stressors into situations that work in your favor.

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