Welcome to the positive corner of the internet. Every weekday, we help you make sense of the complex world of wellness by analyzing the headlines, simplifying the latest research, and providing quick tips designed to help you stay healthier in under 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
The 1% change the wrecks your focus
Weekly wisdom
The happiness trap
A Little Wiser (In Less Than 10 Minutes)
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Longevity
Number You Won’t Forget: 15 Minutes
Forget about hour-long gym sessions or complicated workout routines.
What if the difference between a longer life and a shorter one came down to just a quarter of an hour each day?
If you've ever skipped exercise because you couldn't find time for a "real" workout, here's news that might change how you think about fitness forever: the latest research shows that 15 minutes of prioritizing intensity can be far more effective than hours of less-challenging exercise.
Fast walking just 15 minutes per day was associated with a nearly 20 percent reduction in total mortality.
Researchers followed nearly 85,000 adults for over 16 years to understand how different walking patterns affect longevity.
Those who walked briskly for just 15 minutes daily had dramatically lower death rates from all causes, especially cardiovascular disease. Meanwhile, people who spent over three hours walking slowly saw minimal benefits despite investing 12 times more effort.
Fast walking forces your heart to work harder, improving its efficiency and pumping capacity. It also helps reduce obesity, lower blood pressure, and improve cholesterol levels—all major cardiovascular risk factors. Think of it as getting your heart's daily dose of medicine in concentrated form.
It’s a great reminder that your health is in your hands. A 15-minute brisk walk can happen in your living room, up and down stairs, or around a parking lot. The key is walking fast enough that your heart rate is elevated and you feel challenged, but not so intensely that you can’t hold a conversation.
Together With Yeti
The 1% Problem That’s Wrecking Your Focus
You don’t need to be drenched in sweat or stranded in the desert to be dehydrated. In fact, just a tiny drop in hydration might be enough to throw off your memory and concentration.
Even mild dehydration—less than 1% of body weight—can impair your brain’s performance. But drinking just 10 ounces of water can reverse the effect.
In a randomized controlled trial, researchers exposed adults to 4 hours of mild heat and divided them into two groups: one group drank 300 mL of water (approximately 10 oz), and the other group drank none. The difference? Less than 1% of body weight in water loss.
The results were undeniable: the group that didn’t rehydrate saw noticeable declines in memory and attention. And the drop in brainpower wasn’t due to feeling thirsty—it was due to actual fluid loss. That means you can be mentally foggy without even realizing you’re dehydrated.
And here’s the kicker: this kind of fluid loss is extremely common. It happens during your workday. On a short walk. On a flight. Even just sitting in a warm office.
If you want to stay focused, hydrated, and sharp—don’t wait until you're thirsty. Keep water within reach and sip often.
That’s why we recommend the YETI 26 oz Water Bottle. It’s made from ultra-durable stainless steel with double-wall vacuum insulation to keep your water ice cold all day. The straw lid makes it effortless to sip between meetings, workouts, or errands. And its sleek, reusable design serves as a constant visual cue to hydrate—without adding another to-do to your day.
Whether you’re heading to the gym, your desk, or just hanging around your home, having a YETI water bottle at your side is the easiest way to make the 1% difference that keeps your brain sharp.
Mindset
Weekly Wisdom
We’ve all been there: lying awake at night, replaying scenarios in our head, building entire disasters out of thin air. And yet, when the real challenge shows up, it’s rarely as terrifying as the version we invented. Epictetus nailed it 2,000 years ago:
The thing that wears us down isn’t reality, it’s the stories we create about what might happen.
Anxiety feeds on imagination. The “what ifs” multiply, and suddenly the weight of problems that don’t even exist keeps us from addressing the ones right in front of us. But most of the time, the worst-case scenario is survivable. And often, it never comes at all.
Turn Wisdom Into Action
The next time you feel stuck in worry, pause and ask: What is the real problem I need to deal with right now?
Write it down in one sentence. Then write the single next step you can take toward addressing it. By moving from imagined disasters to concrete action, you take away anxiety’s power and reclaim your focus.
Better Questions, Better Solutions
The Happiness Trap That’s Making You Miserable
Old Question: How can I be happier?
Better Question: What am I doing in pursuit of happiness that’s actually making me less happy?
Most people treat happiness like a finish line: something you can sprint toward if you pick the right goals or practices. But the science tells a different story.
Research shows that chasing happiness directly often creates pressure, unrealistic expectations, and disappointment. The more you force it, the more it slips away.
Real well-being comes when you stop treating happiness as the goal—and start treating it as the side effect of growth, connection, and meaning.
A team of researchers looked at what happens when people try to “buy” their way to happiness—through things like vacations, gadgets, or little splurges. The boost didn’t last long. People quickly got used to their new thing and slid back to their usual mood.
Another massive review dug through thousands of happiness experiments to see what really works. The surprising result? Many of the most popular tips didn’t hold up as reliably as people hoped.
And here’s why it didn’t deliver — because directly pursuing happiness often backfires by setting up expectations that reality can’t meet.
This doesn’t mean happiness is impossible—it just means it can’t be hunted like a trophy. Instead, it grows best as a byproduct of living in alignment with values, investing in relationships, learning, and contributing to something bigger than yourself.
If you want to feel happier, it might be more effective to stop asking, “Will this make me happy?” and start asking, “Will this make me grow or help me develop something that matters to me?”
Whether it’s learning a new skill, spending deeper time with a friend, or contributing to a cause you care about, shift your focus to meaning-making. Happiness will show up—not as a target, but as your traveling companion.
And that’s it for this week. 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
Better Today
Take any of these tips from today’s email and put them into action:
Fast Walking for Longevity: Fast walking for just 15 minutes daily reduces total mortality risk by nearly 20 percent.
Dehydration Destroys Mental Performance: Even mild dehydration of less than 1% body weight significantly impairs memory and concentration, but drinking just 10 ounces of water can immediately reverse these cognitive deficits.
Stop Worrying About Imaginary Problems Focus on real, actionable problems rather than anxious "what if" scenarios, as most mental suffering comes from imagined disasters that never actually occur.
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Chase Growth, Not Happiness Instead of directly pursuing happiness (which often backfires), focus on meaningful growth, relationships, and contribution—happiness naturally follows as a byproduct of purposeful living.
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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell
