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Today’s Health Upgrade

• Your problem is not willpower (but it might be this)

• Is exercise the key to better sleep?

• Adam’s Corner: You’re only young once

Mindset
The Marshmallow Test Got Willpower Backward. The Lesson Could Help You Achieve More Of Your Goals

You skipped the workout again. Poured the second drink. Scrolled past midnight when you meant to be asleep at ten. 

And somewhere along the way, you decided the problem is you. That you just weren't built with enough willpower. But science tells a different story. And once you “get it,” you can make the small changes that help you achieve more. 

The people who seem to have ironclad self-control aren't fighting temptation harder than you. They've set up their lives so they rarely have to fight it at all.

Every time scientists stack up the studies and run meta-analyses, they keep landing on the same thing: strong self-control has less to do with toughness and more to do with how often you're tempted in the first place. 

Put differently, if you’re trying to eat better, the win isn't resisting the cookie. It's not keeping cookies in the kitchen in the first place. 

That flips a story most of us were taught in school. In the 1970s, Stanford researchers sat little kids in front of a marshmallow and made a deal: eat it now, or wait a few minutes and get two. The ones who held out, the story went, grew up healthier and more successful. One test of patience at age four, supposedly predicting your whole life.

A 2024 study followed children from ages 4 to 26 and examined their progress over 20 years. At first, the old pattern held. Kids who waited scored slightly better in school and were a healthier weight as young adults. Then researchers controlled for family background and income, and the links vanished. 

Waiting at four didn't predict who'd build better habits later. It didn't even predict impulse control at 26.

So what was that original test actually catching? Not some inner strength a few lucky kids were born with. Mostly their circumstances: the stability and resources that, once researchers accounted for them, explained the gap on their own. 

The "willpower" everyone saw was largely the world those kids were standing in.

That's the part for you to remember. You can't rewrite the home you grew up in, but you can rearrange the room you're in now, and that's exactly where the self-control research keeps finding. 

The people who look disciplined aren't gritting their teeth harder than you. They've built lives where the temptation rarely shows up.

Which brings it back to the kitchen. Keep the ice cream out of the freezer, and there's nothing to resist at 10 p.m. Set your gym clothes out the night before, and the morning workout stops being a decision. Charge your phone in the kitchen, and the late scroll never starts.

You're not weak. You're probably just standing too close to the temptation you want to avoid.

Fitness
The Real Reason Exercise Helps You Sleep

You probably know that working out helps you sleep. What rarely gets discussed is which kind helps most, and why it works at all.

Scientists took a swing at the first question and handed us a useful map for the second.

Researchers pooled 24 randomized trials involving more than 2,000 older adults with insomnia symptoms and then ranked exercise types using a standard sleep-quality index.

Every type of exercise studied improved how well people reported sleeping. Strength training came out on top, followed by aerobic exercise, then combination training.

These weren’t head-to-head trials, so consider "resistance training wins" promising, but not the final word.

The study didn't test why exercise helps, but other research points to what is most likely happening in your body that makes your work translate to better rest. 

Regular activity also anchors your circadian rhythm, making it easier to fall asleep and stay in deeper rest. Exercise also raises your core temperature, and the cool-down afterward seems to ease the body toward sleep. And training lowers anxiety, which quiets the keyed-up arousal that keeps people staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m.

But what really matters isn’t comparing exercise like it’s a competition, but rather appreciating that every kind of exercise improves sleep. 

If rest is a struggle, movement belongs in the equation, and any type of exercise that you’ll do consistently is a good place to start.

Adam’s Corner
You’re Only Young Once

Five days. Stops in six cities, spread across four countries. Me, Arnold, and Ketch, bouncing from one stop to the next.

When you work with Arnold, you learn that there is the schedule and then there is reality. And reality is you can’t plan for what will happen, so you just have to be ready at all times. I was ready to work, and then head home.

As Arnold would say, “No monkey business.”

Near the end of the trip, I told Arnold I was headed back before everyone else. My job was done. Arnold and Ketch still had the Austrian Environmental Summit, a day to enjoy, and then more work in Prague, before returning to Budapest to keep filming a movie.

He looked at me like the math didn’t add up.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he said.

I’d spent the whole trip working, he told me. City to city. Meeting to meeting. And I hadn’t carved out time for life.

“Arnold, my kids are only young once,” I explained, as if he didn’t get it.

But, of course, he did. He’s a father.

I explained this was the longest I’d ever been away from my kids. I missed them. I felt guilty for being gone. And I didn’t want to miss their childhood, because everyone keeps reminding me how fast it disappears. I see it already in my oldest, who is approaching his teenage years far too quickly.

So while I defended the decision, I also listened. Arnold has lived long enough to have some authority on the subject of time, is the busiest human I’ve ever met, and has a great relationship with his kids.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Arnold sometimes gives deep answers when I ask for his opinion, and other times he’s refreshingly brief and honest, saying, “I don’t know.”

But Arnold said something that sent me on a long walk later that day.

“Adam, you’re only young once.”

The Advice You Know But Don’t Take

A few days earlier, we’d held a Pump Club meetup in Thal, the little town where Arnold grew up. There are no words to describe the event. Hundreds of people all descend upon the Austrian town to turn the virtual connections into real-life hugs. We hike, share stories, hit deadlift PRs, and then eat, drink, and celebrate together.

After the event, I was getting ready to move out to the next city with Arnold when I bumped into Jo, a member of the Pump Club, and asked what she had planned next.

She told me she was headed to Paris for a few days by herself. It was one of those rare stretches when she wasn’t with her kids, and she was going to use it.

I told her I was proud of her.

I meant it. That’s exactly what you should do, I said. Take the time for yourself. You earned it.

And then, a few days later, I stood in front of Arnold, making the opposite case for my own life, and I didn’t even notice I was doing it.

It’s a strange thing, how clearly we see the right answer for everyone but ourselves.

We hand out wisdom we can’t follow. We give friends permission we’d never give ourselves.

I told Jo to go to Paris. While I booked the first flight out of Vienna, so I wouldn’t have to spend one extra day doing the very thing I’d just told her was good and healthy and deserved.

I knew the answer. I just couldn’t apply it to myself.

Where Are You Overcorrecting?

There’s a fine line between being a selfless martyr who doesn’t do anything for themselves, and a selfish individual who rationalizes every opportunity to avoid the sacrifices that come with being a responsible adult.

It isn’t a YOLO thing, where you blow up your responsibilities and call it freedom. And it isn’t FOMO, chasing every experience so you never feel left behind.

It’s about keeping your priorities straight and still making room to fill your own bucket. Even when filling it feels a little selfish.

Because as I thought about what brought me to the point where I never take a day, I realized I’ve overcorrected.

I’m doing it wrong. And I think I figured out why.

I’ve discussed before that one of my few regrets was a decision I made several years ago. For almost three years, I traveled every week to build a different company with Arnold. I still carry guilt about the stress those years put on my wife, and what those years cost my kids. And honestly, what it cost me. Time I don’t get back.

In many ways, even though it’s been 6 years since I stopped weekly travel, I’m still trying to make up for that time lost.

So now I overcorrect the other way. When I travel, I go break-neck. Twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight. Two times, I’ve flown to the UK and home again in less than two days. Get in, do the work, get out.

So when Arnold reminded me I need to be in the moment, my first instinct was to defend the system. The system works. The system gets me home.

But he had a point I didn’t realize until it had me in the crosshairs.

There won’t be many days like that one. Not that there won’t be more days. But that sometimes it’s good to recognize the little moments. And this was a little moment. In Europe, with some of my closest friends in the world. I was already there. Work had brought me. It wasn’t an escape. It was one more day.

For my wife, holding everything together at home, one more day is a lot. I know that. But she’d told me she was fine.

So really, the only person I was protecting from that extra day was me.

And what was I protecting myself from? Twenty-four hours. To walk around a city with no agenda. To sleep. To lift. To eat one of those desserts I never shut up about.

Keep Your Eyes On What Matters

This most recent trip is an extreme example of a mistake I’ve been making for six years.

It’s not about the trip to Europe.

It’s about the meaning and purpose we all search for, and that is all-too-often waiting for us in moments we ignore.

The moments for you can happen anywhere at any time.

It’s three hours to wander a store with nowhere to be. Lunch with a friend you haven’t seen in a year. A sitter for one night so you and your person can sit across a table and remember you’re more than a shared calendar. An evening where you answer to no one.

We treat these things like luxuries. They’re not. They’re small and cheap, and they go further than we ever give them credit for. You don’t need them every day. But you need them.

My joy comes from people and experiences. And yet I still have blind spots.

Even when those little moments tap me on the shoulder, too often, I tell myself I’ll catch the next one. That’s the thing I’m working on.

Because Arnold made me see something I lost sight of. Yes, my kids are only young once. I won’t get these years back, and I don’t want to miss a minute.

But I’m only this version of me once, too. Healthy, with the energy and the friends and the open doors that won’t always stay open. There will hopefully be other stages, other trips, other moments. But this particular stage and this moment won’t come around again either.

Every season hands you a few moments you could recreate later, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be the same. So be sure to capture a few of them, just in case the opportunity doesn’t present itself.

The work isn’t choosing between your kids’ youth and your own. It’s noticing that both are happening at once, and neither one waits for you to be ready.

So go home for the people you love. Be selfless.

And sometimes, remember to stay the extra day for yourself. And be selfish. Because you might only be there once. -AB

-Adam Bornstein is the co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of Arnold’s Pump Club

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