Ranking 33 Modern Wellness Trends
My recommendation on 33 different modern wellness trends I've experimented with
Over the years I’ve tried out several wellness fads and life hacks. Modern wellness fads vary in level of rigorous scientific support, but I’m always happy to experiment on myself if there appear to be little to no downsides. Here is a ranked list of 33 wellness fads I’ve tried in order of how worthwhile it is to try them.
Missed the cut (I never tried them): dancing, surfing, fighting, snowboarding, chiropractor, pickleball, golfing, cycling, pilates, owning a pet, Bryan Johnson supplements
Skip It
Polyphasic Sleeping, the practice of sleeping several times a day to reduce the total number of hours you need to sleep. But it turns out you actually need sleep, and depriving yourself of sleep is really bad for you.
Climbing. Climbing is a decent full-body workout, but everyone I know who climbs has suffered a serious traumatic injury, often requiring surgery.
Acupuncture. The scientific rigor behind its effectiveness is minuscule, although some elite athletes swear by it. It’s quite expensive and a waste of time.
Bulking, the process of eating at a massive calorie-surplus so that you can become stronger. Dirty bulking is obviously stupid (there’s no way pigging out on junk food is good for you), but even clean bulking made me feel bloated and gross.
Cold Exposure, which includes cold showers, cryotherapy, and going to the San Francisco plunge club. There is some rigor behind its alleged results, and a lot of elite athletes swear by it, but I never felt any noticeable difference. Taking cold showers made me skip showering a lot and more prone to illness. Cryotherapy is expensive. There is high overhead in driving to the beach to do a ten-minute plunge.
Avoiding Tap Water. The blogger Slime Mold Time Mold wrote a multi-part series about how lithium levels in the water were making everyone obese. It has been pretty convincingly debunked. Some French Tiktoker also made a video about how bottled water like Fiji, Voss, and Evian are better than tap water, but his main source of authority seemed to be speaking confidently in a French accent. The main downside of avoiding tap water is that it makes you drink less water, it’s expensive, and it exposes you to micro-plastics. I did lose weight during my avoiding tap water phase, but that may have been a placebo.
Fitness Tracking, such as Whoop and Fitbit. First of all, the measurements are not that accurate. Second of all, the information does not lead to actionable insights other than sleep and exercise more. It’s a waste of money.
You can try it, but it won’t be worth it
Air Purifiers. I got one during allergy season, but it did not seem to help alleviate my allergies.
Taping Your Mouth Shut When Sleeping. The idea is that nose-breathing is far better for your health than mouth-breathing. By taping your mouth shut, you force yourself to breathe through your nose when you sleep. There are companies that sell very expensive tape to tape your mouth shut, but they are all basically a wrapper around athletic tape. The problem with taping my mouth shut was that I would wake up from having a dry mouth due to the tape, and I feel like I breathe through my nose when I sleep regardless of whether I use tape or not.
Tying Your Feet Together When Sleeping. This is a home-made remedy I tried. Men tend to man-spread because their hips are not flexible. This same inflexibility causes your toes and knees to point outward when you lie down. Hence, you would expect that tying your feet together when sleeping will force you to stretch your hips and make you more flexible. However, it’s uncomfortable and wakes you up in the middle of the night and hard to sustain.
Sleeping On the Floor. The idea is that by sleeping on a hard surface, your posture will improve and you get a natural massage from the floor. You also don’t need to purchase a mattress or bed-frame. However, it’s uncomfortable, exposes you to allergies, and I usually woke up on my side instead of on my back, defeating the whole purpose.
Avoiding Microplastics. Microplastics have been making the rounds with Nat Friedman’s little experiment recently. To avoid microplastics, avoid bottled beverages, take-out, and especially hot take-out. This is really hard to implement for me, and it’s impossible to know personally whether it makes a difference.
Journaling, which is writing about your day. I usually start journaling as a means to practice a writing habit, but I tend to give up after a few days. Summarizing my day is such a mundane task that involves basically no reflection, and I never felt I ever got anything out of it. I firmly believe writing is better as a social habit, which is why journaling is such a bad activity to develop a writing habit. I haven’t tried journaling with ChatGPT, which allegedly provides value because you can ask it questions about your past, but I don’t see the value of having a log of your daily activities. On the other hand, many successful historical figures seem to have extensive and detailed journals.
Waking Up Early. A lot of ink has been spilled on how great waking up at 4 am is and how it teaches you discipline and makes your productive, but I’ve found that sleeping in past sunrise has always been more productive for me. Waking up at 4 am also requires making that your entire personality so that you can go to bed on time, which in my opinion is not worth it.
Worth a Shot
Swimming. Swimming is great cardio that is easy on your joints and exposes you to sunlight, but the overhead has always made this not worth it for me except for when I worked right across from an outdoor swimming pool.
Black Out Curtains. Sleeping in a dark room feels more satisfying, but you don’t notice it after you fall asleep, and I wasn’t noticing myself feeling any better from my sleep.
Rucking, which is the practice of walking around with a weighted vest. Ideally it helps your posture and is a good source of cardio that is easy on your knees if you walk briskly, but the sources for both those claims are pretty questionable. Some Youtuber also claimed wearing a weighted vest around everywhere improved his athleticism (e.g. improved vertical). I got a weighted vest recently, so the jury is still out on its effectiveness.
Blue Light Glasses, which are supposed to reduce eye strain and improve sleep quality for people who look at screens a lot. A recent acquisition, so the jury is still out on whether it improves sleep, but it feels like less strain on my eyes at night.
Digital Fasting, the practice of avoiding using screens. This can be done by taking one day off a week or taking several days off at a time. I think it’s a decent practice to do occasionally, especially to take a break from consuming TV or social media, but there are a lot of legitimately interesting and useful things on the internet.
Walking a Dog. Dogs are fun, and if you run with them they push you to run hard. The only hard part is finding a dog to run with you.
Hard But Worth It
Extended Fasting, which involves consuming no calories for 2-7 days. The idea is to stimulate autophagy, which allows your body cells to repair itself and improve longevity. The fasting bloggers like noting that autophagy won a Nobel Prize for medicine, but the lunatic ivermectin bloggers also claim some Nobel Prize connections, so take the fasting bloggers with a grain of salt. Long fasts also allegedly reset your appetite, improve your metabolic health, provide a mental challenge, and help you lose weight. I lost 17 pounds when I did a 6-day fast and probably finished down around 6-8 pounds a week after the fast finished.
Running Sandals. The idea is that the cushion in modern shoes is unnatural and removes the feedback you get from feeling your feet hit the floor, which ruins your running form, so you should run in sandals that mimic barefoot running while still offering some protection. However, the fastest marathons were completed in cushioned shoes, and my achilles gets sore when I run too fast in barefoot sandals.
Yoga. Great for flexibility, but a bit boring and hard for me to do consistently.
Cleaning Your Teeth Three Times a Year. Multiple dentists have independently complimented my teeth and gum health when I went to the dentist three times in 2023.
Blogging. Blogging is the one true way to develop a writing habit short of actually making writing your job. It forces you to think through your positions and communicate clearly. I’ve learned a lot from blogging so far.
Marathoning. A 26-mile race through a new city is a thrilling experience that everyone should experience at least once. The training is time-consuming, and you have to be careful not to get injured, but in my opinion it is extremely worth it.
Plant-Based Diet. If you subscribe to the idea that inflammation is bad for you, then you should do your best to avoid animal products. Hence, some older and fatter NBA players like Chris Paul or Jahlil Okafor end up going vegan to extend their careers. Elite long distance runners, most notably Scott Jurek, also tend to eat plant-based diets. There are concerns about protein, and certain nutrition bloggers seem to think protein to be the end all be all, but if you don’t agree with said bloggers, it should be fine. It can also be quite a drag socially.
Avoiding Added Sugar. The knock against the plant-based diet is that sugar and carbs are really bad for you, and it’s really hard to avoid both animal products and carbs. Sugar is also addicting, so a sugar-free diet is almost impossible to keep up. One happy medium that’s worked for me is only eating sweets in a social setting.
Intermittent Fasting, which is eating for 8 hours and fasting for 16 hours a day. Whether you think inflammation is bad or sugar is bad, fasting addresses both of them by avoiding eating everything. The idea behind intermittent fasting is that your body starts using fat for energy after it runs out of blood sugar. The benefits and evidence seem pretty convincing, and even if you don’t subscribe to it, the de facto caloric restriction that arises from intermittent fasting is in itself worth it.
No Excuse Not to Do It
The benefits of these habits are self-evident and have practically no downside. Everyone should do them.
Standing Desks. Sitting is the new smoking. Every corporate office seems to have adjustable standing desks, and if I worked from home every day, I would certainly buy one.
Running. Being able to get up and run for a few miles seems to be a basic task that all humans should be able to do. You also get to see a lot places that are only accessible by foot. There are some concerns about overuse injury if you run too much, but for most people that feels a bit like a made up modern problem as humans have been running for our entire existence.
Reading. I’ve learned a lot and have been thoroughly entertained from reading. It’s also nice to step away from the screen.
Compound Lifting. Compound lifts (e.g. squat and benchpress) have countless benefits and are the best exercise for building strength and muscle. The only downside is overuse injury if you go too hard, but I have never reached the point and have still gotten quite a bit out of compound lifting.