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More Isn’t Always More
Welcome to Effective Habits, a weekly newsletter where I share evidence-based strategies and tools to help you live a happy, healthy, and productive life.
Today at a Glance:
Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High
6 Scoops of Wellness Advice That Say Yes to Better Health (and Ice Cream)
The Real AI Risk Nobody Told You About
“Once we discard the heroic scientist model and the myth of tech inevitability, the course of technological and scientific advancement looks less like a railroad track and more like foliage. It has roots and branches that extend in the direction of the resources that feed it.”
Maybe the Default Settings Are Too High
David Cain
🔦Lights, Camera, ...
Maybe the default settings for how we consume things are simply set too high. When people slow down—reading, eating, learning, even doing ordinary tasks—they often discover that enjoyment and meaning don’t come from getting through something quickly, but from giving it time to register. A reader who deliberately moves at a near-absurd slow pace, lingering on each sentence instead of racing toward the “good parts,” often finds the story feels fuller and more vivid, as if the world on the page has more weight and presence. The same pattern shows up with food: eating more slowly can make a smaller meal far more satisfying, because attention allows flavor and pleasure to actually arrive. What’s ironic is that the urge to rush usually comes from wanting more of the “good stuff,” yet speed is what causes most of it to be missed. At a slower pace, comprehension deepens, taste changes, and shallow inputs quietly lose their appeal while richer ones reward the extra time. This isn’t a moral claim, just a practical observation: in a world built for endless intake, turning the dial down, even briefly, often reveals that much more of what we’re seeking was there all along, waiting for time to catch up.
🎬Action!
Trade volume for depth in one area of consumption. Choose one thing you normally try to optimize for speed—reading faster, listening to podcasts at 2×, eating quickly—and deliberately slow it down. Consume slower, but with full attention, and then ask a simple question: Did consuming more actually give me more enjoyment, insight, or change? Compare the experience of racing through two books versus savoring one, or listening to several self-help podcasts versus fully understanding and acting on a single idea. The experiment is to notice whether speed creates progress, or just the feeling of it, and whether depth delivers more of what you were seeking in the first place.
6 Scoops of Wellness Advice That Say Yes to Better Health (and Ice Cream)
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel
🔦Lights, Camera, ...
In Eat Your Ice Cream, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel argues that most wellness advice overcomplicates what it means to live a long, good life. After a career spent shaping health policy and studying how people actually age, his conclusion is refreshingly simple: longevity isn’t won through perfection, denial, or the latest biohack. It comes from avoiding obvious risks, staying socially connected, keeping both mind and body meaningfully engaged, and ignoring fads that promise miracles while quietly draining your time and attention. Wellness, in this view, isn’t the purpose of life, it’s a support system for living the life you actually want. Chasing marginal gains today in hopes of extra years later often misses the point, especially since aging inevitably brings limits. A better strategy is to focus on what makes life feel rich, joyful, and worthwhile now, and to contribute positively to the world around you. This approach does more for long-term well-being than any diet trend or optimization protocol ever could.
🎬Action!
Avoid obviously stupid risks. Start by subtracting harm before adding optimizations. Don’t smoke or vape. Don’t keep a gun in your home unless you truly need one. Think hard before taking high-mortality risks purely for bragging rights. The biggest gains in longevity come from avoiding clear dangers, not from obsessing over marginal biohacks like cold plunges or red-light therapy.
Talk to people. Actively cultivate relationships with family, friends, and strangers. Initiate conversations. Let curiosity lead. Ask follow-up questions. Assume rejection or awkwardness isn’t personal. Strong social connections are one of the most powerful predictors of long life and happiness, and their benefits begin immediately, not decades later.
Continuously stretch your mind. Build cognitive reserve by learning new things, taking on mentally demanding hobbies, and engaging with others. Avoid passive repetition like endless TV or doomscrolling. Do things that require planning, problem-solving, and novelty, such as learning a new skill or cooking unfamiliar recipes, so you slow cognitive decline while staying mentally engaged.
Move your body regularly. Get consistent aerobic exercise, strength training, and balance work each week. Walk or bike instead of driving whenever possible. Movement improves energy, prevents disease, postpones cognitive decline, and supports overall well-being.
Eat well but without constant deprivation. Cut out sugary drinks and ultra-processed snacks first. Reduce packaged sweets, salty snacks, and high-calorie convenience foods. Make fermented foods a regular part of your diet. Eat more fiber-rich whole foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes, and oats. Indulge occasionally—yes, even dessert—without guilt, as long as it’s not habitual.
Protect your sleep like your health depends on it, because it does. Treat sleep as non-negotiable. Aim for adequate, consistent rest. Avoid caffeine and alcohol in the hours before bed. Keep your bedroom dark, cool, and sleep-friendly. Skip sleeping pills. Instead, shape your environment and habits so sleep can happen naturally.
The Real AI Risk Nobody Told You About
Sahil Bloom
🔦Lights, Camera, ...
Most conversations about AI fixate on speed, i.e. how fast it’s changing everything, or leverage, i.e. how to use it to get ahead. Both matter, but they miss the most important question: how to protect your humanity in an AI-driven world. As machines become better at thinking, writing, deciding, and optimizing for us, the temptation is to outsource more and more of our inner work. The danger isn’t ignorance; it’s atrophy. Just as cooking skills fade when you hire a chef, cognitive, emotional, and creative sharpness fades when friction, judgment, and struggle are constantly handed off to machines. This “AI Brain” shows up as dullness: weaker memory, reduced ownership of ideas, and a flattened way of seeing. This is echoed by early research showing lower neural engagement when people rely heavily on AI. The solution isn’t rejecting AI, but refusing to optimize everything. Thriving in an AI world means drawing firm lines around what you won’t outsource, because the most meaningful parts of life—thinking, choosing, interpreting—are the very things that make you human. Your future won’t be defined by what AI can do for you, but by what you decide to keep for yourself.
🎬Action!
Embrace First-Pass Thinking. Protect the moment where ideas are still rough, uncertain, and fully yours. First-pass thinking is where originality is formed and before efficiency, polish, or optimization enter the picture. The goal is to struggle first, then use tools second.
Think before you prompt. Clearly articulate the problem, your point of view, and what you currently believe before involving AI.
Write before you refine. Produce a messy, imperfect first draft without tools, then edit or enhance later.
Decide before you optimize. Form an initial judgment on your own, then use AI to test, stress, or improve it—not replace it.
Preserve Cognitive Friction. Deliberately keep some mental resistance in your life. Cognitive friction—the discomfort of not knowing, waiting, or thinking slowly—is essential for mental sharpness and growth. The goal is not comfort, but vitality.
Let boredom exist. Resist filling every empty moment with stimulation, answers, or content.
Seek solitude regularly. Schedule time alone, like walking, sitting, or thinking without devices.
Sit with problems longer. Allow ideas to remain unresolved before reaching for tools.
Do Less, but Deeper. Trade breadth for depth. AI makes starting easy, but excellence still comes from sustained focus. In a world full of good options, the real discipline is choosing fewer things and doing them exceptionally well.
Identify the 2–3 things that matter most. Concentration compounds.
Say no to most ideas. Especially attractive ones that don’t align with your core direction.
Measure quality, not output. Aim for one powerful result, not many shallow ones.
Do More Human Things. Anchor yourself in what can’t be outsourced. As life becomes more digital, the most valuable capacities—judgment, empathy, resilience, meaning—are strengthened through physical presence and real effort.
Prioritize in-person interaction. Choose real conversations, shared experiences, and physical gatherings over screens whenever possible.
Do physically hard things. Regularly challenge your body to build grit, resilience, and tolerance for uncertainty.
Accept what doesn’t scale. Presence, effort, and connection are valuable precisely because they can’t be automated.
TOOL TIP
RageCheck: Website that analyses online content for manipulative language designed to provoke outrage rather than inform. Enter the URL of a post or article and it helps you spot when framing prioritizes emotional reaction over accuracy.
FUN FACT
The ocean provides around half of the Earth’s oxygen. It doesn’t just provide the air we breathe; oceans absorb over a quarter of human-induced carbon emissions and has a tremendous ability to store heat, making it a vital life support system. Our oceans have absorbed 90% of the warming that has occurred in recent decades due to increasing greenhouse gases, and the top few metres of the ocean store as much heat as Earth's entire atmosphere.
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Disclaimer: The information provided in this newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult a medical professional for advice, diagnosis, or treatment. We are not liable for any risks or issues that may arise from using this information.
