Therapist: Tell me about your sleep.

Patient: I can’t fall asleep.

Therapist: How long has this been going on?

Patient: Since my junior year of college. I’m 52 now.

Therapist: So over 30 years?

Patient: Yes.

Therapist: Do you practice good sleep hygiene?

Patient: Better than most sleep experts.

Therapist: What does that mean?

Patient: I watch the sunrise every morning to anchor my circadian rhythm, and to start the biological process that governs nighttime melatonin release. I stop drinking coffee before 9 a.m. I wear blue-light blocking glasses after sunset. A bed is for sex and sleep only — no screens, no books, no TV. I follow a consistent sleep and wake time seven days a week to avoid social jet lag.

Therapist: That’s an enormous amount of cognitive bandwidth devoted to preventing sleep disruption.

Patient: Wait ‘till I get going! I’ve set my phone to switch to night mode as the sun sets and my computer screens do the same. My bedroom is cold and dark, as it would have been for our ancestors. I avoid eating or drinking at least a few hours before bedtime.

Therapist: Do you exercise?

Patient: Intense exercise six days a week. I also do cold plunges four or five times a week.

Therapist: Cold plunges late in the day?

Patient: Don’t be ridiculous. I finish by noon because I know the body’s efforts to rewarm after a plunge can interfere with the normal evening drop in core body temperature that helps trigger sleep.

Therapist: So you’re tired at night?

Patient: Exhausted.

Therapist: But you can’t sleep?

Patient: I climb into bed tired, drowsy, ready to sleep. Then nothing happens.

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Therapist: Have you tried medication?

Patient: I’ve taken a low dose of lorazepam for about twenty years.

Therapist: Does it work?

Patient: Every time, but I understand the impact of a sedative on sleep architecture compared to a true sleep aid.         

Therapist: Have you developed a tolerance to it?

Patient: Oddly enough, I’ve become more sensitive to it over the years.

Therapist: Have you tried replacing it because of the studies that show a correlation between long term use of benzodiazepines and dementia in the elderly?

Patient: Yes. Trazodone worked for me for a few months and then fizzled. Doxepin did nothing. Mirtazapine just made me hungry. I know that the remarkable drug GHB works great for sleep onset insomnia and keeps your natural sleep architecture intact. Unfortunately, the FDA killed GHB in the early 1990s because it threatened drug company profits.

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Therapist: Let’s talk about your family.

Patient: My mother has the same problem.

Therapist: Anyone else?

Patient: My sister.

Therapist: Anyone else?

Patient: My uncle — my mother’s brother.

Therapist: Interesting.

Patient: Why?

Therapist: Because we’re no longer talking about someone who simply has bad habits. Genetically, some people are born with extraordinarily resilient sleep systems. Others are born with fragile sleep systems.

Patient: It’s funny you say that. My father can sleep soundly on his side of the bed while my mother packs a suitcase after midnight on hers. I was married to a woman who watched screens in bed, didn’t care about her sleep schedule, engaged in late night socializing, was oblivious to blue light exposure at night, ate late meals … yet slept instantly under any conditions — on planes, in cars, and around every kind of noise. Pretty impressive actually.

Therapist: They slumber because their nervous system fundamentally trusts the transition into sleep. You believe sleep is a high stakes event that every day must be carefully engineered and defended.

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Therapist: What happens if you only sleep four hours on a particular night?

Patient: I’ll feel terrible.

Therapist: Anything else?

Patient: I’ll be less productive. Less healthy. I might have to miss my workout. I’m damaging my brain.

Therapist: So we’re not just talking about sleep anymore. We’re talking about catastrophe.

Patient: But sleep is health. Metabolic health. Insulin sensitivity. Cognition. Emotional regulation. Cardiovascular risk. Immune function. Longevity. Recovery. Memory consolidation. Everything else in the health ecosystem is just improvement on the margins if your sleep foundation is intact.

Therapist: That’s true. But there’s a difference between respecting sleep and having sleep become the organizing principle of your existence. After enough years, the cost of that lifestyle, including social withdrawal, can exceed the direct physiological cost of imperfect sleep itself. There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: orthosomnia. Honestly, has the sacrifice been worth it?

Patient: I can’t say.

Therapist: Sleep is unique because it is one of the few biological processes that worsens under effort. You cannot make yourself sleep in the way you can make yourself diet or exercise. Sleep requires a kind of neurological surrender.

Patient: So what’s the lesson?

Therapist: The pursuit of perfect sleep often creates the very hypervigilance that prevents sleep. Some people improve by gaining confidence they can survive imperfect nights, recognizing their body is not terrifyingly fragile, and accepting that sleep does not require constant supervision.

Patient: Ok, but where do I start?

Therapist: I think you should consider that your goal is to build a meaningful life. Sleep is important, but it isn’t the purpose of your life. Somewhere along the way you’ve reversed that relationship, with the current purpose of your life designed to facilitate sleep.

Patient: So I should stop caring about sleep?

Therapist: You should stop measuring your life by last night’s sleep.

The post The Insomnia Trap: Trying Harder Makes It Worse appeared first on Gymsanity.

Schlubs like me hobble through the same issues, in obscurity, often for years. A long-term study published in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine found that among people who suffer from plantar fasciitis, 45.6% had symptoms after a decade, and 44% still had plantar heel pain after 15 years. I am in year four.

Studies of plantar fasciitis tissue have shown that the condition is actually chronic wear-and-tear degeneration (“fasciosis”) instead of an inflammatory condition (“fasciitis”). Fascia overuse is just like tendon overuse, where repetitive mechanical overload causes your body to give up on healing. Tendinosis leaves you with chronic golfer’s elbow, or rotator cuff discomfort, while fasciosis drives plantar heel pain. Once degeneration develops, the already limited blood flow to joints and fascia can indefinitely stall repair and remodeling.

Doctors have no idea how to cure plantar fasciitis. Surgery shows a mild benefit only if you do it within the first year — when you should be prioritizing rehab. Unfortunately, there’s no way to predict what non-surgical interventions, if any, might relieve your heel pain. Here are some approaches you can try:

• ToePro foot strengthening
• TENS muscle stimulators
• Toe spacers 
• Calf strengthening exercises 
• Rolling your calves with a muscle stick to break up adhesions
• Gua Sha soft tissue therapy 
• Calf stretching
• Toe stretching 
• STJ/talocrural joint manipulation
• Sleeping with a Strassburg sock
• Hand and machine massage
• Myofascial release
• Foot taping
• Short foot exercise
• Switching to wide toe box footwear

You see the problem. Plantar fasciitis rehab is a fulltime job that often accomplishes nothing.

What is DMSO?

DMSO — dimethyl sulfoxide — is an is an organic chemical compound that is known for its ability to easily penetrate the skin and biological tissues. In the early 1960s, the medical community discovered that DMSO quickly healed acute musculoskeletal conditions with minimal adverse effects, likely by increasing blood circulation.

As public and professional interest in DMSO surged, the FDA found the situation intolerable. The agency stepped in to block this cheap and widely available cure, issuing a global research ban on November 10, 1965. Doctors stopped using it out of fear of prosecution.

In the 21^st century, we have little knowledge about how DMSO can treat orthopedic injuries. Recently, curiosity about DMSO has returned thanks to a doctor writing anonymously to over 250,000 subscribers at The Forgotten Side of Medicine.  

While DMSO can be administered via IV for complex health issues (neurological disorders, cancer), for acute sports injuries you pour some into your hand and apply it topically at the site of injury.

My DMSO Protocol

There is no evidence either way about the impact of DMSO on chronic musculoskeletal injuries. Early researchers never addressed this use case, and doctors never got the chance to try it out. You could say I’m a trailblazer for trying to fix my own chronic plantar fasciitis with DMSO.  

I started by slathering DMSO along the bottom of my foot twice per day, for about a month. (DMSO may also help your hair grow, so I rub the DMSO residue on my hand onto my scalp). Then I took a one week break to let everything settle and to assess. My foot pain was better but not gone, so I’m now doing a second round of twice-daily treatment.

Although I may have successfully rebooted collagen turnover in my fascia, the healing process can still take up to six months, even under the best of conditions. Certainly a steady reduction in pain is a good sign that the tissue is remodeling.

In any event, I have a biologically plausible explanation for how DMSO might help. Whatever you do, just don’t tell the FDA.

The post My Experiment With DMSO for Plantar Fasciitis appeared first on Gymsanity.

Well, here we go again.

Logistics experts are sounding the alarm about energy shortages, particularly in diesel fuel. They point out that even if the Middle East conflict ends today, a significant lag exists before the world can return to normal energy stockpiles. Oil infrastructure needs to be turned back on, oil tankers need to be filled, and these ships need to sail across the globe to refinery destinations.

In the United States, 70 percent of all agricultural and food products are transported by truck, and every truck runs on diesel. When trucks stop moving, so does everything the trucks were meant to carry.

So let’s stay positive and look on the bright side of what comes next.

10) People will get plenty of sunlight and fresh air while standing in ration lines for food.

9) The lack of food available to buy will offset rising grocery prices.

8) Less obesity and better metabolic health means the coming shortage of pharmaceuticals will impact fewer people.*

7) Cookies really will be a sometimes food.

6) You can permanently cross weekly meal planning off your to-do list.

5) People who do intermittent fasting will no longer have to defend their lifestyle choices — or even be noticed.

4) Portion control will no longer require willpower, apps, or lifestyle influencers.

3) “Out of stock” labels will reduce decision fatigue across all grocery categories.   

2) With no trucks to transport food, the “buy local” crowd finally wins.

1) The political divide in this country will disappear when everyone is fighting over the last rotisserie chicken at Costco.

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*In the pharmaceutical industry, oil-related disruptions lead to: missing petrochemical feedstocks; less plastic for IV bags, syringes, and packaging; and insufficient quantities of the solvents used in manufacturing processes.

The post 10 Positives of the Coming Food Shortage – Oil Edition appeared first on Gymsanity.

Arnold Schwarzenegger understood this better than most. While modern bodybuilders may be bigger, Arnold’s physique still stands out for its balance, symmetry, and classic shape.

So what was his secret?

It wasn’t just genetics.

It was how he trained.

Why Arnold Still Stands Out

Arnold’s main appeal can’t be his size in his prime. Professional bodybuilders these days run thicker with better definition. Mr. Olympia 2025 stands 5’6” at 225 lbs, compared to Schwarzenegger’s championship reign at 6’1”, 245 lbs. Incidentally, this is no dig at Arnold. Today’s gym equipment is better, the science of fitness is more advanced, and the performance enhancers give you more bang for the buck.

In my opinion, the continued fascination with Arnold results from the classic, sweeping artistry of his physique. Many of Arnold’s aesthetic gifts can, of course, be attributed to his good fortune with genetics. Take a look at his biceps. The typical bicep muscle terminates about an inch ahead of the forearm, while Arnold’s bicep fills the entire space between his front shoulder and elbow.

The same principle applies to Arnold’s back. My lat muscle ties in around the middle of my rib cage. Arnold’s wings taper off virtually at his waist.

But there’s a second factor at work: Arnold was a perfectionist when it came to proper lifting form. Beyond genes, Arnold’s long, graceful lines are the result of muscles worked in a controlled fashion through a full range of motion. His superior lifting technique lengthened his muscles and engaged the largest possible number of muscle fibers.

Walk into a gym today, however, and you’ll find people performing all manner of abbreviated lifts: pull-ups that reach neither peak contraction at the top nor full extension at the bottom; overloaded squats that result in no serious bend in the knees; bicep preacher curls that stop a good 20 degrees short of straight arms. Excessive weight, laziness and all around bad habits have turned core lifts into a literal exercise in futility.

What was true in Arnold’s day remains true today. Progress is not determined by how much weight you can move, but how much weight you can move with perfect form.

The post Perfect Workout Form: What Arnold Schwarzenegger Got Right appeared first on Gymsanity.

In particular, I’m thinking of this guy who puts in hours every week on the elliptical machine while always wearing heavy sweatpants, and a sweatshirt with the hood up. His goal is obviously to sweat more — to “detox.” The problem is that the human body doesn’t work this way.

For starters, sweat is 99 percent water and .9 percent sodium, with a trace amount of potassium. The body’s real detox system is the liver, kidneys, lungs, and digestive system. All the sweat in the world from exercise, baggy clothes, and saunas won’t remove toxins on a scale anywhere near what the body does naturally.  

A real detox program means supporting your body’s innate cleaning system through good lifestyle choices: stable circadian signaling (including food timing) and quality sleep, and intentional movement that helps circulate lymph fluid through the lymphatic system (jumping, walking, trampolining/rebounding).

For folks that want to accelerate detox further, here are some ideas with actual value.

Renovate your melanin sheets (i.e., go outside)

Melanin is the body’s master chelator, with a chemical structure that acts like a magnet for heavy metals. Melanin binds to lead, aluminum, and mercury, and eliminates heavy metals through the constant shedding of skin cells. The properties of melanin also enable it to adhere to microplastics and plastic-related chemicals like phthalates, and to excrete them like heavy metals. 

Drink high silica water

Silica (silicone + oxygen) is one of the most common minerals on Earth. The high silica content in consumer water brands like Fiji or Gerolsteiner binds to heavy metals in the body and facilities excretion. My eight-year-old son laughs hysterically whenever I drink a bottle of Fiji water, and I tell him how I’m going to spend the rest of the day pissing aluminum.   

Donate blood

Regular blood donations reduce levels of PFAS, the human-made, synthetic “forever chemicals” found in products like Teflon and plastics, which bind strongly to blood proteins. Blood donation also removes microplastics from your body. For both substances, donation physically removes the contaminated blood which the body replaces with fresh blood.  

In any event, your best bet for detoxing (as with every health threat) is to focus on prevention rather than counting on a cure. You should filter your drinking water through reverse osmosis to remove carcinogens (like glyphosate), PFAS, and fluoride. You can install a water filter in your shower to avoid absorbing these same chemicals through your skin. Stay away from foods drenched in pesticides. Don’t smoke or vape to avoid inhaling thousands of chemical compounds. Reject vaccines, especially because the heavy metal adjuvants get injected directly into your bloodstream rather than being processed first by your liver.

And whatever you do, stop patting yourself on the back for sweating out a bunch of water, sodium, and potassium.

The post Why Sweating Isn’t Detox appeared first on Gymsanity.