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eric

@shlifting

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Helping You Live a Healthier Life
Science-Based Wellness🧬🔬
2x 🇺🇸 Bench Press Record Breaker
[email protected]

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165x5 benc

215x5 skwat

200x7 skwwa by @shlifting

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2 months ago

Sunlight = 35,000-100,000 Lux ☀️

Normal Room Lighting = 100-500 Lux😔

The research suggests room lighting isn’t enough to fully wake us up but is enough to prevent melatonin release :(

Citations
Gooley 2011 - room light and melatonin
Crowley and Eastman -> Morning Light and Sleep Onset by @shlifting

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3 months ago

One bad night of sleep nerfs basically every stat you have, and the research is kind of insane:
🧠 INT — ability to form new memories drops ~40%
💪 STR — a week of 5-hour nights temporarily drops testosterone 10-15%
🛡️ DEF — immune (NK) cells drop ~28% after a single 4-hour night
⚡ DEX — 19 hours awake = the reaction time of a drunk driver
😤 CHA — your emotional brain gets 60% more reactive

Good news: it’s reversible, and the fixes are free.

Sunlight in your eyes within 30 min of waking
Last coffee 8-10 hours before bed
Cold (65-68°F), pitch-black room

Save this so you actually do it tonight 🌙 and send it to the friend who’s been running debuffed since 2019.

Sources

INT: Yoo et al., 2007 (Nat Neurosci)

STR: Leproult & Van Cauter, 2011 (JAMA)

DEF: Irwin et al., 1994 (Psychosom Med)

DEX: Dawson & Reid, 1997 (Nature)

CHA: Yoo et al., 2007 (Curr Biol)

Sunlight: BMC Public Health, 2025

Caffeine: Drake et al., 2013 (J Clin Sleep Med)

Cool Room: Okamoto-Mizuno & Mizuno, 2012 (J Physiol Anthropol)

#sleep #sleephygiene #sleeptips #health #wellness by @shlifting

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4 months ago

“Why am I always tired, irritable, or feeling off?” Here’s what the research says 👇

⸻
DEPRESSION
🟢 Move your body
A 2022 review in JAMA Psychiatry pooled 15 studies — 191,130 people tracked over years. Those who hit basic activity levels (about a 2.5-hour brisk walk a week) had 25% lower risk of depression than people who did nothing. Even half that dose still helped.
→ Pearce et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2022

🔴 Scroll
A 2016 study in Depression & Anxiety surveyed 1,787 young adults. The heaviest social media users were 2.7× more likely to be depressed than the lightest -> even after adjusting for age, income, and more.
→ Lin & Primack et al., Depression & Anxiety, 2016

⸻
MOOD
🟢 Move your body
The biggest study of its kind — 1.2 million people in The Lancet Psychiatry. People who exercised had 43% fewer “bad mental-health days” each month. The sweet spot was 45 min, 3–5x a week. More wasn’t much better.
→ Chekroud et al., Lancet Psychiatry, 2018

🔴 Scroll
Researchers texted people 5 times a day for two weeks (PLOS ONE). The pattern was brutal: the more someone scrolled, the worse they felt at the very next check-in — and the more their life satisfaction dropped over time.
→ Kross et al., PLOS ONE, 2013

⸻
ENERGY
🟢 Move your body
Sedentary, chronically tired adults did light exercise 3x a week for 6 weeks (University of Georgia). They cut their fatigue by 65% and raised their energy by 20%.
→ Puetz & O’Connor, 2008

🔴 Scroll
A study of 360,000+ people in Sleep Medicine found that 2+ hours a day on devices tracked with sleeping under 7 hours a night — which is exactly what leaves you fried the next day.
→ Twenge et al., Sleep Medicine, 2017

⸻
DIsclaimer: Some of these numbers are associations from large studies, and thus a correlation, not causation. Additionally, some of the statistics (such as the study deliberately reducing social media use) are randomized trials/experiments. noneeee of this is medical advice. If you’re struggling, please talk to someone you trust or a professional.

#wellness by @shlifting

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4 months ago

These “cooked” tips affect you.

No caffeine after 2pm because it has a 6 hour half life

Cool room because your body needs to drop its core temperature to fall asleep. A hot room fights that process the entire night.

No food close to bed because digestion keeps your body active when it should be winding down. Your sleep quality drops even if you fall asleep fine.

Your circadian rhythm is strengthened with consistency, so sleeping in on weekends or changing bed time is not without consequences.

You may be missing one, or a few, though they definitely add up. Sleep is worth optimizing.

Do you miss any of these? by @shlifting

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4 months ago

Most people have the training part down.

The ones who do the best nail all three. Sleep → Nutrition → Training. Every single day. If I actually followed my own advice I’d probably be a lot stronger but here we are 😂 by @shlifting

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4 months ago

Saw this quote and had to repost it😮‍💨😮‍💨😢
#wellness by @shlifting

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4 months ago

Every January, 92% of gym goals fail for the exact same reason. 📉

Because screaming “just be consistent” is like telling a poor person to make more money. It isn’t wrong, it just also isn’t that helpful..

If you keep missing your sessions, your discipline isn’t the problem. Your system is.

To build a permanent habit, stop forcing willpower and optimize for these two variables instead:

1. Lower the Baseline (Do LESS) 🛑
Stop designing your gym schedule around your best, high-energy days. Design it for your absolute worst days when you have zero motivation. Lower the minimum requirement to something stupidly easy—like 20 minutes, twice a week.

2. Engineer Zero Friction (Environment > Willpower) ⚡
If your gym commute is miserable, or a crowded commercial floor triggers friction, you will quit. Design your environment so saying no is harder than saying yes. Pre-pack your gear. Train at home. Find a private space. Make starting so frictionless that skipping all of a sudden becomes hard. by @shlifting

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4 months ago

If you are feeling off and can’t figure out why,
Ask yourself when you last:

→ Slept well (actually well, and consistently)
→ got enough exercise/PA
→ Had scheduled downtime, or time with people you care about

Burnout is real, and it’s more complex than just being tired. But I’ve learned the hard way: trying to diagnose yourself mentally while you are physically unwell leads to conclusions that aren’t always true by @shlifting

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4 months ago

You’ve been told lies — and it’s the reason you aren’t consistent. 🚩

Everyone says discipline beats motivation. But there’s something that beats both—and once I realized what it was, I stopped “starting over” for good.

That thing is being Realistic. Here’s how you do that.

1. Find your “True Floor” 📉

Your goal should be so minimal that you can do it on your busiest, most exhausted week. If you think you can do 6 days on a “good” week, but know you can only hit 3 when work gets crazy? Choose 3.

But how do you make the minimum so easy you can’t miss it?

———————————————————————————

2. Aggressively Lower Friction 🛠️

Make things EASIER on yourself, not harder.

Long commute? Home workout.

Don’t like being seen? Train somewhere private.

Packed schedule? 30 minutes is plenty.

Long shifts? Work out on the other days.

Choose the days you are 99% certain are free. Choose a duration you are 100% sure you can finish no matter how tired you are. Remove as many excuses as you can.

But everyone forgets the most important step...

————————————————————————————

3. Iterate Continuously 🔄

If the routine breaks, don’t “try harder”—re-engineer the plan. You WILL mess up eventually. The difference between a lifestyle and a “phase” is how fast you adjust the friction after a slip-up. Never stop iterating, and suddenly, working out becomes your default lifestyle

Most people try to make their lifestyle fit their goals. That’s a timer, not a strategy. To win, you have to do the opposite: Make your goals fit your life.

Send this to someone who needs to start again. 🚀 by @shlifting

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4 months ago

One thing I've never understood is the functional debate...

Does exercise have to mirror our every-day movements perfectly? Probably not. Should it make us healthier and more capable? Probably, and I think that's the bigger point of exercise lol

#functionalexercise by @shlifting

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5 months ago

For years, it was always either…..

Slash the calories if I felt unhappy with how I looked…

or increase the calories if my strength was going down.

Then I would alternate between the two, and repeat.

For me, what I needed badly was a middle ground, one where I could steadily progress on one without wrecking the other.

I learned over time to make better decisions and be happy with what I have, and ironically, that level-headedness is what allowed me to progress further instead of yo-yo dieting..

#fitness #bodycare by @shlifting

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5 months ago