Sleep is comprised of distinct stages that occur in a sequence with varying durations over the course of the night. Roughly, there are 4-6 sleep cycles a night. Each stage can be beneficial to your health in different ways.

When we base our decisions on quality evidence, choose meaningful metrics, and adopt an appropriate timeline, we set ourselves up for genuine, lasting improvements rather than endless cycles of hope and disappointment. What health decisions are you currently navigating? Are you clear on which metrics matter most to you?

Our conversation with Dr. Nivedita Thakur, Board-Certified Neurologist & Well•ish Advisor covers when pain/discomfort is normal, vocabulary around pain/discomfort, and using a tool like a body scan to recognize any abnormal pain.

A DEXA scan can be a great tool to inform your training program. The Appendicular Lean Mass Index measures lean mass in your arms and legs and can asses whether you are under muscled or adequately muscled for your frame and how balanced the lean mass is across your left and right sides. You can also learn about bone density and visceral fat.

Tasty meals can be packed with veggies—add these to your meal rotation! Remember, Veggies=Fiber+Micronutrients so your health gets a boost too! Aim to fill half your plate with them. We have recipes for Biryani with Veggie Skewers, Mac& Cheese with Steamed Veggies, Mushroom Smash Tacos with Salad, Tofu Cabbage Salad, Veggie & White Bean Minestrone Soup, Raw Veggie Platter, and Spinach & Feta Egg Muffins.

Sleep is tough for parents with young kids. Just when you are getting some sleep, your kid gets a cold or has nightmares. Sleep is just one part of a healthy life, so yes you can live a healthy life! And you can improve some aspects of the sleep that you are already getting. These are informed by the latest science in chronobiology! 

There are several competing perspectives for the use of fasting for health. These competing perspectives are a result of 1) poorly defined taxonomy for fasting—fasting goes by many names 2) fasting affecting different target populations differently—women, active people, obese & inactive, cancer, etc. Once we take a closer look at the data, we can see the nuance.

It’s January so lots of products and people will be claiming to improve your health. Ask for the data and look at it. Make sure the study is on humans and not mice. And then take a look at Table 1 which shows you the characteristics of the study population—age, sex, race, disease conditions, etc.

Many holiday drinks with caffeine or alcohol can disrupt sleep, but there are festive beverage options that don’t include these sleep-stealing ingredients. Get the recipes for our featured drinks—Persimmon Smash and Bubbly Bitters.

Evan Mather, Owner & Trainer, Custom Fit, talks with us about finding the right trainer, judging the quality of a workout, and getting coaching on correct exercise form.

There are 7 key categories of vegetables that can help when organizing weekly meals. These vegetables provide a wide range of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) needed for bodily functions, phytonutrients that can promote health and protect against disease and fiber for digestion. Remember to include both the soft skin and flesh of the vegetable–the skin has phytonutrients too!

We review the latest science behind popular health and wellness headlines. This post covers work by Stanford University scientists on rapid aging that occurs in two waves. You can choose to follow along on the video where we review the paper or get the quick digest in our post which includes common sense questions to help you assess the trust level of research conclusions and how to interpret research conclusions when a study has limitations.