Behavior Is a Miracle Drug for Our Health

Healthcare is broken. Chronic diseases are eating up an increasing share of healthcare resources in every healthcare system across the world in ways that are not sustainable. Yes, there is a golden age of innovation happening in the form of new technologies and AI. But we can’t let these extraordinary advances blind us to the tragedy of modern healthcare and to the much-neglected miracle drug right in front of us: our daily behaviors. Whether for preventing disease or optimizing the treatment of disease, behavior is indeed a miracle drug.

There are five foundational daily behaviors that make up this miracle drug: sleep, food, movement, stress management and connection. Because the science is clear that when we improve these daily aspects of our lives, dramatic improvements in our health and well-being follow. The breakthroughs this can bring in our health aren’t over the horizon — they’re here right now.

What’s clear is that what we’re doing right now isn’t working. According to the World Health Organization, chronic and noncommunicable diseases, like heart disease, diabetes and respiratory diseases, kill 41 million people each year. “The most heart-rending symbol of America’s failure in healthcare,” writes Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times, “is the avoidable amputations that result from poorly managed diabetes… A toe, foot or leg is cut off by a doctor about 150,000 times a year in America.”

There’s no healthcare system in the world successfully managing health outcomes against this onslaught of chronic diseases. But the potential to reverse these trend lines can be found in the data: Medical care accounts only for an estimated 10% to 20% of health outcomes, while our daily behaviors drive 36% of outcomes. According to the UN, the combination of maintaining a healthy weight, regular exercise, a healthy diet and not smoking can reduce the risk of developing the most common and deadly chronic diseases by as much as 80%.

Both our lifespan and our healthspan — the period of time in which we’re not just alive but healthy and enjoying a good quality of life — are hugely influenced by our lifestyle. In other words, how long we live and how well we live are in large part governed by the choices we make each day. To truly change healthcare, along with the power of life-saving drugs and technologies, we must focus on the power of life-transforming habits within each of these foundational behaviors. Because while healthcare is episodic, health itself is continuous. In fact, health is what happens between doctor visits.

So why is the power of behavior change so overlooked? Some dismiss it because they think it’s too soft — how can something like behavior change be in the same category as technological advances and new diagnostic tools? Others give up on behavior change because it’s too hard.

For the first objection, it’s not either-or. Of course, behavior change isn’t a substitute for drugs and medical treatment, but there’s a ton of hard science showing that it’s an essential companion that optimizes the management of disease. For instance, a study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that getting good sleep can increase rates of survival for breast cancer patients. All five of our foundational daily behaviors — sleep, food, movement, stress management and connection — deeply impact how effective medical treatment will be.

And for the second objection — yes, behavior change is hard. But here, too, the science shows that behavior change is absolutely possible when it’s done right.

One of those proven strategies is to start as small as possible, which is why Thrive’s behavior change platform is based on Microsteps — too-small-to-fail steps you can take to immediately begin improving your life. And it’s going to get easier and more effective with the rise of AI, which Thrive is using to give people real-time nudges and personalized Microsteps when they need them most.

Along with Microsteps, other proven strategies are storytelling, compelling content and community that engages, inspires, motivates and supports people to take charge of their own health and move from awareness to action. This is the scientific methodology that makes behavior change not only achievable but sustainable.

People are hungry for help and support in managing their health. A recent survey by CharityRx found that 65% of Americans turn to Google for health advice — but only 40% find online health information reliable. What makes this moment so exciting is that this growing focus on behavior change is happening at the same time that new powerful technologies — like AI, personalized digital tools and wearables — are emerging to support real and lasting behavior change.

Yes, we can look forward to new medical breakthroughs, and we should celebrate them when they happen. But if we’re truly going to move the needle on chronic diseases, we also need the miracle drug of daily behaviors.

Read More on Time: Behavior Is a Miracle Drug for Our Health

Missed Warnings, Then and Now

With the death toll of the tragic Maui wildfires now at 115, one of the most heartbreaking failures is the warning sirens that were supposed to ring — but didn’t. As the BBC reports, Maui has 80 sirens, tested monthly, to warn residents of tsunamis and other natural disasters. But as the fires swept across the island, these sirens failed to sound.

Far too many human catastrophes result from warning signs being missed, going all the way back to the ancient world. At Pompeii, wiped out in the first century by a volcanic eruption, there had been many warning signs, including a severe earthquake, tremors, wells that dried up, and dogs that ran away. And then the most obvious: columns of smoke belching out of Mount Vesuvius before the volcano blew its top, burying the city under 60 feet of ash and volcanic rock. The signs were dismissed by Pliny the Younger, whose telling is the only surviving first-hand account, as “not particularly alarming because they are frequent in Campania.”

In the face of tragedy, one of the best things we can do to feel less helpless is take action — even in small ways. If you’d like to donate, you can give to those in Maui here.

The Morning Show: The Best Show About Our Worst Moments

Photo: Apple TV+

Over the past few years, our culture has been going through a long-overdue reckoning with injustices of many kinds. But allowing for forgiveness, redemption and growth isn’t antithetical to that process. In fact, it’s a core part of it. Yet we’re all familiar with the ways social media can make that fundamental human process much harder. In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, Jennifer Aniston shared her take on it. “I’m so over cancel culture,” she said. “Is there no redemption?” In fact, that’s one of the themes of her hit Apple TV+ show, The Morning Show, which debuts season three on September 13th. I wrote about the finale of season two here, and the show’s use of great stories to explore themes of redemption, how we grow beyond our worst moments, and how, as one character put it, we get our “soul straight.” Can’t wait for season three!

And a Teen Shall Lead Them

In June, The Free Press ran an essay contest for teens to write about a problem facing American society and how they’d fix it. The winner, announced last week, is 17-year-old Ruby LaRocca from Ithaca, NY. Her entry is a “counterintuitive guide for teenage happiness,” which included rules like “read old books,” “memorize poetry, “learn ancient languages,” “learn from the monks, and slow your pace — of reading, of writing, of thinking,” and, my favorite, “dramatically reduce use of your phone.” As LaRocca writes, “Having a phone in your pocket is like always carrying around a glazed donut that constantly tempts you to snack on it — but if you do, you know it will ruin your appetite.” As you can see, it’s actually a great guide for all of us, proving that, contra (another great essayist) Oscar Wilde, wisdom doesn’t only come with age.

Out of Ideas? Jump in the Shower!

I always get my best ideas in the shower. And a recent study confirms the “shower effect.” But you don’t literally have to be in the shower to see the benefits. The idea is to find a “sweet spot” where you’re just engaged enough, but not too distracted. As study author and UVA professor Zachary Irving put it, it’s about finding an activity, like showering or going for a walk, that “takes some of your attention so that they can influence your thoughts, but doesn’t take all of it so that you have no attention for these creative ideas that are incubating in the background.” It’s like creating a little parenthesis in time where our minds can wander. What also helps is that the shower is one of the few places where we don’t take our phones — at least yet (and I’m hoping a fully shower-resistant iPhone won’t be among the things Apple announces at their event this month!).

Black Tie Optional

Ever have one of those nightmares where you show up to a party and nobody told you about the dress code? Back to school season brought to mind this throwback to my days at the Cambridge Union debating society. Can you spot me?

BEFORE YOU GO

Out-of-Office Message of the Month

Studies show that the majority of us check our email while we’re away. Instead of unplugging and recharging, we take our work (and stress) with us wherever we go, just moving from the office to a sandier office or a prettier Zoom background. That’s why I loved this (truly) out-of-office message from Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. It reminded me to up my out-of-office game.

Neologism of the Month

New words, terms or phrases that define our time

“Model collapse” is the term researchers are using to describe what happens when generative AI tools use data created by other generative AI tools. As Axios’ Ina Fried and Scott Rosenberg report, when this happens “the quality of the AI's answers can rapidly deteriorate.” Researcher Jathan Sadowski calls it “Habsburg AI — a system that is so heavily trained on the outputs of other generative AIs that it becomes an inbred mutant, likely with exaggerated, grotesque features.” It’s a great, and colorful, reminder that, even before AI, we were drowning in data but starved for wisdom. AI can give us even much more of the former, accurate or not, but wisdom is still a uniquely, and much-needed, human quality. As for mutant AI devouring itself, as Scarface put it, “don’t get high on your own supply.”

Moment of Wonder

Photo: ESA/Webb/NASA/CSA

New images of Ring Nebula were released last week by the James Webb Space Telescope, including this mesmerizing photo of the Ring Nebula, which has the uncanny look of a human eye. We spend so much time looking at the heavens, it’s fitting that they might sometimes be gazing back at us.

Best,