Below are the dozen biggest tips and takeaways I have found applicable to improving my health (much of this learned from the many Huberman Lab podcast episodes I have listened to!)

1. Sleep - sleep is foundation of health ("don't ask someone how they're doing ask them how they're sleeping"). Sleep at the same time daily if you can, 80% of genes in body have 24 hour cycle element (the 24 hour day has been one of the most reliable constants in our evolutionary history) and you confuse your body when you don't. 
2. Light - light in morning (helps set off 24 hr cycle and good for health, must be through eyes and NOT through window), not at night. Getting light early and avoiding it late have material effects on happiness and mental health, as well as sleep and physical health. It felt to me that for example turning on overhead lights to get a glass of water in the middle of the night couldn't have any material impact, but it indeed does/
3. Water - how much/when? 2/3 can of coke on average every hour from waking (you wake up dehydrated) for next 10 hrs, then 2/3 can of coke total last 5 hrs (increase if hot or exercised or just thirsty). What kind of water should you drink? Some tap water can have bad stuff in it for you, should at least use filter; spring water has more good stuff (calcium, magnesium, etc.).
4. Temperature - Cold showers earlier in the day are good for you (increases chemicals like dopamine by up to 300%!). Sauna is good for you, generally the more the better regarding reducing mortality risk (men who sauna 4 times a week reduce their cardiovascular risk by 50%!).
5. Meditation - a super power. 2-20 minutes (2 min, more the better) improves almost all aspects of life (health, happiness, focus, academic scores, etc.)
6. Breathing - generally should: a) breathe through your nose (in and out), b) pause between inhales and exhales, c) take longer breaths
7. Alcohol - no positive health effects, reduces gray matter in brain, toxin after 2 drinks per week, disrupts sleep, increases health risks
8. Sugar - we eat 150X the amount of sugar our ancestors used to eat and our bodies cannot handle it
9. Movement - avoid prolonged sitting (which is 'the new smoking' in that most people don't realize how bad it is for them). Short breaks (even under 5 minutes) between meetings materially improves concentration
10. Posture - posture adds up day after day, fix any posture issues and take time to set up working space well
11. Health Checkups - frequent screenings, checkups, and early detection are best approach (ounce of prevention worth a ton of cure). Example of importance: 80% survival rate when cancer detected early vs. 20% survival rate when detected late
12. Social - “By far the biggest medical surprise of the last decade has been the extraordinary number of studies showing that the single biggest predictor of your psychological and physical health and wellbeing is simply the number and quality of close friendships you have”

A new idea/perspective I came across this month was from a Facebook employee who spent nearly 20 years at the company. He talked about how he first viewed doing his job as analogous to playing chess, but he found the analogy lacking, and upgrade to “Alien Chess”. See his description below - I think a lot of us will have had (and have ahead of us!) moments where we can relate and where this perspective will be helpful. 

The economic and competitive cost of regulation and barriers is enormous, per Mario Draghi (former president of the European Central Bank).

AI progress is, as Box CEO Aaron Levie put it, “insane”. See two tweets below. One major development over the last month is how AI models are trending toward commoditization, with for example 3 Chinese companies (DeepSeek, ByteDance, Alibaba) releasing competitive models this year. 

Government spending has grown unsustainably (see below two charts), and Defense is one of the 3 key US spending areas (along with Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid). 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered officials to cut 8 percent from the defense budget over each of the next five years. 8% a year means in 5 years the defense budget will have been reduced by 1/3. This will meaningfully impact the debt, so if this indeed is carried out then from a debt perspective this is a very positive development. 

On the nature of compounding, from Tom Morgan:

“Warren Buffett has benefited from the power of compounding. As writer Morgan Housel has noted, if Buffett retired at 60 and went to play golf in Naples it’s likely nobody would have heard of him. Approximately 99% of his wealth was accumulated after his 50th birthday and 97% came after his 65th birthday.”

A few interesting quotes I came across this month

A few pics of nice cafes from all over the world