Brad Stulberg

Jan 22, 2025 | thegrowtheq.com | Brad Stulberg |Steve Magness

Just as we have an obesity crisis, we also have an attentional health crisis. Though their presentation is different, a significant part of their underlying cause is the same, and some of the solutions are too. Researchers use the terms evolutionary mismatch or dysevolution to describe situations in which our modern environments come into harmful conflict with our innate hardwiring. Let’s start with obesity: For over ninety-nine percent of our species’ history, we lived amidst scarcity.

Jan 8, 2025 | thegrowtheq.com | Brad Stulberg |Steve Magness

At the core of what makes the movie Wall-E and the book Brave New World dystopian is the loss of human agency. In both the film and book, people inhabit a world of near-constant pleasure. Everything is served up to you exactly how you want and when you want—from food to sex to friendship to entertainment. The meeting of your each and every desire is engineered to be perfectly timed, and if for some reason it’s not, all you need to do is a press a button and beckon what you want.

Nov 28, 2024 | nytimes.com | Brad Stulberg

When we find ourselves in the thick of disorder, uncertainty or loss, resilience can seem impossible, even trite, to hope for. At the end of September, Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on my community in western North Carolina. Businesses, homes and more than 100 lives were lost. Schools were closed for a month. There was no running water for nearly three weeks, and safe drinking water took far longer to come back. And yet, from Day 1, the community rallied.

Nov 19, 2024 | thegrowtheq.com | Brad Stulberg |Steve Magness

There is no denying American health is in trouble. Forty percent of us are ​obese​. More than seventy percent are ​overweight​. America ranks last among comparable countries in ​life expectancy​. Our maternal and infant ​mortality​ rate is among the highest of developed nations. More Americans report deep ​loneliness​ than ever. These are but a few of many scary statistics we could cite. On whole, Americans are not doing well. This isn’t new. America has been trending toward worsening health for years.

Nov 13, 2024 | thegrowtheq.com | Brad Stulberg

Look around, and everyone is selling (and craving) happiness and health. From podcasters to politicians, there’s been a cry for doing something to help people in these two domains. In a viral ​post​ on social media, a US senator Chris Murphy implored us to acknowledge our “crisis of meaning and purpose.” In a recent New York Times ​essay​, health was framed as an important past time and hobby. Let’s start with happiness.