Author: Joel Vance
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Cortisol isn’t your enemy, but chronic stress is doing something specific to your brain
Wellness content has decided cortisol is the villain. You’ve probably seen the framing by now: cortisol is the stress hormone, it makes you fat, wrecks your sleep, and the goal is to suppress it by any means available — adaptogens, breathwork, cold plunges, and supplements that promise to “balance” your cortisol as though it’s a…
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The sleep supplement stack nobody talks about: glycine, apigenin, and why melatonin is the wrong tool
Walk into any pharmacy and the melatonin section will have bottles ranging from 1mg to 10mg, with 5mg being roughly the standard. Walk into a health food store and you’ll find 10mg tablets marketed as premium sleep support. Most people who try melatonin and find it works start there, or go higher when it seems…
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Ashwagandha: the one adaptogen that actually has RCT data
The adaptogen category is mostly a mess. Rhodiola, holy basil, eleuthero — you’ll find them all in supplement stacks, sometimes alongside breathless claims about “resilience” and “adrenal support,” usually without a single well-designed human trial behind them. The term “adaptogen” itself isn’t a medical or pharmacological classification. It’s a marketing concept dressed in Soviet-era research…
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Your dopamine is broken and your morning routine is why
Something has gone wrong with how we experience motivation. Most people who spend time thinking about productivity or mental performance can feel it: a low-grade flatness, a difficulty getting started on things that used to feel engaging, a pull toward the phone that doesn’t feel voluntary. Wanting to do things and actually doing them has…