Ben Greenfield’s Weekly Roundup: Might 9

Might 15, 2025

Welcome to Ben Greenfield’s Weekly Roundup!

On this weekly submit, I share with you my most fascinating discoveries of the week, together with the newest information on the fronts of health, diet, well being, wellness, biohacking, and anti-aging analysis. I additionally recap my upcoming occasions and particular bulletins so you may sustain with alternatives to study, giveaways, reductions, and extra!

New Discoveries

🚫 This is What Occurs to Your Mind When You Give up Your Telephone Chilly Turkey for 72 Hours 📱🧠

Say you determine to go phoneless for 3 days. No texts. No scrolling. No dopamine hits from these candy notifications. Simply you and your “primitive” self. What occurs subsequent?

In line with a Computer systems in Human Conduct research utilizing fMRI mind scans, the outcomes are wild. Your mind mainly throws a neurochemical tantrum. We’re speaking about actual, measurable shifts in exercise in areas just like the nucleus accumbens and anterior cingulate cortex—two hotspots that additionally gentle up whenever you expertise drug withdrawal and meals cravings.

Right here’s the gist of what the research discovered:

📱 After 72 hours of no smartphone, contributors’ brains confirmed elevated activation in reward and craving-related areas, particularly these tied to dopamine and serotonin pathways.

🧠 The longer the “cellphone quick” lasted, the extra the mind “craved” the visible cues of a smartphone. Even simply seeing an image of a cellphone triggered contributors’ neural salivation.

🧲 Areas of the mind accountable for consideration, salience, and motor inhibition (just like the parietal cortex) additionally lit up, form of like your mind saying, “WHERE IS MY PHONE?”

😬 Regardless of all this neural exercise, contributors didn’t report feeling extra anxious or craving their telephones… but their brains instructed a unique story.

What’s fascinating about these findings is that these patterns mimic what you’d see in different addictive behaviors, together with gaming, smoking, or sugar binges. The researchers even discovered correlations with the identical neurotransmitter programs concerned in alcohol and heroin withdrawal, like dopamine D1 and 5-HT1b receptors. So sure, the battle concerned in ditching your cellphone may be very actual and intense.

To sum it up, going with out your smartphone for 3 days doesn’t simply “really feel onerous”—it has important organic results, together with rewiring your mind’s reward circuitry. Your noggin will get twitchy, your dopamine pathways get antsy, and the components of your mind that normally assist with inhibition and focus gentle up like Occasions Sq..

For those who’re attempting to wean off your machine dependency, don’t anticipate your mind to be chill about it. It’ll protest—and almost definitely, loudly. However similar to a troublesome exercise, there’s progress on the opposite aspect.

Wish to check your individual digital detox resilience? Strive retaining your cellphone utterly out of sight for 72 hours and see how your physique, temper, and thoughts reply. Bonus factors in case you monitor your coronary heart price variability (HRV), sleep patterns, and cognition in the course of the course of, which gives you real-time suggestions about how effectively you are responding to cellphone withdrawal.

✔️ A better HRV usually means your nervous system is extra balanced and resilient. In case your HRV improves after ditching your cellphone, it’s an indication your physique is shifting out of a fight-or-flight state and right into a extra parasympathetic, rest-and-repair mode.

✔️ Fixed display time, particularly late at night time, wrecks melatonin manufacturing and suppresses deep sleep. Reduce the cellphone, and also you’re extra prone to expertise longer deep sleep cycles, fewer wakeups, and extra REM sleep, translating into improved psychological readability and vitality the following day.

✔️With out the fixed ping-ping-ping of notifications hijacking your consideration, your focus ought to sharpen. You may discover higher reminiscence recall, deeper problem-solving, and an uptick in inventive pondering. (Strive journaling or testing your response time each day in the course of the detox.)

Why put your self via this course of in case you may even handle to drag it off?

Since you’re not simply reclaiming your time however rewiring your mind, recalibrating your nervous system, and giving your biology a reset. It is like a metabolic quick, however to your thoughts. And similar to an excellent chilly plunge or a troublesome interval session, the discomfort is the place the transformation occurs.

Not solely that, however one other latest research that simply got here out just a few days in the past reveals what occurs whenever you flip your cellphone right into a “dumb cellphone.” Analysis contributors put in an software on their cellphone that blocked all types of web entry whereas nonetheless permitting texts and calls to be despatched and acquired. After 2 to 4 weeks, they skilled boosted psychological well being, well-being, and a focus. Not shocking!

Curious how fixed cellphone use (and publicity to wifi and EMFs) is likely to be rewiring your mind, and what you are able to do to interrupt free from the digital leash? Try these assets: 

• Is It Attainable To Make Our Screens “More healthy”? The New Blue-Mild, Flicker-Free Expertise That Might Change the Face Of Computing Without end, With Daylight Pc’s Anjan Katta.
• Why You Ought to Strive Sleeping On The Flooring, The “Furnishings-Free” House, Constructing A Higher Butt, Smartphone Options & Extra With Katy Bowman.
• The Invisible Drive Inside Your House That May Be Wreaking Havoc On Your Well being (And What You Can Do About It TODAY).
• The Hidden Well being Killer No one Is Speaking About (& 6 Methods To Defend Your self From It).
• Is 5G Actually That Harmful, Plant-Primarily based Weight loss plan Difficulties, Reversing Organic Age & A lot Extra!
• Not All EMFs Are Unhealthy: How To Use EMFs & “Digital Nootropics” To Form Your Electromagnetic Atmosphere for Peak Well being, Efficiency, Sleep, Power & Extra!
• Looking Down EMF In Your Workplace, Bed room, Fitness center & Past: Is Your House’s “Soiled Electrical energy” Wrecking Your Sleep, Your Restoration, Your Well being & Extra? The Official Ben Greenfield & Brian Hoyer Low-EMF House How-To.
• The Non-Tinfoil Information to EMFs: Tips on how to Repair Our Silly Use of Expertise (& The Actual Analysis On WiFi Well being, Cell Telephones, Soiled Electrical energy & Extra!).

📢 This Week in Well being & Efficiency: What the Newest Analysis Says 🚀

🚶‍♀️Fats Loss & Cardio: A latest research confirms that moderate-intensity cardio is lots efficient for fats loss in chubby and overweight ladies, which means there’s not essentially any must go all-out to see outcomes (research right here).

🔴 Purple Mild for Imaginative and prescient: Simply three minutes a day of pink gentle remedy at 670 nm will help enhance colour imaginative and prescient and defend your eyes’ mitochondria as you age. A low-intensity LED flashlight like this one could do the trick (full research).

🧬 Creatine vs. Most cancers? In a cross-sectional research of practically 26,000 folks, these with larger creatine consumption had decrease odds of most cancers, particularly adults over 50 (learn extra).

🌿 Liver Help with Milk Thistle: Silymarin, the lively compound in milk thistle, produced a powerful drop in liver enzymes in a latest research, pointing to sturdy liver-protective advantages, together with amongst folks with non-alcoholic fatty liver illness and liver fibrosis (full research right here).

📌 Key Takeaway: Small each day habits—like including creatine, strolling extra, utilizing pink gentle, or sipping on silymarin—can stack as much as severe long-term advantages.

🔗 Wish to dive deeper? Click on the hyperlinks above to discover the analysis, and click on right here to observe me on X for all the newest well being and efficiency information scorching off the press! 🚀

Product Of The Week

::: Drink Smarter, Higher Days After Consuming With 15% off ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic Drink 🥃 :::

For those who’ve ever loved a glass (or two) of wine, mezcal, or a fantastically crafted negroni, solely to get up the following day feeling such as you bought hit by a truck, you’re not alone. 

As a substitute of simply “toughing it out,” I’ve discovered a better solution to benefit from the night with out wrecking the following day.

ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol is a genetically engineered probiotic designed to interrupt down acetaldehyde, the nasty byproduct of alcohol that’s largely accountable for making you are feeling like rubbish the morning after. This isn’t your common probiotic, however a science-backed, peer-reviewed resolution for one thing all of us dread: a tough subsequent day.

I exploit ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol usually once I know I’ll be elevating a glass. Simply slam one in all these little photographs earlier than your first drink, and increase—you’re giving your physique the instruments it must deal with alcohol like a biohacker, not a frat boy.

What’s the distinction in the way you’ll really feel after an evening out with ZBiotics in your aspect? It’s noticeable. For those who’re like me, you’ll get up extra clear-headed and able to crush your morning exercise, sauna session, hike with the children, or no matter’s on deck that day.

So subsequent time you propose to imbibe, don’t go away your restoration to likelihood. Pre-load with ZBiotics and switch your night time out into one thing your physique can really thanks for.

Use code BENG right here to get 15% off your first ZBiotics Pre-Alcohol order.

By the best way, ZBiotics is backed by a 100% money-back assure, so if it doesn’t give you the results you want, no hurt, no foul.

Social Media Designed for Higher Well being, Clear Dwelling, and Actual Group—Obtain the App for FREE At this time!

Contemplating slicing again on social media or doing a digital detox—however craving expert-backed well being ideas, cutting-edge wellness hacks, and a group that will get it? 

Preserve studying…

For the final two years, my finest buddy Caleb Applegate and I’ve been working behind the scenes to create LIFE Community—the world’s first expert-led social community designed to rework your well being and wellness (it’s utterly FREE to hitch). 

And now, you may obtain the LIFE Community app right here!

We made LIFE Community for folks such as you—well being seekers, biohackers, and wellness-minded people—to assemble in group and inspire one another to reside wholesome, blissful lives. 

Along with your free membership, you’ll obtain entry to:

• Customized content material tailor-made to your well being targets

• A supportive, wellness-focused group

• Instruments to create, submit, and share well being content material

• Open, unfiltered “public sq.” discussions

• Knowledgeable-vetted product suggestions

• Every day ideas and community-driven challenges

Now you may even faucet into Ask Ben—LIFE Community’s highly effective built-in AI software that simulates a name or textual content session with yours really.

Whether or not you are in search of complement recommendation, coaching ideas, or need entry to my podcast archives, articles, or product picks, Ask Ben is like having my mind in your pocket. You possibly can attempt it free of charge with a normal LIFE Community account—or unlock the total, limitless expertise by upgrading to LIFE Premium.

Strive it now by creating your account right here!

🥁 The Absolutely Up to date Boundless Is Right here! Get Able to *Optimize* Your Physique, Thoughts, and Spirit! 📚💪

During the last 12 months, I have been working tirelessly on one thing that I am thrilled to lastly share: the brand-new, up to date model of my best-seller, Boundless, which is lastly accessible!

Like a cookbook for the human blueprint, the revised and up to date version of Boundless offers you a zero-guesswork information to becoming an entire knowledgeable in what makes your mind tick, your physique work, your spirit blissful, and your life fulfilled.

You possibly can flip to *any* chapter and uncover essentially the most up-to-date, research-proven, trench-tested strategies to construct muscle, burn fats, stability hormones, reside longer, sleep higher, have mind-blowing intercourse, and far, way more!

Just a few of the important thing subjects that the newest model of Boundless explores are:

• Methods to optimize mitochondrial density and biogenesis for peak vitality and metabolic well being.
• New strategies to stimulate the vagus nerve for stress discount, sleep high quality, and better coronary heart price variability utilizing gentle, sound, and electrical interventions.
• Up to date strategies for restoring circadian stability, combating jet lag, and maximizing sleep, naps, and meditation.
• Insights on the consequences of electromagnetic frequencies on the mind and physique, with tips about modifying units for higher shielding.
• The newest on addressing continual infections, detoxifying from mildew, and enhancing intestine operate with cutting-edge testing and coverings.
• New dietary supplements, biohacks, and protocols primarily based on latest longevity science, together with age-reversal insights.
• Contemporary routines and damage restoration instruments, plus minimalist strikes to burn fats all through the day with out gymnasium reliance.

For those who’re able to transcend the fast fixes and reclaim management over your vitality, that is your likelihood. Filled with insights on all the things from breathwork to chilly remedy and the newest anti-aging strategies, Boundless will provide help to construct a balanced, sustainable strategy to lifelong well being. I can not wait so that you can expertise all the things this information has to supply!

For those who’re able to uncover a treasure trove of the newest science-backed methods for bettering each side of your thoughts, physique, and spirit, click on right here to seize your copy of the newly launched Boundless.

Podcasts I Recorded This Week:

May This Controversial, Newly Found “Dolphin Drug” Be A *Lacking Key* To Longevity? The C15:0 Story, With Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson

 

Peluva (code BEN), SuperTeeth (code BENGREENFIELD), BIOptimizers MassZymes (code BEN10), Jaspr (code BEN), MOSH

 

 

600+ Questionable Components In Your “Wholesome” Packaged Merchandise? Is Beef Tallow Truly Protected (Shocking Reply!) & How To Save Cash On Good Groceries, With Thrive Market’s Nick Inexperienced.

 

Ketone-IQ, Quantum Improve (code BEN15), BEAM Minerals (code BEN), Calroy

 

 

The Newest Content material I Was Featured On This Week:

“The Prime 3 Every day Dietary supplements For Most Fats Loss & Muscle Achieve” — Angelo Keely (Notice: Whereas I am not featured on this episode, it is price a watch)

Males’s Well being Australia: Purple Mild Remedy Legit?