I am a 25f, 5’1, 135ish lbs. I’m fairly active and my estimated maintenance is \~2200. I’ve been tracking for at least two years consistently, and for about 10 on and off.

My tendency is to eat around 3000 calories if I am not extremely cautious. If I’m very cautious I typically get around 2500. If I am using every sheer ounce of willpower in my body I can occasionally get 1800-1900. I don’t think I’ve once in the past year been able to end a day under 1700.

As you can see, this is a problem since I am constantly taking one step forward and two steps back. I’ve gained 20 lbs this year.

Even eating at maintenance is a gargantuan effort and I am hungry and thinking about food all the time.

I have PCOS, but my lab is perfect, and my doctors have confirmed that there is no other underlying cause for my weight gain and hunger. My endocrinologist actually offered to prescribe me wegovy, but insurance doesn’t cover it and I do not want to pay hundreds of dollars to lose 20 lbs when I should be able to do this myself.

I also primarily eat whole foods. However I can and will down 500g of chicken breast or apples in one sitting.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How do you maintain when even that feels restrictive? How do you LOSE?

Intensive Breathwork Alters Brain Activity
In a study involving 30 experienced participants, researchers used MRI scans to monitor brain activity and blood flow during intensive breathwork.

- Brain blood flow decreased by approximately 45%, likely due to reduced carbon dioxide levels.
- Psychedelic-like experiences: Participants reported altered perceptions, vivid imagery, and feelings of deep connection.
- Brain communication changed: Researchers observed changes in networks involved in self-awareness and personal identity.
- Similarities to psychedelics: Breathwork produced effects resembling those associated with psilocybin and LSD, without drugs.
- Potential mental health benefits: Researchers believe breathwork could eventually support drug-free therapeutic approaches.
- More research needed: The small study leaves long-term benefits and safety unclear.

Bottom line: Intensive breathwork can temporarily alter consciousness and brain activity, but its therapeutic benefits remain unproven.

Screens off is the obvious one nobody actually does. Curious what your real evening routine looks like — tea, stretching, reading, whatever. What's the one thing that actually helps you sleep better?

Please someone help me! Im constantly fatigued, can’t focus and have bad memory and i pee a lot at night. If there’s some tests I can take or even some clinic online to help dial me in please recommend it.

Full disclosure there will be obvious things I can work on and have been working on:

- 35 years old and a male 5’10”
-270 pounds. Started trizeperide and have consistently going to the gym and eating healthy. I had this fatigue and brain fog issue before I started trizeperide.
- I’m in bed by 9:30 pm and am not on my phone. I read every night before bed.
- I stop drinking water by 6pm most days but Sheats wake up 1-3 times a night to pee. Usually midnight then 3-4 am.
- I take a multi vitamin, creatine, vitamin d, tadafadil everyday.

I don’t think I’m missing anything else but will answer anything truthfully. I want to fix this it’s really destroying my life. I’ll do anything and spend anything.

I can't fall asleep I can't stay asleep. I believe I only had about like four or five hours slee last 2 days took magnesium and melatonin did nothing. I'm trying to fix my anedonia /depression.

Feeling tired throughout the day brain fog because of lack of sleep

I'm only taking 37.5 mg for the first week and then 75 mg after that

Here's a guide I built to better understand what raises and lowers HRV. If you use a wearable, the vast majority of the brands report HRV as RMSSD measured during sleep, which is the same measure most research uses (Apple finally provides RMSSD too). Daily readings swing a lot on their own, so your trend matters more than any single night.

I broke the guide into four categories: exercise, lifestyle, nutrition & supplements and demographics. There's a short definitions and plain English column so it's easy to skim, all sources are linked so you can further your own research, and I'll put a mobile friendly version/list of all sources in the comments if you need them.

Definitions

• HRV (Heart Rate Variability): How much the time between heartbeats varies
• RMSSD: Beat-to-beat variation best for measuring shorter durations
• SDNN: Overall HRV across a longer window
• HF Power: Your rest & digest activity level
• Rest & digest (parasympathetic): Your body's brake pedal (calm/recover)
• Fight or flight (sympathetic): Your body's gas pedal (stress/alert)
• Vagal tone: How strong your calm down nerve is
• n: Number of people in the study

Exercise

Lifestyle

Nutrition & Supplements

Demographics

Hope you found this helpful!

Hi guys, I’ve been reading about bio hacking for a while. I currently have a small supplement stack and I’ve tried peptides too.
Obviously the most important things are the fundamentals like sleep food and movement.
I’ve been lacking so bad in movement and food. I can’t stop craving sugar, it’s been a problem since my childhood and I think I genuinely have an addiction. I try to stop but I always come back to it. I’ve done cold turkey, I’d have headache and bad mood for a week and then stop craving sugar until I eat a cake “just once” on someone’s birthday and the binge eating on sweets starts again.

I’m 23F, I have autism and moderate to severe ADHD if it’s relevant, no other addictions. i used to smoke a pack of cigs a day and giving up on cigarettes was MUCH easier than giving up on sugar.

Do you guys have any suggestions or experiences with sugar addiction? How can one stop craving it? I notice I’m the least disciplined when something changes in my life or in my routine. I’ve had a lot of those changes in the past 2 years.

Also external pressure works well on me typically, so if you’re someone who is also trying to be strict with sugar or gym/sports in general then maybe hmu? We could hold each other accountable. This usually works the best for me.

Ear-based vagus nerve stimulation was associated with substantially less rebound pain. In a randomized, sham-controlled trial of 120 patients undergoing arthroscopic shoulder surgery, rebound pain occurred in 20.0% of the taVNS group versus 43.3% of the sham group.

“Rebound pain” is the sudden pain spike that can happen when a nerve block wears off. Researchers defined it as pain rising from mild (3/10 or less) to severe (7/10 or more), with an increase of at least four points during the first 24 hours after surgery.

The treatment was non-invasive and added to standard pain management. Electrodes were placed on the left cymba conchae—the upper hollow area of the ear—and delivered transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS). Both groups also received general anesthesia, an interscalene nerve block, ibuprofen, and access to opioid pain medication.

The headline result was stronger than the change in average pain. Resting pain scores were only about 0.5 points lower, and movement-related pain about 0.4 points lower, on a 0–10 scale. Those differences were statistically significant but probably too small to be noticeably meaningful for many patients.

Opioid use was not significantly different. The taVNS group appeared to use less sufentanil, but the result narrowly missed statistical significance, so the study cannot confirm an opioid-sparing effect.

Sleep and early recovery scores were better, but the trial was small and short. It came from a single hospital, included 120 relatively healthy patients, and followed them for only 48 hours. The person administering the stimulation also knew which treatment was being given.

No stimulation-related adverse events were reported, although a study of this size cannot rule out uncommon side effects.

Bottom line: This human trial suggests taVNS may help prevent the abrupt transition from good pain control to severe pain as a shoulder nerve block wears off. It looks more convincing for reducing the risk of a sudden pain spike than for reducing overall pain intensity. Larger multicenter trials are needed before it becomes routine perioperative care.

Has anyone seen similar human trials of taVNS for acute pain—or evidence that the results hold up with different devices and stimulation protocols?

Study: Zhang J, Lu S, Lin S, et al. Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation to prevent rebound pain after interscalene block for arthroscopic shoulder surgery. Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine (2026). DOI: 10.1136/rapm-2026-108256

This study tested a specific clinical protocol under medical supervision. It does not establish that consumer vagus nerve devices or DIY electrical stimulation produce the same effect.

I've been fighting rising fasted insulin levels all my life. It comes with massive energy swings, weight difficulty, dopamine issues, and (potentially related) LDL problems.

I'm working with a functional medicine doctor. She's got an MD but has shifted from "regular" clinical work into more of what this sub is into. I gave her years of bloodwork and we went over a lot of questions, and she said that she thinks the best place to start is a food sensitivity test and that she believes that what she called "IgG delayed hypersensitivity" to dairy is the underlying cause of basically everything (through high histamine).

To her credit she said it was just a working hypothesis that tied all my symptoms together: histamine => insulin => dopamine and LDL.

I'm a bit skeptical that cutting out dairy will magically fix all my issues, and I've basically never seen it work. Has anyone done something like this and it actually worked?

I tried Melatonin(3mg) for the first time in my life about a month ago and the results were AMAZING! My sleep was fragmented, but the morning self felt different, I had very vivid but adventurous dreams, it felt like I was living all hours of the day, the 8 hours of sleep was not a blur, it was crazy memories.

I really felt like my childhood self again, full of energy, I was breathing easier, it felt like Depressions is a lie! I was full of energy and was thinking to myself: "Maybe I can do the things I deemed impossible, was I stupid for shelving those plans?", it was the opposite of depression. AMAZING sleep really is the most potent drug I know!

But since I had woken up many times, I tried to reduce the doze to 1.5mg and while I am getting good consistent sleep, I am not getting AMAZING sleep.

I remember that I biked about 10kms that day, I haven't been able to exercise that much ever since, but I have tried with >5kms, lifting weights etc., But I didn't have time to give them an hour.

So, I am trying to recapture that Sleep High, ANY suggestions would be helpful!

Mid 30’s female, a lot of supplements that are supposed to be calming make me absolutely spiral. Magnesium taurate had me frantically suicidal. 

It seems to be a GABA imbalance, but I’m unsure how to fix it and kind of afraid to try on my own.

I’ve had problems with: Gabapentin, Ashwaganda, NAC, Magnesium taurate, and Taurine

I do well with: theanine and tyrosine

I'll start off for better context Im a 30M, athletic, ADHD/ neurodivergent type. I've been stacking supplements since 2016. A lot of these supplements have been a trial experience meaning I've randomly taken them either based off hype or research on what I felt like I was lacking in. To start off Vit D/K, Magnesium glycinate, and zinc have always been a consistent part of how I stack. Recently however for the last 3-4 years, I've been taking 5-13 things, and recently of this year I've been taking about 20 different things in my stack.

My stack has consisted of, Berberine, NAC, Cinnamon, Choline, Alpha GPC, Magnesium Glycinate, Mag L Threonate, Fulvic/Humic acid, Fadogia, tribulus, Cistanche, Tongkat, Collagen, Creatine, B complex, Betaine HCI Pepsin, COQ10, Saw Palmetto, Ginko biloba, TUDCA, Bacopa, Pine Pollin and Boron.

I have decided to completely stop taking them, and I feel drastically better, when I first started taking my stack I felt energetic and on top of the world for the first 3-4 days, after that I experienced severe bloating, issues with bowel movements, sleep problems, and very very flat. I dont know the right word for it so maybe you guys can help me out, but I felt apathetic, I didn't want to do anything, and felt a complete lack of motivation. My guess is that it had something to do with my kidney function and thyroid function because I felt irritable and disinterested in everything.

Honorable mention- Ashwaganda- Now this is a supplement I haven't taken for 4 years, and for good reason, it can really mess up your thyroid function. I know it's really popularized, and people take it for sleep or stress but it makes you feel like a zombie.

Edit- a week from now I will give you guys all an update on how I feel.

I recently read that storing Sunscreens in hot weather can degrade the SPF in the product. I just ordered Estée Lauder’s daywear with the SPF, and noticed my package will probably be on a hot truck from Kentucky for a few days before arriving. Anyone have any idea about how much SPF would be degraded after a week on a 100+ degree truck?

Also would zinc sunscreens be more resilient to heat, rather than the chemical ones?

Thank you for any advice!

Need help figuring out the right solution for me.
I’ve been on sema for 2 years so I know that can’t be causing my exhaustion over the last 6 months. NAD+ made zero difference.

-All my blood work came back great
-I sleep 7 hours
-I workout 3-4x a week
-Work from home
-I’m dependent on adderal unfortunately but it does nothing for me for energy.
-I also am caffeine intolerant.. I can have 10 espressos and sleep the rest of the night.

What can help me with fatigue?

I have read somewhere frequent NSAIDs blunt muscle hypertrophy. However, does that change in lifters over age 60 to 65?

Hey guys, so I heard that canada has some strict regulations with supplements and I'm wondering if anybody has traveled out there with supplements that can give me any tips? Thank's.

Any idea on why yerba mate is more effective on waking me up than plain black coffee? Is there anything I could mix with coffee for better awareness?

In a investigative study scientist uncovered mechanism involved in a well known phenomenon of meal sequencing to lower post meal glucose spike.

Applied to rats model scientist discovered this specific meal sequencing cause vagus nerve to delay emptying and cause rise in specific hormones like GIP, GLP-1 and Glucagon and these factors synergistically works to reduce glucose rise post meal.

This study is limited to rodents only and taking fats introduce various issues in humans like weight management and massive increase in intake of calories and also fat preload can cause secondary glucose spike hours later which means,these factors were not accounted for in the study. Overall good read for those who are Interested.

Link;

https://diabetesjournals.org/diabetes/article/doi/10.2337/db26-0531/172660/Olive-Oil-Before-Oral-Glucose-Delays-Gastric

I want to improve my cognitive performance in college with nootropics and supplements. I have about €20-30 a month to spend on a nootropic stack. What would you recommend? I've heard good things about modafinil, semax, and cerebrolysin, but I'm not very knowledgeable yet.

I know chronotherapy and melatonin timing are somewhat effective if followed religiously… but I’m curious if you guys have an alternative solution

For those taking individual b vitamins what was your thought process deciding which to take and which not to? And determining which amounts to take for each?