The Habit Healers

Why is it so hard to be alone with your thoughts, and why does your hand reach for your phone the second you’re bored? In one famous study, people chose to give themselves an electric shock rather than sit quietly with their own minds for fifteen minutes. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through that research and what it reveals about boredom, distraction, and why we reach...

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

Can two meals with identical nutrition labels affect your insulin, blood sugar, and metabolism differently? A new study on ultra-processed foods says yes, and I think it changes how you should read every package in your kitchen. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through a fascinating experiment. Researchers built two trays, one ultra-processed and one less processed, matched...

Healthy holiday eating gets so much easier when you decide what you’ll do before you’re hungry, tired, and sitting at someone else’s table. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m sharing a simple four-line plan to help you handle holiday stress, travel, and family food pressure without giving up the meals and traditions you love. Most of us plan the holiday menu, but the hardest moments...

Chronic back pain that has lasted for years, plus an MRI that says disc degeneration or a disc bulge, can make it feel like your spine is simply wearing out. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through a clinical trial of pain reprocessing therapy that tells a very different story about chronic low back pain relief. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and here’s what I want you to know: th...

Are lectins in beans dangerous? Can you cook dried kidney beans in a slow cooker? Here’s the truth: your beans were never the problem. The problem is a pot that never boiled long enough. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through a file of kidney bean poisonings that public health investigators collected over nearly thirteen years, most of them in ordinary home kitchens, incl...

Should you take a GLP-1 like semaglutide (Wegovy)? Before you ask whether these weight loss drugs work, I want you to ask a better question: how much risk did the people in the studies actually have, and do you have that same risk? In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through the big semaglutide heart study, what it really showed about preventing heart attack and stroke, and wh...

Thank you Sloane , Catherine Wyatt-Morley , Heather in 🇬🇷 , MB Parker , David Hawkins , and many others for tuning into my live video with Chef Martin Oswald ! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to The Habit Healers at drlauriemarbas.substack.com/subscribe

Menopause brain fog can feel like early dementia, but the research tells a much more hopeful story. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and in this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m breaking down what’s really behind perimenopause brain fog, forgetfulness, and memory lapses in midlife, and which causes you can start treating now. If you’ve been losing words, rereading emails, or quietly worrying about...

Strength training for beginners doesn’t have to mean rows of machines and hours at the gym. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through a simple full-body workout you do twice a week: six lifts that work every major muscle group in about an hour a week. If you’ve put off lifting weights because it seemed like more time than you have, this one is for you. We talk about why a si...

Why do some people catch every cold that goes around while others never seem to get sick? On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m sharing research that changed how I think about your immune system and the common cold, and it has nothing to do with vitamin C. When healthy volunteers were given a cold virus on purpose, the people with more kinds of relationships got sick far less often. No...

At one point, I asked Chef Martin Oswald whether restaurant kitchens had robots doing all the prep. Not yet, he told me. A little later, as tray after tray of cooked vegetables appeared on his counter, I decided he must at least own a magic oven. If batch cooking has ever sounded like three days of the same finished meal, this session asked a better question. Could the repetitive work happen once...

Does intermittent fasting actually work, or does 16:8 fasting just help you eat less? On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m walking you through what the research on time-restricted eating really shows about weight loss, autophagy, and metabolic health. If you’ve been keeping an eating window and wondering whether those fasting hours are doing something special in your body, this one is...

Does a light box for seasonal affective disorder really work, or did yours just never get a fair trial? In this episode, I walk through the research on light therapy for winter depression and the simple mistakes that keep it from working. On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I take you back to the early experiments showing that bright light, not ordinary room light, changes how the body r...

Is testosterone for women after menopause worth trying? If an online clinic has promised you that a testosterone cream will fix your low libido, energy, and weight, this episode looks at what the research actually shows. On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m walking you through more than thirty years of studies on testosterone therapy for women. We start with a surprising experiment in...

Can you reverse type 2 diabetes? And why do some thin people develop insulin resistance and high blood sugar while others at a much higher weight have perfect labs? I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and in this episode I walk you through the personal fat threshold, the idea that changed how I think about type 2 diabetes remission. For fifty years we were told diabetes was about how much fat you carry. The re...

Relative risk vs absolute risk: it’s the one distinction that changes how you read every health headline. In this episode, I’m walking you through how to read a medical study, so a big percentage in the news never misleads you again. Welcome to The Habit Healers Podcast. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and this is week two of Mini Medical School, where we’re learning to understand medical research together...

Menopause joint pain can change how exercise feels almost overnight. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I sit down with sports scientist and personal trainer Patricia Siegel to talk about strength training and exercise during menopause, and what to do when your body starts responding differently. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and this one is personal. I ran a personal best at the Boston Half M...

I ran a personal best at the Boston Half Marathon with my daughter. Shortly afterward, around the time of my last period, I developed horrible joint pain. Activities I had done for years suddenly came with significant discomfort. I shared that experience with Patricia Siegel because advice to simply keep exercising can leave out something important. You may already want to move. You may have been...

Chef Martin Oswald placed each halved plum skin-side down across a crumbly walnut crust. That one small move kept the juice inside the fruit as it baked, but it also explained the larger idea behind our latest cooking session. He was not trying to make a familiar dessert better by simply taking things away. He kept asking what each ingredient needed to do. The walnuts had to bring richness and tex...

Smartphone addiction isn’t a willpower problem. In this episode, I explain why you can’t stop checking your phone, what all that screen time is doing to your brain, your sleep, and your relationships, and how to break the habit with a simple digital detox plan. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and on this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast we’re looking at how the phone went from a tool we use to a tool t...

Is willpower really a limited resource that runs out by the end of the day? If you’ve ever said “I’ve got nothing left” right before giving in at night, this episode on the science of willpower and self-control is for you. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and on this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast I walk you through one of the most famous ideas in psychology, often called ego depletion: the belief tha...

Osteopenia, a DEXA scan showing bone loss, and a prescription for Fosamax: that’s where Peggy was at 69. Two and a half years later, her bone density scan showed a 6.2 percent gain in her left hip. In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I walk you through her story and what it can teach you about bone health after menopause. I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and I want to be honest about what Peggy’s...

Low testosterone isn’t just about age. If your lab results came back low, you’ve probably been told it’s simply part of getting older. In this episode, I break down what the research actually shows about what lowers testosterone in men, and which changes are tied to the biggest shifts. I count down five common suspects, from the smallest effect to the largest: exercise, a new diagnosis, age, short...

Is sugar addictive, or is something else driving your sugar cravings and binge eating? In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I look at the famous rat studies behind the idea of sugar addiction, and what they actually tested. Here’s the part most people miss. The rats that looked “addicted” only showed those signs when sugar and food came and went on a strict schedule. Rats with sugar avail...