The Upward ARC

For years I've told people the same thing: get outside in the morning, move, catch some daylight. The advice came from Andrew Huberman's podcast, which I had followed for years. When his book Protocols came out on September 15, I started reading right away. After about 20 pages I stopped. The book gives morning light a dose: five to ten minutes on a clear day, fifteen if it's cloudy, thirty if it'...

My flight from Berlin to Munich was delayed by an hour, so I found a seat in the lounge and opened the October issue of manager magazin. The cover story, "Das große Rauswerfen," says tens of thousands of German executives are losing their jobs. In 2025, Germany had an average of 49,000 unemployed managers, the highest number since 2015. As I read the article, many of these managers spent years coo...

"No one knows this yet." A friend I've known for more than fifteen years said it at lunch, just before the waiter arrived. Her career looked very solid. She was thinking about what comes next anyway. Within a few weeks, I heard almost the same question from five people who don't know each other. None of them are in trouble, and none of them want to retire. They're still building, still have financ...

In a dusty square in Kathmandu, men waited for minibuses in a deep squat. I took those minibuses to the hospital, where I worked in traumatology, and began wondering why I rarely used that position myself. Years later, during an hour's wait outside an embassy with my family, I was the only person in the queue squatting. This episode of Under Load looks at mobility as we age, with a practical quest...

Karla said people were too loud. Everyday voices suddenly felt overwhelming after doctors put small tubes in her eardrums. Our youngest had spent years struggling to hear us and tell us what she needed. She’s six now, and I’ve finally felt ready to write about it. This episode follows her progress, our doubts about a bilingual kindergarten, and the conversations I want people to be able to follow...

I knocked a boiled egg against the table, and the crack cut through the silence. We were at a hotel for a week of leadership training. The morning session started at eight o'clock, and so did my eating window, so I came in from the breakfast buffet with eggs and started breakfast in front of everyone. I understand why the rule appeals. Pick your hours, and you have fewer decisions to make. The pro...

I slid twenty kilos onto each side of the bar and stepped under it. Sixty kilos with the bar. Ten reps at that weight is a warm-up for me, the set I do without thinking about it. I got to five and had to rack it. Nothing had gone wrong. I had slept badly, so I told myself that was the reason. Then it happened again the next week, and the week after. I am a physician, so my first move was to go loo...

I walked up to the booth at CES ready to buy a glucose monitor. Bright lights, shiny counters, staff handing out little treats and packets of electrolyte powder. Six figures of trade-show budget, probably more, and it showed. I had just come from the panel. Two people I respect had talked about wearing one of these, and after three years of doubt I was ready to try it and later speak from experien...

I drank butter for breakfast for two years. Two tablespoons, blended into coffee, standing at the kitchen counter before anyone else was awake. I have a medical degree and a dental one. I did it because someone on a podcast explained the science, and it made sense to me at the time. These things always seem to make sense at first. That is the real problem. After butter came MCT oil, then coconut,...

In August 2024 I was at the worst point of eighteen months of back pain. My wife was putting my socks on for me. I was half-listening to a podcast when I heard a Stanford neuroscientist mention a compound called BPC-157. That afternoon I was on a vendor's website with a bank transfer form open. I never bought it, and the reason is embarrassing rather than admirable. This episode is about what happ...

You’re not burned out because you’re weak. You’re burned out because you’re addicted: to stimulation, to notifications, to performance highs that quietly destroy your ability to focus and lead. In this episode, Dr. Andre Heeg breaks down how dopamine, the brain chemical behind motivation and reward, is being hijacked by modern work culture. With help from his AI co-host Clara, he explores: Why hig...