Michael Easter
@Michael_Easter
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Founder of Two Percent + Author of The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain
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Joined March 2009
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Don't die.
Live better.
Read the 2% Manifesto.
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🏃♀️ You may have read that humans are the best endurance athletes.
It's not true. We're only good in the heat, thanks to how we cool ourselves.
🐺 Sled dogs are—by far—the greatest endurance athletes in the mammal kingdom.
And their stats are insane ...
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The internet:
-The world is ending.
-Violence is everywhere.
-That group hates this group.
-Outrage, outrage, outrage, outrage.
The outdoors:
-The sun is shining.
-The birds are chirping.
-The grass and trees are green.
-People wave and say good morning.
-The big river is
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Sled dogs can sustain running a 4-minute mile pace for 100+ miles.
This means:
🐺 It takes a sled dog 6-7 hours to complete a 100-mile ultrarace.
🏃♀️Meanwhile, the fastest human time in ~equivalent conditions is ~16 hours.
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Fit sled dogs have a VO2 max of 300 ml/kg/min.
For context, at his peak, Lance Armstrong's VO2 was 85 ml/kg/min.
Even sled dogs who never run have a VO2 of 175.
Scientists wrote that the dogs display the “highest sustained metabolic rates on record."
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Strongly held opinion:
Most people are better off walking with weight—i.e., rucking—rather than running.
🚶♀️🎒🫀🫁💪
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🚨 The other thing: Sled dogs will run those 100 daily miles at that 4-minute mile pace for weeks on end.
And they can do this in -40 temperatures.
They wake up eager to run more every morning.
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I wrote a book that helped popularize rucking.
Rucking improves strength and cardio at once, boosts health markers, seems to be uniquely good for fat loss, etc. I.e., It's something you should be doing.
Here's the simplest three-step guide to starting you'll ever read.
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Turns out I was drinking 3x caffeine that the Mayo Clinic deems "safe." So I quit cold turkey, which was like a scene from Train Spotting. I wrote about the experience + the crazy benefits I saw from cutting back for
@outsidemagazine
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How is this possible? Sled dogs:
🫁 Have a giant aerobic capacity.
⛽️ Recover quick. After a few days of running 100+ miles, their recovery markers are equivalent to when they started.
🏎️ Are built to efficiently cover ground (low head angle, upright rear leg angle).
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For
@MensHealthMag
's 30th anniversary issue, I wrote about
@CrossFit
founder Greg Glassman (
@CrossFitCEO
), the person who's most influenced how we exercise in the last 30 years.
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Does exercise help you burn more calories and lose weight?
We used to think it did.
But some scientists now think exercise won't lead you to burn more calories in a day.
This theory, called the "constrained energy hypothesis," is one of the biggest debates in exercise. ➡️➡️
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Sled dogs:
🔥 Burn energy differently than us (they rely primarily on fat, which burns cooler).
❄️ Are cooled by their environment (sweating, like we do to cool ourselves, costs energy that we can't use to run).
And much more ...
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Scientists are now studying sled dogs to improve human performance.
🇺🇸 For example, DARPA is trying to apply lessons from sled dogs to Special Forces soldiers.
The lessons could help SF operators go farther, faster, with less sleep and less stress on their bodies.
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That's the age when most people basically start dying.
The average human lifespan is 73.2 years.
But our average healthspan is only 64 years.
Those final 9.2 years are spent in poor health.
The good news: We can change this. What are you doing to get more healthy years?
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While writing my bestselling book, The Comfort Crisis, I discovered that roughly 98 percent of people choose short-term comfort over long-term growth.
And this applies to everything ... (a thread)
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Carrying weight over distance is the only exercise humans are uniquely good at.
No other mammal can carry like us. It allowed humans to take over the world.
Carrying weight long distances is still one of the best things you can do for health and fitness.
Here’s how to start.
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Fair. We just moved in!
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Taking the stairs is associated with a 39% lower chance of dying from heart disease and a 24% drop in all-cause mortality.
Yet only 2% of people take the stairs when there’s also an escalator available.
Don’t die: Be a 2-Percenter. Take the stairs.
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Carrying weight for distance is the missing link in most people's exercise routines.
There's nothing more "functional." Humans are built to carry—but we've engineered it out of our lives.
It can improve your endurance, strength, and burn fat.
Here's how to start:
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A long outdoor walk is one of the best things you can do for your body, brain, and sanity. 🧠🫁🫀🧘
Add a weighted backpack to that walk and you’ll get more from every step. 💪
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"No one ever got taller by cutting another person down."
-My wife, who regularly comes up with old-timey wisdom on the fly.
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Rule One: Make it really hard
Rule Two: Don’t die
A thread on the concept of Misogi, which can help expand your potential.
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🚨 My new book, SCARCITY BRAIN, is now available for pre-order.
The book investigates a simple question.
Why can’t humans ever seem to get enough?
From food and stuff to information and influence, we seem to be built to crave. Why? And how do we find enough?
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2 percent of people take the stairs when there’s also an escalator available.
Be a 2 Percenter, the fraction of people who choose short-term discomfort to get long-term benefits.
It’s a metaphor for living well today and tomorrow.
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Rucking is a powerful and practical exercise most people should do.
Rucking is just walking with a weighted backpack. It works your cardio and strength system at the same time. 💪🏃♀️🫁🫀
Here’s how to start:
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I feel best when I walk more.
12,500+ steps is my daily goal.
7,500 steps is my bare minimum. I never go under this.
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Here's mine. Everyday I:
1. Try not to take myself so damn seriously
2. Move myself and things
3. Sleep—and don't panic when it ain't perfect
4. Go outside—the wilder the nature the better
5. Eat enough—not too much or too little
6. Learn something
7. Have fun—ideally w/ others
I am convinced that the 8 pillars of Mental & Physical Health are:
1) Sleep
2) (Sun)light
3) Exercise
4) Stress Management
5) Relationships (Incl. To Self)
6) Nutrients (Amt., Timing, Content)
7) Oral Health & Gut Microbiome
8) Spiritual Grounding
Additions? Subtractions?
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Scarcity Brain was named one of Amazon's Best Books of 2023, and that's pretty freaking cool.
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One thing I learned from writing The Comfort Crisis: People are capable of incredible things.
We all have powers far beyond what we think. We just need to go find them.
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The history of the Murph workout is fascinating and complicated.
I traced the history of the Memorial Day workout:
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As people experience fewer problems, we don’t become more satisfied.
We just lower the threshold for what we consider a problem.
We end up with the same number of troubles.
Except our new problems are progressively more hollow.
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My advice for people interested in rucking: Start.
Get any backpack you have.
Fill it with something that weighs something. Water jugs, books, a dumbbell wrapped in a towel, etc.
Walk.
You'll get more out of every step.
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Tracking finances: Responsible.
Tracking reps, sets, and poundage or miles and pace: Smart training.
Tracking how fast you drive: Being safe.
Tracking work tasks: Being a good employee.
Tracking blood pressure, cholesterol, etc: Fundamental to medicine.
Tracking data: Good
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Costco is one of America’s great institutions.
Use it right, and it’ll help you eat far healthier and save a bunch of time and money doing it.
Deep dive into the GOAT warehouse store 🐐
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91% of people fail their New Year’s Resolutions.
The problem isn’t you. The problem is the idea of resolutions and goals themselves.
There's a better way.
Instead, solve problems.
Let me explain ...
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Do you have a bad habit you can't break?
In my new book Scarcity Brain, I went into a casino laboratory in Las Vegas. 🎰
That's where I learned about The Scarcity Loop. 🔄
It's a three-part behavior loop that is the ultimate killer of moderation.
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Thinking about our death can, paradoxically, help us find joy.
I spoke with scores of researchers and traveled to Bhutan to understand this phenomenon for my book, The Comfort Crisis.
Here's how it works.
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7,500 steps: The bare minimum for good health.
It's the sweet spot for lowering your disease risk in the least amount of time.
12,500+ steps: Best for great health and longevity.
This lowers your risk of disease the most, but returns diminish significantly above this number.
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@hubermanlab
Many thanks for sharing,
@hubermanlab
I’ve heard from a lot of parents who benefited from the book and asked their kids to read it.
That was an unexpected and awesome surprise for me!
Thanks again for sharing.
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I ❤️ and feel like I "get more" out of outdoor exercise.
Perhaps because:
🌲 Exposure to nature, sunshine, etc.
⛰️ More unpredictability (terrain, etc)
😓 More effort (if I go out I must come back/can't quit easily)
⛈️ Less comfort (weather, wind, etc)
How about you?
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My new book, Scarcity Brain, made the New York Times Bestseller list.
Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered or bought the book. Thanks to the
@penguinrandom
team who edited and launched the book, and to my wife who helped me shape the ideas.
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The airport and air travel is the ultimate place to witness first-world problems.
People complain about *everything.* We absolutely suck at realizing how amazing air travel is in the grand scheme of time and space.
Turn out there's science behind first-world problems.
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Releasing the Kraken tomorrow.
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93 percent.
That’s how much of our time we spend indoors.
Yet humans evolved in nature—it’s our home. Even just 20 minutes outside:
🧠 Reduces anxiety and depression.
🫀Decreases blood pressure and resting heart rate.
👁️ Improves focus and productivity.
Start with a walk
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Anything is possible when you're an Easter on Easter.
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Cold exposure, cold plunges, and ice baths are popular.
But we probably don’t need to go to those extremes to benefit from the cold.
Here’s how a group of Japanese women informed the beginnings of the Navy SEALs and changed how we think of the cold.
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Literally any form of "exercise," physical activity for the sake of it, is made up and very strange in the grand scheme of human history.
I am 100% down with any "pointless" activities or goals we invent to get us more physically active.
Unpopular opinion: Running marathons is the most pointless activity known to humanity.
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In the days after spring daylight savings ...
➡️ Heart attacks rise 24%
➡️ Strokes rise 8%
➡️ Fatal car crashes rise 6%
➡️ Medical errors rise 19%
➡️ Depressive episodes rise 11%
➡️ Work injuries rise 6%
Stay safe this week.
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I truly enjoyed speaking to the wise
@richroll
I've written about my sobriety in my books but haven't talked about it on podcasts beyond a surface level.
Rich was the only person I felt comfortable going deep on the topic with. Thanks for being you, Rich.
#MondayMotivation
✨
@Michael_Easter
shares the psychology of addictive behavior, the pernicious ways big tech exploits our brain’s reward-seeking nature, and how we can fight back.👉🏽
#richroll
#richrollpodcast
#michaeleaster
#author
#scarcitybrain
#mindset
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The modern world is designed for short-term survival and pleasure.
It is not set up to help us thrive in the long term.
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Stop helicopter parenting. Let kids play outside unsupervised.
Kids who aren’t allowed to explore and play outside are at increased risk of anxiety and depression.
This is an idea I wrote about in The Comfort Crisis.
A new review of the research backs the idea.
➡️➡️➡️
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Waiting on a plane? Ruck the terminals.
I can usually cover about a mile every 20 mins as I wait to board. ✈️ 🚶🎒
Doing the slightly harder thing when you have the opportunity is the ultimate life hack. I call it being a 2-Percenter.
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I guess I accidentally wrote a business book.
A friend is sending me some fun videos about my book, The Comfort Crisis.
She works at a 60,000-person company.
The company is having a virtual all-company meeting and literally every single executive has a copy of The Comfort
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My latest: The two reasons why "diets" fail, and 5 simple, sustainable ways to lose weight + keep it off for good:
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Yesterday I rucked 50 miles in Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
Here are six lessons I learned along the way.
(I wrote this post after being awake for 40 hours)
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For those intrigued by rucking, here's my suggestion: Begin.
Grab any backpack you own.
Load it with a weighty item. This could be water jugs, books, a dumbbell wrapped in a towel, a bag of rice, etc.
Walk.
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Rucking is arguably the best exercise for women.
There are four reasons why.
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“Listen to your body” is not good advice.
Our bodies default to cheap comforts that come with long-term problems. Bodies want us to be lazy, binge junk food, zone out to garbage media, and generally do what ever is easiest right now.
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Is 10,000 steps a good number? Is it backed by science?
A reader recently emailed me that question. So I went down the rabbit hole.
Turns out, that's the wrong question to ask. There are three numbers you should know about steps.
A thread ...
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Ran up hell hill in Las Vegas with Stockton this morning.
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I'm psyched that my new book, Scarcity Brain, was named a Best Book of October by Amazon.
Thanks to Lindsey Powers, the Amazon Editor who selected the book.
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My new book, Scarcity Brain, has a cover!
I love what the
@penguinrandom
design team did. The book comes out September 26th.
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Ice baths and cold plunges wouldn't be as popular were it not for Instagram.
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Please enjoy 5 ridiculous quotes from my new book, SCARCITY BRAIN, out on 9/26.
1. He picked me up at the airport and tossed my pack in the backseat of his SUV, which held a duffel bag filled with duct tape, handcuffs, rope, zip ties, hoods, and guns.
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Moving more throughout the day usually burns more calories than exercise.
Taking the stairs, fidgeting, walking more, etc can burn up to 800 calories a day.
But we often neglect this kind of movement.
For example, only 2% of people take the stairs when there’s also an
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Humans as a species are uniquely good at two physical skills:
1. Covering great distances.
2. Carrying loads.
Exercise accordingly.
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I walked five miles during a layover the other day.
It's sneaky powerful!
I even wrote a full guide to rucking airport terminals:
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Drink diet.
I’ve never thought “drink water only” is reasonable advice, because water is boring and soda is not. Calorie-free sweeteners are a safe and reasonable substitution.
New research focuses on the adverse effects of sugary drinks on human health.
Meta-analyses across 8601 peer-reviewed articles suggests sugary drinks are the largest source of added sugars in our diets.
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I would eat three (maybe four) of those for free.
If someone offered you $10,000 to eat all of this for breakfast in one sitting, could you do it?
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My take after writing The Comfort Crisis:
-food today isn’t “poisoned” … it’s just more calorie dense, available, and irresistible.
-we move less (at work and in daily life)
-we deal will stress differently (eg, more stress eating)
Here's a hill I will hold but likely not die on—yet:
People were leaner 50 years ago because life was SO much more active. Even 25 years ago, we had to stand at arcade machines to play fighting games against other people.
Yeah, the food is trash. But it's not much more trash
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The most godawful, insanely difficult workout of The
@CrossFitGames
only required a 20 pound weight
http://t.co/rjvbwUgs4a
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Ditch the helicopter parenting. Let kids roam outside without constant supervision.
Children who aren't given the freedom to explore and play outdoors are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression.
I explored this concept in my book "The Comfort Crisis".
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The
@nytimes
said my book, The Comfort Crisis, "helped popularize rucking."
After I published the book, I got a lot of specific questions about rucking.
I answered the most common in this post: Rucking 101
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Prime Day is the Super Bowl of buying crap you don't need.
Amazon leans into a powerful habit loop that leads us to make impulsive decisions we later regret.
Online retailers took this loop directly from casinos.
Learn about the habit loop and three ways to buy less stuff you
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Grades and GPA weren't invented to help students learn and improve.
They were created to make the lives of administrators and employers easier.
Here's a brief history of grades and their downsides.
➡️➡️➡️
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"Strength is an asset. Size often isn’t—even if it’s muscle. Be supermedium."
Be supermedium, indeed.
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The Misogi challenge will expand your potential.
There are only two rules of Misogi.
Rule 1: Make it really hard.
Rule 2: Don't die.
It sounds quirky, but it evokes an ancient human story ...
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I'm happy to announce that my new book, Scarcity Brain, is available for pre-order.
And we have a killer pre-order campaign that gets you more valuable material.
Very much looking forward to
@Michael_Easter
new book.
He’s one of the best healthy living authors in the world today. His books have timeless messages and are written extraordinarily well.
It’s on presale here:
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How do we make exercise great again?
➡️Make exercise unpredictable
➡️Exercise outdoors more often
➡️Use multiple skills at once
➡️Put yourself in positions where you can’t quit
It takes some creativity to do it.
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In 1960:
➡️ 48% of jobs required at least a moderate amount of physical activity.
➡️ The average American weighed ~156 pounds.
Today:
➡️ Less than 20% of jobs require a moderate level of physical activity.
➡️ The average American weighs ~187 pounds.
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I don't think exercise is medicine so much as inactivity is poison.
The more, different exercise we do, the better we are at buffering poison.
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I wrote a book that "helped popularize rucking," according to the
@nytimes
.
Rucking improves strength and cardio, boosts health markers, seems to be uniquely good for fat loss. It's something you should be doing.
Here's a simple three-step guide to start rucking.
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The University of South Carolina football team has become the fittest in football by changing how they approach football training entirely.
Their method is also what's best for the average person. I.e., You.
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The difference between the great person and the ordinary person:
The great person took action. Especially when the action was difficult, uncommon, and uncomfortable.
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Great piece on parenting from
@BStulberg
and
@stevemagness
Stop Hovering And Let Kids Play—Their Mental Health Depends On It
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Rucking tip: Place the weight higher in the pack and closer to your spine.
Less weight movement = more efficiency and safety.
To elevate the weight, place a yoga block, box, etc in the pack’s bottom.
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What people consider “hard” or “too much” exercise was often a regular day for our ancestors.
Learn how much exercise they got and how that can inform us today here:
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@thesamparr
Shoot me a message and I’ll send you my book, The Comfort Crisis.
It contains a chapter on Misogi.
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"The modern-day Hunter S. Thompson of wellness" is the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me.
Thanks
@Schwarzenegger
@BornFitness
@ketch
I guest wrote a piece about the benefits of outdoor exercise for today's Pump Club. Read it here:
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I enjoyed speaking with the great Joe Rogan about my new book, SCARCITY BRAIN, and many other topics.
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My recent conversation with
@PeterAttiaMD
is up. Enjoy!
In this episode (Ep.
#284
) of The Drive, I speak with bestselling author
@Michael_Easter
. We explore the evolutionary backdrop that molded human beings, the scarcity loop, and much more.
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Build callouses.
Callouses are the result of your body naturally toughening itself against past hardship.
They’re also a metaphor for living:
Do tough stuff at the edge of your limits, and you’ll get tougher.
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My favorite way to end an overworked day is to take a long walk.
No direction in mind. Usually with music. Bare minimum 90 minutes.
I feel better afterward and get some great ideas out of it.
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