What’s this newsletter about?

Wise & Well delivers actionable insights to your inbox every Friday, with science-backed news and feature articles about smart and healthy behaviors and choices to cultivate physical fitness, mental wellness, emotional resilience and, ultimately, a wee bit more happiness. Without all the hype.

Paid subscribers get an additional exclusive feature story each Tuesday, PLUS a free copy of OLD BULLSH!T, my new PDF booklet that debunks aging myths so that you can actually enjoy growing older, no matter how old you are today.

Each Tuesday paid feature, drawn from my own collection of Wise & Well articles, offers actionable advice on how to improve overall health, happiness and longevity by leaning into positive behaviors like better relationships, physical activity, improved diet and better sleep.

This newsletter is an extension of the Wise & Well publication I launched on Medium in 2023. Our highly curated and professionally edited articles are written by scientists, journalists, physicians, psychologists, nutritionists and other professionals. The Mission: Helping you make tomorrow a little better than today.

About me

While I’ve been on this planet for only six decades, three of them have been spent researching and reporting on science and health. I’m the former editor-in-chief of Live Science and Space.com and author of the book Make Sleep Your Superpower. I also publish and edit the general-science publication Aha!, and my weekly Writer’s Guide newsletter on Substack helps non-fiction writers grow and improve their craft. (full bio)

I’m a skeptical optimist. I believe we can all do better, and I put my trust in science while acknowledging that, like you and me, it’s never perfect, always evolving, and sometimes—oops—totally off its rocker. I sift through studies new and old to find the good, the bad and the questionable. I talk to the experts. Then I boil it all down into concise, accurate, readable takeaways that reflect both what’s known and what’s not.

Full disclosure: I’m as imperfect as any human, constantly looking for ways to live better, feel better, and be better. As I see it, if we want to live a long and good life, there are always ways big and small to optimize our chances. We can just get old, or we can age wisely.

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