The Habit Healers

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 that uses us. I walk you through the dopamine loop behind every notification, the same variable reward pattern slot machines rely on, and why it overrides the part of your brain responsible for self-control. We talk about why Gen Z, the first generation to go through adolescence with a smartphone, reports the highest rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Then we get into the physical side: text neck, blue light and melatonin, and the poor sleep that sends you right back to doomscrolling. We also look at what a phone on the dinner table does to your attention and to the people you love. You are not weak. You’re outmatched, and there are small, practical ways to take your attention back.

What you’ll learn:

* Why phone addiction works like a slot machine, and how dopamine keeps you checking

* Why teens and young adults are more vulnerable to smartphone addiction

* How text neck can put up to 60 pounds of load on your cervical spine

* How blue light from screens suppresses melatonin and disrupts your sleep

* What “phubbing” and “technoference” do to your focus and your relationships

* Five steps to reduce screen time, including grayscale mode, a phone-free bedroom, and urge surfing

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/why-the-two-pound-phone-was-better

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

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 that every temptation you resist drains your willpower like a battery. It started in a room with fresh-baked cookies and a bowl of radishes, and it spread into business, law, marketing, and medicine. Then researchers put it through large, careful tests, with the rules written down in advance. What they found may change how you hear that worn-out feeling after a hard day.

Along the way, you’ll meet a horse in 1904 Berlin who seemed to do math, and you’ll see why his story explains so much about self-control research. Feeling that your day was hard is one thing. Deciding your willpower is used up is another.

What you’ll learn:

* Where the idea that willpower runs out came from, and what the original cookie and radish experiment never measured

* What happened when dozens of labs retested ego depletion under stricter rules in 2016 and 2021

* Why feeling mentally drained after a hard task did not reliably mean people did worse afterward

* Why a sugary drink is not a proven way to boost willpower

* What newer research found about believing your willpower is unlimited

* Why hitting that “I’m done” feeling is not a sign of weakness

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/did-your-brain-accidentally-decide

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

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 scans can and can’t tell us. She changed more than a dozen things, from daily prunes and tofu to vitamin D and a lot of heavy lifting, so we can’t say which one moved her hip. What we do know is that bone builds where it is loaded, and strength training for osteoporosis and osteopenia has the clearest trial evidence behind it. I’ll show you how to read your own bone density report, where your FRAX score fits into the medication conversation, and the six everyday movements Peggy built into ordinary days. As she put it, “I quit treating myself as fragile.”

What you’ll learn:

* How to tell whether a change on your DEXA scan is real, using the “least significant change” printed on your report

* What a FRAX score is, and the 10 year fracture risk levels where US guidelines consider medication for osteopenia

* Why heavy loading builds bone, and what a supervised lifting trial showed in postmenopausal women with low bone mass

* Six weight bearing and strength exercises for bone density: loaded carries, counter squats, hip hinges, balance practice, stairs, and lifting twice a week

* How balance training lowers fall risk, since most broken bones in older adults happen in a fall

* How to start safely if you have osteoporosis or a past spine fracture

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/her-dexa-scan-said-bone-loss-she

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

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 sleep, and body weight. The research I walk you through followed the same men over four years, which lets us see what happens when one man’s habits change instead of comparing different men at one moment. I also cover a sleep lab study where one week of five-hour nights dropped testosterone more than a decade of aging did. And you’ll hear why weight loss was tied to the biggest rise of all, including what happened when men lost weight on purpose through diet or surgery.

If you’re weighing whether to live with low T or start testosterone replacement therapy, I want you to hear this first. There may be more in your control than you think.

What you’ll learn:

* Why age explains only a small part of declining testosterone in men

* How one week of poor sleep can lower testosterone by about 10%

* How losing 5% to 10% of your body weight can raise testosterone naturally

* The difference between total testosterone, free testosterone, and SHBG

* Why more exercise alone didn’t clearly raise testosterone in middle-aged men

* A realistic first weight loss target for better men’s hormone health

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/getting-older-barely-lowers-testosterone

Members can put this into practice with the three-week Points Plan and printable tracker in the companion article.

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 available all day drank about the same amount and didn’t show the same pattern. I’ll explain why the toilet paper shortage of 2020 is a surprisingly good way to understand the restrict-binge cycle. I’ll also cover what the research in people shows, and why announcing a diet can make some of us eat more before it even starts. If you’ve ever tried to quit sugar and ended up bingeing the night before, this one is for you.

What you’ll learn:

* Why the rat research on sugar addiction depends on restriction and timing, not the sugar itself

* How the evidence on food addiction in people compares, and why it is much thinner

* Why a start date for a diet or sugar ban can set up a binge

* How to stop binge eating at night by closing long gaps between meals

* The Steady Shelf Protocol, a step-by-step plan to break the binge cycle without banning sweets

* When binge eating may be binge eating disorder, and when to talk to your doctor

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/did-your-sugar-ban-accidentally-start

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

Thank you DrLinJo SHE HEALS, Olamide Amosu, Michal Tal, Anna Kilmurray, MB Parker, and many others for tuning into my live video with Chef Martin Oswald! Join me for my next live video in the app.

What if the health benefits of spending time outside reach all the way to your blood sugar? In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I count down five studies showing how daily time outdoors and natural light support blood sugar, sleep, stress, heart health, and connection.

I start in an office with a wall down the middle. Older adults with type 2 diabetes spent days at a desk facing a window and days at a desk under ordinary lamps, with the same meals, the same medications, and the same bedtime. On the window side, their blood sugar stayed in the normal range almost two hours longer each day. From there, we walk through what nature does for your stress hormones, why walking outdoors with other people lowered blood pressure, and how looking for awe on a walk changed how people saw themselves. None of this comes in a bottle, and you don’t have to get it perfect. You just have to step outside.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

* How natural light and a window view helped people with type 2 diabetes stay in the normal glucose range longer

* Why morning daylight is linked to better sleep and fewer insomnia symptoms

* How outdoor walking groups lowered blood pressure and resting heart rate naturally

* The nature break length that gave the biggest drop in cortisol for the time spent

* What an awe walk is, and how it can ease daily stress and build connection

* Why bright days and dark nights matter for your circadian rhythm and long-term health

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/can-sitting-by-a-window-steady-your

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

Want to lose weight without counting calories or feeling hungry all the time? On this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m Dr. Laurie Marbas, and I’m walking you through a simple 30-day volume eating challenge: one bowl, filled to the rim, three meals a day, plus strength training twice a week.

It all comes down to calorie density. Vegetables, fruit, and beans are full of water and fiber, so a full bowl fills you up on far fewer calories than the same bowl of granola or anything drenched in oil. I share a year-long study where women who ate more water-rich foods lost weight faster, ate more food by weight, and felt less hungry. Then we get into the part most people miss: when you lose weight, some of it is muscle. I explain why extra protein alone didn’t protect muscle in the research, and why strength training preserved most of it.

You’ll hear exactly how to build your bowl, which plant-based proteins to reach for, why fat is the only thing you measure, and a home workout you can start with just a chair and a wall. You don’t have to get this perfect. You just have to start.

What you’ll learn:

* How volume eating helps you lose weight without counting calories

* Why calorie density matters more than portion size

* How to build a high-protein, plant-forward bowl in three simple steps

* Why strength training, not just protein, preserves muscle during weight loss

* A five-exercise strength workout at home that grows with you

* Why your waist measurement tells you more than the scale

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/the-30-day-bowl-challenge-here-is

Put the ideas into practice with the complete 30 Day Bowl Challenge, including recipes and a printable tracker. Paid members can open the guide below.

Open the Bowl Challenge

Why do health studies contradict each other so often, and how do you know which headlines to trust? In this episode of The Habit Healers Podcast, I’m teaching you how to read health research like a scientist, starting with the correlation vs causation trap that fooled some of the best researchers in medicine.

It begins with beta-carotene. Observational studies suggested this antioxidant protected against lung cancer, so researchers tested it in heavy smokers in a large randomized controlled trial. The trial was stopped early because the people taking the pills were getting more lung cancer, not less. The problem wasn’t bad math. It was the healthy user effect, a form of selection bias that makes a healthy lifestyle look like a miracle supplement.

From there, I walk you through the hidden biases in medical research that most people never hear about, including recall bias, publication bias, and sponsor bias. Then I share the nine Bradford Hill criteria, a simple checklist you can use to decide whether a claim about food, supplements, or disease really holds up. You don’t need a PhD to spot bad science. You just need to know which questions to ask.

What you’ll learn:

* Why correlation vs causation matters every time you read a nutrition study headline

* How the healthy user effect and selection bias can make a supplement look protective when it isn’t

* How recall bias creates links between food and disease that aren’t real

* Why publication bias and industry funding can tilt the evidence

* How to use the Bradford Hill criteria to judge whether X really causes Y

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/the-guide-to-spotting-junk-science

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about

Can lifting light weights build muscle? If you’ve been doing three sets of ten with the same small dumbbells for years and seeing no change, this episode is for you. I’m walking through what strength training research actually shows about light vs heavy weights, and the one number most people never count.

Here’s what surprised me. When sets are taken close to failure, lighter loads built as much muscle as heavier ones. But that only holds to a point. Go too light and the gap opens back up, and stopping a light set too early costs you more than stopping a heavy one. I explain why, using how your muscles recruit help in a fixed order, a little like fire crews answering a second alarm.

We also talk about what changes for strength training after 50 and around menopause, and why building muscle and building bone density are two different things. Light weights can grow muscle, but they haven’t been shown to protect your bones.

If you’re doing strength training at home with dumbbells or bodyweight, you’ll leave with a simple way to know whether your workouts are working.

What you’ll learn:

* Why lifting light weights can build muscle as well as heavy weights, and where that stops being true

* How to use reps in reserve to know when a set is actually hard enough

* Why heavier lifting still wins for maximal strength

* What menopause and bone density mean for your strength training plan

* How to progress bodyweight exercises at home without buying new equipment

* A simple three-week plan to start tonight

Dr. Marbas Substack Article: https://drlauriemarbas.substack.com/p/do-you-really-need-heavy-weights

Check out the Habit Healers Community: https://www.skool.com/habithealers/about