Ever noticed how the healthiest people all have the same obsessions, {{First Name}}?

They swear by infrared saunas, micro-dosing, raw dairy, sleep scores, grounding, detoxing, rebounding…

In their spare time (our culture’s biggest flex!), they listen to wellness podcasts.

They optimize their glucose levels.

They swear they love cold plunging.
(Do they? Do they really?)

Meanwhile, when I need to reset my nervous system?

I… take a nap. 😌

Sometimes I also drink coffee on an empty stomach, just to introduce a little chaos into my day. You know, to keep things interesting.

Now, for the record, I do care about my health. It’s literally my job. I eat well. I move my body daily. I even try to drink enough water (emphasis on try).

(You know I live for a good wellness hack, so fyi, I finally caved and got one of those Shiatsu deep-tissue massagers, (aff link) and while I was deeply skeptical at first, I now believe in very few things as strongly as I believe in this device. Also, I’m currently in my adrenal cocktail era. The name sounds ridiculous, but honestly? Kind of slaps.)

Which is funny, because for someone who dabbles in these things, you’d think I’d be all in on optimization. But honestly? I just like what feels good.

But I’ve occasionally felt low-key guilty about this… my tendency to crave ease, not optimization.

Why do I have so little interest in shocking my body into an ice bath first thing in the morning?

Why do I just want to put oat milk in my coffee without consulting a metabolic expert?

Why don’t I want to be optimized?

But this week? My refusal to participate in the wellness olympics is your Thursday newsletter win.

Because sometimes, we get to have it all.

The other day, I was feeling good about my approach to wellness.

I drank my coffee (oat milk included, no metabolic consult necessary). I moved my body. I even took my supplements—which, if you know me, is an accomplishment worth celebrating.

I was doing great.

And then, I made a mistake.

I opened Instagram.

Within minutes, I was knee-deep in cold plunge propaganda.

Post after post of influencers swearing that freezing their asses off every morning had rewired their entire existence.

More energy!
Less stress!
Perfect skin!
The kind of dopamine hit that makes therapy irrelevant!

And at first, I laughed. Couldn’t be me.

But then, I kept doom scrolling.

And the more I scrolled, the more I started to wonder:

Maybe I was missing something. Maybe my refusal to willingly freeze every morning was keeping me from some next-level, biohacked glow-up. Maybe I could be one of those people who does hard things for fun.

And listen—I knew I didn’t want to do this.

I have never once thought, “You know what would make my day better? Voluntary hypothermia.

But after the 27th reel of someone claiming their entire nervous system had rewired itself in 30 seconds of agony, my brain went:

"Okay, but what if?"

So, in the name of self-improvement—and questionable decision-making—I did it.

And that’s how I ended up sitting in my bathtub, questioning all of my life choices.

This was not some fancy recovery spa experience.

This was my regular bathtub—slightly questionable, probably due for a deep clean—filled with aggressively cold tap water.

I didn’t measure the temperature, but based on how my soul immediately tried to exit my body, I’d estimate somewhere between:

“glacial” and “why am I like this.”

Here’s what happened:

🧊 Second 1: Immediate nervous system shock. I forgot how to breathe. I forgot how to think. I forgot my own name. Was this what rebirth felt like?

🧊 Second 3: Every cell in my body was screaming. Every organ was actively rejecting this decision.

🧊 Second 5: Existential regret.

🧊 Second 10: Full-body shivering, questioning every life choice that led me to this moment.

And then I remembered:

I don’t have to do this.

No one was forcing me.
No one was monitoring my stress response.
No one was giving me a trophy at the end.

There was no prize. No life-changing moment. No profound realization.

Just me, sitting in my freezing bathtub, suffering for no reason.

So I did what any rational person would do:

I got out.

And I took the hottest shower of my life.

Afterward, I sat there, wrapped in my robe, drinking my steaming coffee, and had a long, honest talk with myself.

Why did I think I needed to do this?

Was I actually interested in cold plunging, or was I just trying to convince myself that I should be?

Was this something that was going to make me feel better, or was I just trying to prove something?

Because here’s the thing:

I don’t need to freeze my ass off to be healthy.
I don’t need to wake up and immediately experience suffering.
And I refuse to believe that making myself miserable is the key to longevity.

Life already builds resilience.

It’s called being an adult.

Somewhere along the way, wellness stopped being about feeling good and started feeling like a competition.

Eating well isn’t enough—you have to meal prep like you’re running a Michelin-starred restaurant for one.

Moving your body isn’t enough—you have to track every movement like your smartwatch is grading you.

Sleeping well isn’t enough—you have to tweak your circadian rhythm like you’re a Silicon Valley startup.

Somewhere along the way, just being healthy stopped being enough.

Now, you have to biohack it.
Measure it.
Optimize it until you forget why you started in the first place.

Which is great… until wellness starts feeling less like self-care and more like a full-time job.

If you don’t have your supplement regimen dialed in? You’re doing it wrong.
If you don’t wake up at 5 a.m. and blast sunlight into your eyeballs? You’re doing it wrong.
If you don’t cycle your carbs, avoid seed oils, and drink some kind of fermented root mushroom sludge instead of coffee? You’re definitely doing it wrong.

And look—if that works for you?

Fantastic. I love that for you.

But me? I just want to be warm

A few days after my failed cold plunge experiment, I was talking to a friend about it, and she said:

"I just don’t get why we have to suffer to be healthy."

And that hit me.

Because at some point, we all started believing that discomfort was the answer.

That if something wasn’t hard, complicated, or extreme, it wasn’t working.

That if we weren’t tracking, measuring, optimizing, or suffering in some way, we were falling behind.

But what if wellness wasn’t supposed to feel like a full-time job?

What if we didn’t have to base every decision on the latest scientific study?

What if we didn’t have to force ourselves into extreme habits just because some guy with a podcast swore it was life-changing?

(Wim Hof, I love you—but I’m gonna have to sit this one out. Sorry, not sorry.)

What if we just… did what actually makes us feel good?

Because here’s what I’ve noticed:

The healthiest people I know?

They’re not overthinking it.

They eat good food.
They move often.
They rest.
They do things that make them happy.

And most importantly?

They don’t spend their mornings voluntarily freezing their asses off.

So here’s where I stand:

Ice baths? Absolutely not.
Hot coffee? Absolutely yes.

If optimized means cold, stressed, and miserable… I’m happily underachieving.

{{First Name}}, tell me—what’s one wellness trend you refuse to suffer through?

Hit reply and give me the hottest take.

(Unless your answer is “hot showers,” in which case, I’m deeply concerned.)

Your happily unoptimized friend,

- Genta 🤍