How to Optimize Your Local Surroundings

Table of Content


🌬️ Air Purifiers

In today’s world, breathing clean air is more important than ever. Air purifiers act as the lungs of your home, removing harmful pollutants that can wreak havoc on your health. By eliminating allergens like dust, dander, and pollen, air purifiers can significantly reduce allergy and asthma symptoms, allowing you to breathe easier and sleep more soundly. They also trap harmful airborne viruses and bacteria, potentially reducing the spread of illness and creating a healthier environment for everyone in your home. Additionally, air purifiers can neutralize unpleasant odors and even remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by everyday household products, improving overall indoor air quality and creating a fresher, more comfortable living space. Investing in an air purifier is an investment in your well-being, promoting a healthier respiratory system, a stronger immune response, and a more comfortable home environment.

It’s recommended to keep your air purifier on while sleeping. The air purifier will continuously circulate and filter the air in your bedroom, removing allergens, pollutants, and odors that could disrupt your sleep. This will help to improve your overall sleep quality.

It’s not necessary to open windows when using an air purifier. Keeping windows closed allows the air purifier to filter and circulate the indoor air more effectively. While opening windows can improve CO2 levels in your home, it also allows more pollutants and allergens that the air purifier will need to filter out.

Most experts recommend cleaning your air purifier filter every 2-3 months. If you run your air purifier constantly or live in an area with more dust/allergens, you may need to clean it more frequently. Make sure to check your specific air purifier’s manual for filter cleaning recommendations since each model has a different filter lifetime.

  • 1st air purifier: Oransi EJ120 (used by Bryan Johnson | currently sold out | https://www.ebay.com/p/10034764683)
    • The most popular air purifier Oransi sells is the ORANSI Mod, which also appears to have strong reviews.
  • 2nd air purifier: Mila air purifier (used by Bryan Johnson)
  • 3rd more affordable air purifier: Coway Airmega AP-1512HH
    • This air purifier is widely recommended on Reddit, and it’s easy to find affordable replacement air filters, which comprise a significant portion of an air purifier’s lifetime cost.


💧 Air Humidity

For someone who lives in areas with cold winters, a humidifier can help to ensure quality sleep by keeping nasal passages clear. Dry air can cause issues like dry skin, nosebleeds, and respiratory problems. A warm mist humidifier can help alleviate these problems by increasing the moisture in the air.


🌬️ Air Quality Monitoring

Air quality monitors act as our early warning systems, giving us real-time data on the microscopic foes lurking in our homes. By detecting harmful pollutants like particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and airborne allergens, these monitors empower us to take proactive steps towards a healthier environment. Proper monitoring allows you to identify spikes in allergens before they trigger asthma attacks, or detecting elevated VOCs before they cause headaches and respiratory irritation. Air quality monitoring empowers informed decisions. It allows you to adjust ventilation strategies, optimize air filtration systems, and ultimately, breathe with confidence, knowing you are creating a safe and healthy haven for yourself and your loved ones.


🛏️ Mattress (temperature regulated for high sleep quality)

A cool, comfortable sleep environment is paramount for achieving true restorative sleep. This is where temperature-regulated mattresses come in, acting as your personal sleep oasis. By actively regulating the surface temperature of your mattress, they ensure you stay cool throughout the night, preventing night sweats and promoting deeper sleep cycles. This translates to a multitude of benefits such as improved immune function due to better sleep quality, increased energy levels during the day, and even enhanced cognitive function. It is an investment in your health and a gateway to deeper, more restful and invigorating sleep.

  • Bryan Johnson: EightSleep Mattress (use checkout code “BLUEPRINT“ to save 10%)
    • This mattress is also used by people such as Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Huberman and Joe Rogan.
  • Chris Williamson: EightSleep bed cover https://www.eightsleep.com/modernwisdom/ $2,295 $2,145 ($150 off)
  • Tim Ferriss recommends mattress from Helix



To learn more, read
The Science and Importance of Sleep


🌿 Plants Around Your Living Space

Large luxury home, seen from the outside, filled with plants


Having plants around us calms us down and makes us feel relaxed and at ease. A meta-analysis from 2022 also showed that indoor plants can significantly benefit peoples’ diastolic blood pressure and academic achievement. There is a clear connection between being around plants, and reduced cortisol levels in your body, according to Melinda Knuth (assistant professor of horticultural science at North Carolina State University). In our saliva, we hold the stress hormone cortisol, and we know this is decreased when we are in the near vicinity of plants.

According to the biophilia hypothesis, humans have an inherent connection to plants and other living things. This is an idea that was popularized in 1984 by naturalist and writer E.O. Wilson. Since then, more than three decades of research across the globe have confirmed the hypothesis and shown that natural environments have a notable effect on increasing positive emotions while decreasing negative ones.


Plants can Quickly Improve Mood
Our connection to plants is so strong that it can take only a few minutes of being in their presence to start feeling better. A study found that participants felt more peaceful and positive after spending 15 min in a room close to a tall plant (about 1.5 m / 5 feet) compared with other objects. In one experiment, participants who spent even merely 5-10 min in a room with a few houseplants, felt happier and more satisfied, than those in a room without plants.

A study showed that simply placing one or three large pots of indoor plants (in this case: Radermachera hainanensis Merr.) benefit people’s physical and mental health. It further revealed that even a few pots of indoor plants, can still effectively improve the air quality and environmental comfort. Therefore, indoor plants that can regulate indoor air quality and microclimates without consuming (much) energy, warrant greater attention and wider application.

It should be noted that it is not only seeing a plant that improves our mood so quickly, but the smell of them can also make a huge difference. However, studies on plants’ effects on non-visual senses are currently quite limited.


Plants Bring Relief in Enclosed Spaces
If you are stuck in an office or another small space for hours at a time, plants can induce feelings of escape. In a study conducted during the pandemic stay-at-home orders, participants who had indoor plants experienced significantly fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety than those who did not. Being surrounded by houseplants led to feelings of “being away” from social or physical demands.


Concentration and Memory
Being around plants helps people concentrate better in the home and workplace. The calming influence of natural environments is conducive to positive work environments by increasing a person’s ability to concentrate on the task at hand. Studies show that tasks performed while under the calming influence of nature are performed better and with greater accuracy, yielding a higher quality result. Moreover, being outside in a natural environment can improve memory performance and attention span by 20%. The effect of nature in the home and in the workplace serves to stimulate both the senses and the mind, improving mental cognition and performance.

In one study, elementary-school students were seated in a classroom with a real plant, an artificial plant, a photo of a plant, or no plant. Brain scans revealed that only those who spent time in the company of a real plant experienced improvements in attention and concentration. Other studies have found that kids in classrooms with a wall of green plants scored better on tests for selective attention, meaning focusing on one particular thing while tuning out irrelevant or distracting information.

Seeing a plant in a school/educational setting can provide a spark of interest, redirect our attention, and restore our depleted mental and physical resources, an idea known as attention restoration theory. Studies have found that the plant-induced “restoration” effect has a wide reach: renewing positive emotions and increasing productivity, creativity and attention capacity.


Learning
Research shows that children who spend time around plants learn better. In addition, being around natural environments improves the ability of children with Attention Deficit Disorder to focus, concentrate, and engage more with their surrounding environment.

Keeping plants in a child’s learning environment enhances learning capabilities by helping them to focus and concentrate. This improves their ability to learn new things and makes it easier for them to absorb and retain information. Ornamental plants are conducive to generating a positive learning environment, reducing children’s tendency towards distraction and helping them to be better able concentrate on school work. Specifically for children with problems paying attention, adding plants to the classroom can have a dramatic positive effect on the way they learn. For example, children with Attention Deficit Disorder, learning in a natural environment can help them to engage more in the classroom, improving their focus and concentration on the task at hand. The soothing effects of natural aesthetic beauty help to minimize the distractions that would otherwise occupy their minds. By altering the environment in which children learn, plants can help them to learn better.


Accelerates Healing Process
The presence of plants in hospital recovery rooms and/or views of aesthetically-pleasing gardens help patients to heal faster, due to the soothing affects of ornamental horticulture.

Shrubs, trees, and flowers have a practical application in hospitals: the presence of plants in patient recovery rooms greatly reduces the time necessary to heal. The soothing effects of ornamental flowers and plants are so great that simply having daily views of flowers and other ornamental plants in landscaped areas outside patient recovery room significantly speed up recovery time.

Another technique to decrease recovery time is horticulture therapy, where patients care for and nurture plants themselves. Patients who physically interact with plants experience a significantly reduced recovery time after medical procedures.

A randomized trial assessed the impact of horticultural therapy on anxiety in adult psychiatric inpatients over four weeks, compared to standard care. They found that horticultural therapy significantly reduced anxiety compared to standard care, which argue in favor of integrating horticultural therapy into psychiatric nursing practices.

Plants may play a role in speeding up recovery from an illness, injury, or surgery. According to one research review, hospitalized people who had a view of plants or trees were calmer and had better clinical outcomes, including a reduced need for pain medication and a shorter hospital stay, compared to those who did not.


Improved Human Performance/Energy
Spending time in natural environments makes people better at doing their jobs. It also increases energy levels and feelings of vitality.

Spending time in nature gives people an increased feeling of vitality, increasing their energy levels and making them feel more animated. Their performance levels are, in turn, increased by this improved state of mind. Natural environments induce a positive outlook on life, making people feel more alive and active. When people experience increased vigor, they put more of themselves and their energy into their work. Plants can help people to improve their performance at work and at home by increasing their perceived vitality and giving them more feelings of added energy.

Research indicates that plants boost productivity. One older study found that after plants were added to a windowless computer lab, college students worked 12% faster. Other research focused on employees at a call center, and found that those who had a view of plants made up to 7% more calls per hour than those who couldn’t see any plants. Yet another study found that office workers were 15% more productive after plants were introduced into their workspace.


Real vs. Artificial
A study have shown that having any type of plant in an indoor space, including photographs of plants, is better than having none at all. Ideally you would want to have only real plants. However, since artificial plants have only been around for a very short time in an evolutionary sense, they tend to have almost the same beneficial effect on us since our subconscious minds are not able to tell the difference (however this does not hold true in terms of air quality and smell). This is evident in a study of high school students in which participants looking at real plants for 3 min felt more relaxed and comfortable than those looking at artificial ones. These findings can (mostly) be explained by the real plants having smell and benefits to air quality as well (removing fine and course grained particles, increasing humidity, etc.).


Number of plants
Although there is no magic number, having five or more foliage plants can increase positive emotions. For example, in one study, participants in a room with bamboo palms, Chinese evergreens and heart-leaf philodendrons (five in total) felt more carefree and friendly compared with those in rooms without plants.

Alternatively, one tall potted plant (about five feet) or three or more small floral displays (such as sweet pea, larkspurs or woodland sage) can elicit similarly positive responses.


Color
The greener, the better? In a study using English ivy, green-yellow and bright-green leaves increased feelings of cheerfulness and relaxation, whereas whitish-green leaves stimulated mostly negative emotions.

As for flowering plants, a study found that purple, green, red, pink and white ones could lower people’s blood pressure and heart rate. However, purple and green flowers were more effective in relaxing the body, reducing anxiety and improving mood. Another study found that red and yellow roses elicited a more calming response than white ones.

In one experiment, people who spent 5 – 10 min in a room with a few houseplants felt happier than those in a plant-free room. Levels of comfort and positive emotions increase with the duration of exposure to plants, according to one research review; the authors noted that purple and green plants were particularly effective at reducing negative feelings. Spending time around plants is also linked with increased self-esteem and greater life satisfaction.


Studies:


🧴 Sunscreen

One of the best sun screens for your skin health, CeraVe facial moisturizing lotion with broad spectrum SPF 30, oil free, in pump format (white and blue package).
One of the best sun screens for your skin health


The sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays can cause sunburn, premature aging, and even skin cancer. Here is what to look for when navigating the types of sunscreen in order to choose a product that is both safe and effective.


The Two Crucial Players: Broad Spectrum Protection and SPF

  • Broad Spectrum Protection
    Look for sunscreens labeled “broad spectrum.” These products shield you from both UVA and UVB rays. UVA rays penetrate deep into the skin, causing wrinkles and premature aging, while UVB rays are responsible for sunburn. A broad-spectrum sunscreen is your first line of defense against both.

  • SPF
    Sun Protection Factor (SPF) indicates a sunscreen’s ability to block UVB rays, the primary culprit behind sunburn. While higher SPF might seem intuitively better, the difference between an SPF 30 and SPF 50 sunscreen in terms of UVB protection is relatively small (97% vs. 98%).

    The key takeaway: An SPF 30 sunscreen offers excellent protection, and for most daily activities, SPF 50 provides only marginally more benefit.


Beyond the Basics: Choosing the Right Formula

  • Mineral vs. Chemical Sunscreens
    Both types offer effective protection, but they work differently.

    Mineral sunscreens, also known as physical sunscreens, contain zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, which sit on the skin’s surface and reflect UV rays. They are an especially good choice for people with sensitive skin, and in general would be recommended over chemical counterparts based on scientific data. The principle ingredient should be zinc oxide, rather than some other chemical.

    Note, a typical downside with zinc-based and mineral sunscreen is that it stays on top of your skin, which makes it really hard to rub in. This can make you look like a “shiny ghost”. However, this cosmetic downside is small as opposed to disruptive your endocrine system.

    Chemical sunscreens absorb UV rays and convert them to heat, which is then released from the skin. They can be more cosmetically elegant, but some ingredients may irritate sensitive skin and act as endocrine disruptors.

  • Water Resistance
    If you will be sweating or swimming, choose a “water-resistant” sunscreen. However, water resistance does not last forever. Re-apply sunscreen every 2 hours, or more often if sweating or swimming.


Decoding Ingredients
While most sunscreens are safe, it is always wise to check the label. Look for fragrance-free and paraben-free formulas, particularly if you have sensitive skin. Oxybenzone and octinoxate are common chemical sunscreen ingredients that may raise environmental concerns, some countries are even banning them. It’s not recommended to use any sunscreen with oxybenzone (which is one of the most common sunscreen ingredients), nor octinoxate, homosalate or parabens. These chemicals are absorbed by your skin, go into your bloodstream and act as endocrine disruptors.

It doesn’t mean all sunscreens are bad, nor that we shouldn’t use sunscreen. Rather we should understand the risk factors that are associated with the different ingredients or different engineering that’s been done to make sunscreens available.


Choosing the Right Sunscreen for You
The best sunscreen is the one you will actually use! Consider your skin type, activity level, and personal preferences when choosing a formula. Here’s a quick guide:

  • In general: Avoid sunscreens that contain oxybenzone, octinoxate or homosalate.
  • For sensitive skin: Choose a mineral sunscreen labeled fragrance-free, paraben-free.
  • For oily skin: Look for lightweight, oil-free formulas labeled “non-comedogenic” (won’t clog pores).
  • For active individuals: Choose a water-resistant sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher.


Remember
Sunscreen is just one piece of the sun protection puzzle. Seek shade, wear protective clothing, and avoid peak sun hours whenever possible.


Recommended Sunscreen


👨‍🍳 Sous Vide

A hand placing a vacuum-sealed bag of meat into a sous vide machine on a wooden countertop, surrounded by various spices and fruits.
Vacuum packed meat about to be cooked in a sous vide


A sous vide is the secret weapon of busy weeknight home cooks. Sous vide is French for “under vacuum,” and is not a fad. It might seem technical, but it is very easy and user-friendly. With a little practice, you will be creating restaurant-quality meals at home, consistently and efficiently. Here’s why:

  • Perfect results, every time
    Sous vide precisely controls cooking temperature, eliminating overcooked or undercooked food. Salmon comes out perfectly flaky, chicken breasts stay unbelievably juicy.

  • Effortless cooking
    Seal ingredients in a pouch, set the temperature, and walk away. No hovering over the stove, no timers – sous vide takes the stress out of meal prep.

  • Expand your repertoire
    Sous vide is not just for meat. Experiment with vegetables infused with herbs, or cook delicate seafood to a luxurious texture previously difficult to achieve at home.

  • Save time
    Prep ingredients in advance, store them sealed for days, and enjoy a restaurant-worthy meal in minutes when dinner strikes. Perfect for busy weeknights or entertaining.

  • Minimize waste
    Precise temperature control reduces overcooking, preserving natural flavors and juices. This saves money and minimizes food waste.


Where to buy


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