Why obsessing over self-improvement could be sabotaging your brain
Social media now tells you to looksmaxx your face, fibermaxx your gut and even personality-maxx your charm. The template comes from gaming, where players min-max a character by pushing the most useful attributes and neglecting the rest. Carried into real life, this all-out optimisation may not actually motivate healthier habits at all. In fact, the report suggests it can do the opposite, and may itself become a source of stress.
For you: Worth knowing that turning every habit into a maximisation project can add stress instead of results; a habit does not need to be maxxed to be worth keeping.
What it shows: Reported by Scientific American (health) and not verified by us: we could not trace this story to a published paper, so treat it as news rather than evidence we have checked.