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Reader’s Choice: 13 Most Popular Dr. Lipman Posts of 2024

Over the past twelve months on the blog, we’ve covered a lot of longevity-focused and anti-aging ground! Each post has been about exploring compelling health and longevity pathways and connecting with readers. Some articles emerged as clear favorites, sometimes to my surprise. What made it to the top of the anti-aging must-read list? Posts on maintaining brain health, heart health and managing metabolism ranked high, while posts on red light therapy and biohacking followed close behind. It’s tough for me to pick personal favorites, so I’ve left it to the readers to decide – and here are their 13 top choices for 2024. Enjoy!

Build a Better Brain

Fitness is more than just losing weight and toning up — it's a whole-body pursuit, one that includes tending to the health of one of your most important organs: the brain.

Sunshine Deficiency: Why Your Mood Might Be Hibernating This Winter

5 Ways to Love Deeply and Well

Learning to love well might be the most important thing we can do for our health and well-being.

9 Essential Stress Reduction Tips and Techniques for High Anxiety Times

Be it situational or chronic, we all know that stress brings with it some significant, health-torpedoing downsides, making our approach to how we manage stress more mission critical than ever. Managing stress well starts with reminding yourself there are many ways to diffuse it, and being conscious of all we can do to release stress quickly and in healthy ways. Though avoiding stress altogether is virtually impossible, the key to doing it well is to pack your mental health toolbox with as many stress-busting techniques as possible, so you can tap into them whenever you feel stress levels start to rise.

10 Ways to Mind Your Mental Health and Heart Connection

By now, regular visits to our primary care doc have made most of us aware of the obvious cardiovascular disease risk factors, things like high Apolipoprotein B, high blood pressure, high blood sugar. But what often gets ignored is our mental health which, the most recent research is making clear, is a major part of the heart disease story and indeed may be what’s helping make the conventional risk factors so toxic in the first place. Mental health issues can drive up heart risk directly, as is the case with blood pressure, or indirectly, when they give rise to bad lifestyle choices which eat away at heart health in different ways.

5 Signs You May Need a Recovery Day

Has your fitness performance stalled? Are you feeling irritable? Those are just two of the signs that your body may need an exercise break.

How to Conduct a “Fun Audit”

Missing out on fun? Here's how to identify what truly brings you joy and satisfaction.

11 Ways a Balanced HPA Axis Changes Your Health Forever!

Let’s face it, just about all of us hate the feeling of being under too much stress. Not only because being stressed feels lousy in the moment, but living with it, unrelieved, day in and day out, is a major starting point for physical dysfunction and disease, with ripple effects felt across virtually every cell in your body – a big potential downside to all that interconnection. One way to understand what’s going on? Technically speaking, it’s the disruption of the ‘HPA’ or ‘hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal’ axis, which refers to the ongoing conversation between different body systems that, between them, regulate the response to stress, both acute and chronic. Learn to keep it on an even keel and you’ll be on your way to a much healthier, happier and, very likely, longer life.

Navigating Summer Distractions: Tips for Staying on Track

Do you tend to feel unfocused and distracted in the summer? Or frustrated and somewhat “checked out” of work? If so, you are not alone and this is quite common. The carefree spirit of the season can clash with the demands of work. There's a disconnect between the excitement outside and the need to concentrate at the office.

Radiant Skin from Within: Unveiling the Gut-Skin Connection

Are you struggling with skin issues like acne, psoriasis, rosacea, or eczema? Are you a skincare enthusiast and want to get that summer glow from within? It’s time to look below the skin's surface and understand that when it comes to achieving and maintaining great skin, one of the most impactful areas to consider is the connection between your gut microbiome and skin health!

The Dangers of Forever Chemicals and 6 Ways to Avoid Them

For many years, we in the integrative medical community have known that toxic chemicals are something to avoid at all costs, the thinking being that the lighter our ‘toxic load’ and the fewer industrial chemicals we ingest, the better and more sustainable our health will be. That’s still the idea. But over the last few years, the unsettling news about the pervasiveness of ‘forever chemicals’ or PFUAS (aka ‘per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) has brought a new awareness about just how difficult they are to avoid. In short, they are everywhere and stemming the tide will take some doing – both on a personal and global level.

Discover How Play Can Improve Your Mental Health

Explore how adopting a more playful attitude toward life can boost your mental health.

6 Ways Anger Torpedoes Your Immunity – and 7 Ways to Fix It

Anger. Whether you show it to the outside world or not, whether it seems like an appropriate response to a difficult set of circumstances or not, in health terms, anger is mostly a negative. What makes it especially so is anger’s ability to endanger your health by severely undercutting your immunity, aka your ability to stay well. And, as you age and immunity naturally wanes, that’s the last thing you want to do. What’s the connection between anger and immunity? A lot more than you may realize, so here is some food for thought on the topic, plus a few ways to diffuse anger when it comes knocking.

How to Optimize Your Skin’s Natural Detoxification Process

Learn more about the vital role your skin plays in detoxification — and how you can support it.

7 Types of Rest You Really Need for Longevity

If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that self-care isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. And while self-care may mean different things to different people, the need for adequate rest is universal. To live well and feel well for as long as possible, it’s essential to bake rest into your daily routine, because you can’t really bank or stockpile rest; it needs to be a daily habit. Most people equate rest solely with sleep, but there's a good bit more to it. To truly thrive over the long-haul, be advised that rest is more than just sleeping soundly through the night (though that’s a good start). Fact is, rest has many faces, and there are seven types of rest you need to get to know better.

Demystifying Functional and Integrative Medicine: What It Is and What It Isn't

Heard of the terms "functional medicine" and "integrative medicine"? Learn what do these terms really mean, and perhaps more importantly, what do they not mean here.

How Soil Health Is Connected to Human Health — and So Much More

You may not be able to see them, but the microorganisms in the soil have a major impact on human nutrition and health.

What Are the Benefits of L-Theanine?

This amino acid can mitigate the effects of stress in several ways, according to research. Here’s how.

12 Key Nutrients for Mood Support

According to nutritional psychiatrist Drew Ramsey, MD, these are the most important nutrients for supporting your mental health.

How to Cope With Chronic Complainers

Here's how to avoid getting drawn into other people’s negativity spirals.

Unlocking Relief: A Functional Medicine Approach to PMS

Did you know that 75% of reproductive aged women experience mild to moderate PMS symptoms? Learn more about PMS and how to address it with functional medicine here.

Aspartame and Cancer Risk

Aspartame — the ubiquitous artificial sweetener sold under the brand names NutraSweet, Equal, and Sugar Twin — has sparked controversy for decades, but in 2023 a leading health watchdog for the first time ­officially labeled it as a possible carcinogen.

Meet Metformin – and It’s Anti-Aging Superpowers

By now, my readers may be aware of my interest in longevity-focused medicine, particularly in light of all of the exciting anti-aging and longevity research and promising treatments making news almost every day.