Trauma therapist. Former genomics scientist.
I spent the early part of my career in genomics labs, where a claim was only as good as the data behind it. I've spent the rest of it as a trauma therapist, watching what actually helps people change. Here I bring the first habit to the second: what the evidence supports, how strong it is, and what it means in practice.
Research notes
One a week. Peer-reviewed findings in plain language, each labeled by how strong the evidence is.
Two large preregistered replications found the classic ego-depletion effect close to zero. Willpower is real; the idea that it drains like a fuel tank hasn't held up.
Hagger et al. 2016, Perspectives on Psychological Science 11(4):546–573
Across about 1,000 trials, physical activity produced moderate drops in depression and anxiety. The "1.5 times more effective than medication" line came from a press release, not the paper.
Singh et al. 2023, British Journal of Sports Medicine 57(18):1203–1209
Childhood adversity raises risk across a population. As a forecast for any one person, an ACE score performs only modestly better than chance.
Felitti et al. 1998, American Journal of Preventive Medicine 14(4):245–258
How behavior comes out of energy and constraint at every level, from physics to society, and why change becomes possible when the conditions change.
For readers of Robert Sapolsky, Bessel van der Kolk and Daniel Kahneman, and for clinicians who want mechanism under their methods.
About the bookThe argument
Behavior tracks the conditions it's built in: sleep, safety, money, history, habits, the people around us. Biology and temperament set the range. Conditions decide where in that range a person lands, and conditions can be changed.
Most of what I write comes back to one idea: when help fails, it's usually aimed at the wrong level. Find the level where the problem actually lives, change the conditions there, then build the reps.
Work with me
Looking for therapy in Grand Junction? Peak Performance and Wellness.
Newsletter
Monthly. What new research says about how people thrive, what gets in the way, and how strong the evidence is.
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