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TIME published a cortisol myth-busting piece on April 23 as searches for the term "cortisol" have nearly doubled since January and hit record highs for three consecutive months. The piece makes a clinically important point that most wellness content gets backwards: burnout is not associated with chronically high cortisol, it is associated with a flattened cortisol rhythm and sometimes low cortisol, a state the body reaches after prolonged stress has worn the system down. The hormone that everyone is trying to lower may already be too low by the time they notice something is wrong. Here's what people are reacting to: everything they've been told about cortisol and stress is probably backwards.

A study published this week out of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology found that adults over 70 who received the shingles vaccine showed measurably slower biological aging across multiple domains, including lower chronic inflammation, slower epigenetic aging, and better composite biological age scores, compared to unvaccinated peers. The sample was nearly 4,000 people drawn from a nationally representative U.S. cohort, and the effects held even after controlling for income, education, and underlying health status. The results were most pronounced within three years of vaccination, but slower aging persisted beyond that window. Here's what people are reacting to: a routine shot your doctor has been recommending for years appears to do something that no supplement company has figured out how to bottle.

With this weekend's severe winter storm, many of us were hunkered indoors.

When that happens, something predictable shows up. It’s not that people stop caring about their health. It’s that movement, sleep, and daily rhythm quietly change when everything shifts indoors. Not dramatically. Just enough to matter.

Winter doesn’t usually break routines all at once. It removes the defaults. The walk that used to happen without thinking. The natural transition from day to evening. The subtle cues that kept bedtime from drifting later. When those disappear, health doesn’t collapse overnight. It drifts.

And drift is dangerous because it feels harmless.