100 Ways to Change Your Life

The central argument of Liz Moody’s book is disarmingly simple yet revolutionary: wellness isn’t about perfection—it’s about suffering less and living more. Instead of chasing a flawless regimen or treating health practices as moral tests, Moody reframes wellbeing as a set of flexible tools that serve your real life. You’re not collecting gold stars for discipline; you’re building systems that help you thrive in body, brain, and relationships.

Drawing from interviews with leading doctors, psychologists, and thinkers such as Dr. Casey Means, Dr. Amishi Jha, Dr. Katy Milkman, and Alua Arthur, Moody organizes life into interconnected domains: physical wellness, emotional regulation, habits and productivity, social connection, and existential perspective. Each domain contributes to a holistic toolkit for living better without unnecessary struggle.

Wellness as a tool, not a test

Moody begins by dismantling the cultural myth that health must equal hardship. If a diet or routine makes you anxious or isolates you, it fails the ultimate test—reducing suffering. Her early recovery from panic and isolation started with one joyful act: making a green smoothie she could enjoy. From that micro-act came momentum for meditation, reading, and walks. The lesson: start small and start with pleasure.

Core takeaway

If a ‘healthy’ habit increases your total suffering—social tension, stress, guilt—drop it. The most useful wellness practice is one that delights and restores you.

Personal science and N-of-1 thinking

You are your own research subject. Moody, echoing Dr. Sara Gottfried and Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, teaches experimentation through N-of-1 trials: track a single variable, observe results, and decide based on data that reflects you—not the population average. Gottfried’s tea experiment lowered her blood pressure; Bulsiewicz highlights that mood improvement from probiotics matters even if you’re the only one who benefits. (This aligns with self-experimentation frameworks in behavioral science from Tim Ferriss and Katy Milkman.)

This personalized approach makes wellbeing adaptive. You stop mimicking experts and start collaborating with your biology through observation.

Habits that actually stick

Moody integrates behavioral science elegantly: Daniel Pink’s “why,” Katy Milkman’s “fresh-start effect,” Gabriele Oettingen’s WOOP, and temptation bundling. Habits work when purpose, timing, and pleasure align. You begin with micro-goals—“10-minute walk” beats “daily 5K”—then anticipate friction (alarm fatigue, forgetfulness) and plan fixes. Pair behaviors with pleasure, such as a favorite show during chores or an audiobook at the gym. These psychological levers turn fleeting motivation into durable systems.

Mortality as motivation

Unexpectedly, Moody includes mortality reflection as a wellness principle. Inspired by death doula Alua Arthur and psychologist Julie Smith, she invites you to envision your funeral—not morbidly, but to clarify values. If you had twenty days left, how would you live? What would people say about you? These reflections direct energy away from trivial anxieties and toward authentic meaning—relationships, nature, and connection. (Similar to Stoic memento mori or Bronnie Ware’s “five regrets of the dying.”)

Physical vitality basics

Moody’s physical protocols rely on compound habits that are small but potent: circadian-aligned mornings (sunlight within minutes of waking, respecting your chronotype), regular micro-workouts (short intense bursts beat single long sessions for glucose control), cold exposure (brief, hormetic stress to improve resilience), and gut nourishment (plant diversity and fermentation for microbiome variety). She champions cooking and cooling starchy foods to form resistant starch—fuel for SCFA-producing bacteria like F. prausnitzii that lower inflammation.

These accessible tweaks combine ancient wisdom with modern science—movement every hour, food that delights, and short stress resets that recalibrate your metabolism and hormones.

Connection and emotional mastery

Wellness expands beyond your body. Moody’s chapters on relationships draw heavily on Dr. Marisa G. Franco, Logan Ury, and Dr. Robert Waldinger. Their collective message: belonging and love are biochemistry as much as psychology. To connect deeper, shift from “interesting” to “interested.” Follow conversational cathexis—the spark of topic that energizes someone—and listen actively rather than perform. Vulnerability, reliability during hardship, and shared rituals (weekly household meetings or a six-second kiss) transform social ties into emotional nutrition.

Stress and productivity

Dr. Heather Moday and Dr. Wendy Suzuki show how short stress spikes can strengthen you, but chronic stress corrodes your health. Moody packs practical antidotes: cyclic sighs, five-minute meditations, and symbolic rituals to mark transitions. Productivity follows the same principle—less friction, more focus. Simplify through Chris Bailey’s “rule of three,” automate decisions, and work inside defined time boxes to harness attention instead of drown in it.

Across every domain, Moody’s system repeats one pattern: tiny, joyful actions compound into resilience. Real wellness is iterative design—experiment, adjust, and choose what reduces suffering while enriching life. It isn’t a single cure; it’s a lifelong craft that turns everyday choices into self-support.

Liz Moody reframes wellness through the lens of empirical curiosity. Instead of rigid programs, she encourages N-of-1 experiments, where you become your entire research study. This method, influenced by Dr. Sara Gottfried and Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, celebrates biological individuality—what lowers someone’s blood pressure might not affect yours, but your data reveals truth that population averages cannot.

How to run your own experiment

Start by defining your goal and metric: maybe better sleep efficiency or reduced anxiety ratings. Collect a baseline for several days. Then change one variable—diet tweak, a supplement, morning sunlight—and track outcomes. Use devices like Oura Ring or a simple diary; both yield insight. After two weeks, compare against baseline, decide to keep, modify, or discard.

Examples and lessons

When Gottfried tested Ikaria island teas, her blood pressure dropped measurably. Bulsiewicz argues that if a probiotic lifts your mood, the benefit is yours to honor, regardless of trial significance. Moody herself began with a housebound green smoothie experiment—a structured act of self-care that rebuilt agency after panic attacks. Each small win cascaded toward broader transformation.

Key practice

Run experiments playfully but systematically. Science gives guardrails; your measurements give answers. Use both to guide personal evolution rather than blindly following consensus.

This self-experimentation mindset transforms wellness from obedience to discovery. You stop copying programs and begin understanding yourself as data source and designer.

Moody turns habit formation into an art of gentle persistence. Drawing on behavioral scientists Daniel Pink, Katy Milkman, and Gabriele Oettingen, she shows that change sticks only when it is emotionally meaningful and measurably small. The formula merges purpose, bite-sized action, obstacle planning, pleasure, and fresh-start psychology.

Find your real why

Motivation fueled by shame burns out quickly. Replace body-image motives with functional joy: exercising for calm, cooking for connection, or sleeping for creativity. Moody’s turning point came when she swapped “I want a cute butt” for “I want clear-headed mornings.” Your ‘why’ determines endurance.

Use calendar psychology

Dr. Katy Milkman’s “fresh-start effect” proves that temporal markers—Mondays, birthdays, new months—boost commitment. Use one to reboot your system, or create your own symbolic reset: rearrange your desk, start a new playlist. Small rituals convert days into psychological chapter breaks.

Plan with WOOP and reward with bundling

Oettingen’s WOOP model—Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan—forces realistic foresight. Name the obstacle before it derails you; script a plan to counter it. Pair effort with delight through temptation bundling: audio novels only during workouts or your favorite latte only after journaling. Pleasure transforms consistency into compulsion.

Stacking these tactics creates a habit ecosystem where every step feels worthwhile. You design feedback loops with emotional logic rather than rigid enforcement—and over time, habits evolve into identity.

Physical vitality, Moody explains, isn’t built through endless workouts or restrictive meals—it thrives on micro actions repeated daily. With advice from Dr. Casey Means, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and Dr. Lucia Aronica, she outlines metabolic strategies that compress effort while maximizing return.

Food as metabolic fuel

Dr. Means emphasizes prioritizing nutrient density and fiber: include herbs, seeds, omega-3 sources, probiotics, and whole-food carbohydrates. Herbs double as antioxidants and flavor enhancers—pleasure again drives compliance. Moody recommends adding dill, basil, and thyme to double nutrient yield without monotony.

Micro-movement and glucose balance

Frequent short workouts outperform single long ones for metabolic control. 12 five-minute bouts per day beat a one-hour session in stabilizing glucose (a study cited here). Move while you wait for coffee: squats, kettlebell swings, stair intervals. Muscles act as glucose sponges, helping manage sugar spikes naturally.

Cold hormesis and circadian design

Moody adds strategic discomfort through cold exposure—two minutes at shower’s end. It triggers norepinephrine and alertness. Pair that with circadian practices: get morning sunlight within minutes of waking (the circ walk), align deep work with your chronotype, and banish your phone from the bedroom. Together, these small physiological switches improve sleep, focus, and mood.

Your body becomes an efficient system of short inputs—energizing meals, brief movements, and hormetic boosts—that collectively sustain metabolism without austerity.

Emotional resilience is physiological. Chronic stress, notes Dr. Heather Moday, fuels cytokines and inflammation. Moody transforms stress management into micro daily actions: breathwork, meditation, action, and ritual. You don’t need hour-long sessions—just intentional repetitions.

Breathe and act

The Stanford protocol for cyclic sighing—two short inhales, one long exhale—immediately calms the nervous system. Combine this with the mantra “action is the antidote to anxiety” (Jamie Varon). Make one small move about what worries you—a call, message, or errand. Momentum dissolves paralysis.

Short meditations, big impact

Dr. Wendy Suzuki and Dr. Amishi Jha show that 5–15 minutes of mindfulness, several times weekly, improves attention and mood. Moody suggests starting at five minutes: even micro-meditation rewires response speed to stress events.

Ritual transitions and recovery

After work, perform a ritual—walk, clothing change, closing laptop—to teach your brain the day is done. It marks boundaries between stress contexts. (Comparable to Cal Newport’s shutdown ritual for digital workers.) Add occasional deeper resets like yoga nidra or at-home silent retreats to replenish baseline calm.

Stress mastery becomes cumulative through small, embodied shifts that rebuild biological calm rather than demand escape.

Productivity, in Moody’s framing, isn’t frantic multitasking—it’s deliberate focus on the few things that matter. Drawing from Chris Bailey, Ramit Sethi, and Dr. Amishi Jha, she builds a system combining prioritization, automation, time constraints, and attention control.

The rule of three

Start the day by listing three outcomes that would make it meaningful. Commit to them above all else. This filters distraction and converts activity into progress.

Simplify and automate

Decision fatigue drains focus. Set recurring payments, grocery orders, and default meal rotations. Ramit Sethi’s approach—automate finances, choose deliberate spending categories—liberates mental bandwidth for creation and relationships.

Control attention

Dr. Amishi Jha outlines three attention modes: flashlight (narrow), floodlight (broad), and executive control. When intrusive thoughts hijack focus, use either zoom-out observation (“I notice I’m worrying”) or zoom-in sensory awareness to reclaim control. Combine these with Parkinson’s Law—work within set time boundaries—to increase cognitive precision.

Productivity becomes mindful intention, not endless motion. You live by focus rather than reaction.

Human connection is medicine. The sections on relationships merge Logan Ury’s and Dr. Marisa G. Franco’s insights: meaningful interaction arises when curiosity replaces performance. You don’t need dazzling stories—just presence and follow-through.

Be interested, not interesting

Ask expansive questions: “How did you end up here?” or “What surprised you most about parenthood?” These invite self-expression and naturally deepen the bond. Watch for “conversational cathexis”—a spark that makes eyes brighten—then follow that thread.

Listen to connect

Before replying, reflect what you heard (“It sounds like you loved that team—what made it special?”). This moment of mirroring cements trust. Moody suggests carrying conversation starters if you fear awkwardness, framing them playfully as “I heard a fun question.”

Connection grows from genuine attention, curiosity, and tiny rituals that acknowledge care. That’s social health in action.

The book’s social wisdom culminates in friendship and domestic structures. Dr. Robert Waldinger’s Harvard study proves relationships are the strongest longevity predictor. Moody shows how to nurture them intentionally and equitably.

Choose, share, and show up

Dr. Marisa G. Franco suggests choosing which friendships to deepen based on desired qualities. Next, get vulnerable—confessing small truths accelerates intimacy. Then show up during adversity through practical care: soup, calls, time. These are emotional deposits that multiply loyalty.

Home leadership

Olivia Amitrano’s “CEO of your household” model transforms domestic life. List tasks, assign ownership, automate routines, and hold weekly check-ins that include emotional questions like “How did you feel cared for this week?” Transparency eliminates resentment and frees energy for joy. Equity and structure create harmony as efficiently as business systems.

Healthy conflict and intimacy

John Kim’s rules for fighting protect relationships: no name-calling, no abandonment without timeouts, seek understanding before defense, and own your part. Combined with Vanessa Marin’s sex advice—small confidence-building steps, scheduled intimacy, and the “First Pancake Rule” for new experiences—Moody crafts a roadmap for emotional and physical partnership built on safety, play, and repair.

Strong relationships and systems for care make wellness sustainable—it’s not self-care versus others; it’s co-care.