I have been thinking lately about how much time we spend trying to make ourselves better. If my IG algorithm knows something about this, it’s that I am not immune. Most of us want to grow and develop and some of us want to become “better” people. That all probably makes sense. What I’m wondering about is how we all got so sucked into being better at almost everything.
There is clear messaging in our society that we need to track aspects of our well being and then make changes. That would be ok if it was a balanced campaign effort on the part of corporations, drug and supplement manufacturers, marketers, and, yes, even coaches and therapists. Overall, it’s not.
We want to sleep better, eat better, exercise in the right way, take the right supplements, have better skin, look better,age well, live longer, be productive but not too stressed, be betterleaders, and somehow have time for our relationships and our mental health in the midst of all of it. When I read this aloud, I don’t know if I’ve ever put all of these things into the same category before. But, more and more they are. The teens want to have a “glow up” and their parents want to stop time. There is even a word for much of it now: optimization.
I am probably exactly the kind of person who is susceptible to this. I am curious and I like information and researching. If there is something I can do that might make a difference, I generally want to know about it. If there is a natural supplement to help with hormonal changes, I’m on it. If there is a new gummy for stress or sleep, sign me up. Let’s not even get into micro-dosing this article.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, overall. In many parts of my life it has served me well. I talk with clients who feel very much the same way. They sometimes look to me for suggestions on how to “do life better.” They want to read the best new title or try the newest variation of a modality. Now, all that said, it has become easier and easier to turn this into a strategy. A way to distract or a way to pivot. Strategies can be good things, until we start using them to bypass real feelings and real life. And, they can also be exhausting.
It is exhausting to be in a constant state of striving. It can contribute to anxiety, dissatisfaction, unrealistic expectations, and plainly just make us feel let down. Taking care of ourselves to the point of seeking optimization can turn into just another few things on that to do list and, specifically, things we have to get right.
I don’t think this is just me. It’s societal at this point. The wellness industry has become enormous, and a growing part of it is built around the idea that we can know more and more about our bodies and then use that information to improve them. We can track our sleep, heart rate, recovery, glucose, hormones, exercise and body composition. We have rings and watches and bracelets to help us do that. There are tests that claim to tell us our biological age and clinics devoted to helping us live longer. There are apps for meditation and food and periods and stress. This has all become fairly commonplace.
Please don’t get me wrong, some of it is incredibly useful. I wear an Oura ring so I especially don’t want to dismiss what better health information has meant for me and for women. Women’s health has been understudied for a very long time, and women have had symptoms dismissed that deserved attention.
It’s just now that we are finally having honest conversations about menopause. I’m fortunate to be moving into midlife at a time when talking about certain things is normal. I feel comfortable telling clients I’m having a bit of a brain fog moment and asking them to remind me of last session. Sometimes I even have them remind me of where I was in the middle of our dialogue. The amount of conversation happening now around menopause is a good example of how some of this heightened interest in wellness can be very helpful. I would much rather have women understand what is happening to their bodies than go back to a time when we were expected to quietly tolerate it.
I have noticed, however, how quickly it’s not just a stage of our own evolution we are talking about. We are invested in all aspects of wellness to the point of what I might call a societal obsession, or at least an Instagram one.
At 50, I feel this in ways I didn’t when I was younger. It is no longer enough to exercise or do some Pilates. Going on a walk and “old school” cardio practices are not enough. I should be thinking about muscle mass and bone density. I need enough protein and creatine. I should sleep enough and manage stress. There is my cholesterol and my brain health and all of the things we now know matter as we age. And of course there is skin and hair and weight and the question of what it means to look good at 50 without looking like you are trying too hard to look 35.
I am glad I know more than women did a generation ago. But what are we supposed to do with all this information. I mentioned my algorithm earlier because if it has a vote, it thinks I need to be using very specific face and body creams, taking supplements for my gut, and using creatine powder. It also thinks I need a “glow up” at 50, so yes, that term has moved through the ranks. There is always a new foundation, or a new way to apply makeup, or even a new hairbrush. There is almost certainly something more I can do to optimize my features, my brain health, or my longevity. And, it’s all very expensive by the way.
Men are certainly part of this too, although some of the marketing is differently. There seems to be more emphasis on performance, strength, testosterone, productivity, recovery, and longevity. Biohacking has taken some of this to an extreme, but the underlying idea isn’t all that different. Learn about your body so you can hack your system. Make adjustments to what you eat, what you focus on, and what you add to your regime.
So, all of this named neatly in the above paragraphs could make the reader think I believe this is all bad. It’s neither good nor bad, if we keep a clear perspective. That is sometimes hard to do, and I definitely see this show up in sessions with clients.
Psychologists have been studying a related idea to optimization for a long time through the concept of maximizing. The basic distinction is between wanting a choice that is good enough and wanting to make the best possible choice. Some of the early research found that people who tended toward maximizing also experienced more regret, perfectionism and comparison. They also were less satisfied with their lives. Later research has complicated those findings, so I don’t think it is as simple as saying people who want the best are less happy or that all this striving is creating dissatisfaction. I do think marketing groups and influencers are banking on our dissatisfaction, but that also is for another day—another essay.
Even still, I understand our drive. If I try the right practice, supplement, or serum I might be successful but if I aim for the very best and maximize up front, I may be able to get wherever I’m trying to get to and sit still.
The internet and social media have made that much harder. There is always something else. I can find another expert or another product. I can figure out another way of doing whatever it is I am already doing. Sometimes having more information helps me make a decision. Other times I end up knowing so much that the decision feels more complicated than it did when I started.
Sleep is an interesting example. Researchers have actually described a problem called orthosomnia, where people become so focused on getting ideal sleep according to their trackers that the tracking itself can contribute to anxiety about sleep. I have had clients talk about this with me. Imagine waking up feeling fine, looking at a terrible sleep score and suddenly reconsidering whether you actually feel fine.
With all this information and data all around us. With all this focus on the answers, maybe we end up forgetting all about our bodies. Maybe the tracker tells us our readiness score is poop, but we feel great, just not long enough to be in it,
I see a version of this in therapy too. Over the years, people have become much more psychologically informed. My clients know words that rarely came up outside a therapy office earlier in my career. People talk about attachment and trauma responses and boundaries and triggers. They know about nervous-system regulation. They recognize patterns in their relationships, and are interested in understanding where those patterns came from.
For the most part, I think this is a good thing. I have spent my career helping people understand themselves, and I still believe that understanding can change what becomes possible for us.
As long as we are aiming to understand and not just wanting to categorize our behavior or define someone else’s, there is so much good that we can do. There can be so much that we can work through. But my therapist self is telling me that we don’t need to understand or work on every aspect of ourselves and definitely we don’t have to do that all at once.
Sometimes I hear the way we talk about ourselves now and wonder whether we have started to believe that every uncomfortable feeling is telling us there is more work to do. If we are anxious, we need to regulate. If something bothers us in a relationship, we wonder whether we have been triggered. If we repeat a behavior we don’t like, we look for the wound underneath it.
There may be a wound underneath it. Or you could be in a bad mood or be having a difficult week. And, sometimes people can get under our skin and it does not always have to trace back to our childhood. Not everything necessarily needs to become material for personal growth.
I say this while being someone who has spent years in therapy, becoming a therapist, learning new forms of therapy, and thinking about why people do what they do. I am not suddenly deciding that self-examination is overrated. But, we do sometimes confuse this self reflection or analysis as a means to have some control,
Maybe that is part of why optimization is so appealing. There are so many parts of life where we don’t have much control at all. We can do everything we know to do for our health and still get sick. We can be loving and thoughtful parents, and our children will still have painful experiences. Our relationships could not work even if we have made the effort. But, optimization can feel like a way to take very good care of ourselves and take back control. We are still going to age, though. We may do it more beautifully or more comfortably but the end result will be the same for all of us.
Getting older, more frail, and less able is a scary thing to think about. Optimization has not just been a buzz word, it has had a following. And, there are signs that people may be getting tired of it. The Global Wellness Summit included what it calls an “over-optimization backlash” among its wellness trends for 2026, pointing to fatigue with tracking and scoring so many aspects of our health and a growing interest in experiences that aren’t organized around measurement.
I don’t know whether that will actually amount to much. There has always been some form of wellness industry and now we wait to see if optimization is a true aspect of that or is a trend or buzzword.
Regardless, I don’t want to stop trying to improve things. There are parts of myself and my life that I am glad I have worked hard to change, and there are others I am still working on. I like learning things and I like getting better at things. And, I’m not getting rid of my Oura ring anytime soon. But, I want to be sure to stay clear on that everything that could be better does not have to be. Sometimes good enough is just right.
Before I close I want to be clear about some things. There is a difference between neglecting ourselves and occasionally deciding that we are fine or good enough. Eating healthy foods, sleeping well, moving, and giving attention to our mental health is important. I’m not advocating we strip doing that. By all means, please still get your annual check up. Keep caring, but maybe not so much that it’s making you feel sick.