Start Here

The best of Two Percent with Michael Easter and how it works.

Get healthy. Think clear. Live better.

Join 100,000+ readers using Two Percent for practical ways to master their health, mindset, and performance. 3 emails a week. No fluff. Just proven tools that work, verified from the edge.

I’m Michael Easter, a writer and journalist who explores the edges of human health, performance, and resilience. I travel into the world’s most remote and extreme places to uncover what helps us live fuller, wider, and more meaningful lives.

I’m the author of the books The Comfort Crisis and Scarcity Brain, and I also write Two Percent, this Substack newsletter. It goes out three times a week and shares what I’m learning on the ground and thinking about in real-time.

Each Two Percent post delivers practical strategies to enhance your physical health, mental resilience, performance, and purpose.

The tools I share are backed by science, rooted in human experience, and optimized to work in the real world. And we’ve built an incredible community of likeminded people around them.

We only offer the highest-impact information—tactics that works for real people in the real world. That is to say, you.

• Our information comes from groundbreaking new science, but it also views topics from multiple lenses and leverages wisdom from real conversations with experts and cultures across disciplines. We’ve traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around to get the information we release.

• Our information is human. It accounts for tradeoffs and different perspectives and works for everyone—changing us all for the better.

Together we fight back against the downsides of our modern, comfortable world—and we get better for it.

The Best of Two Percent

We have a lot of great stories on Two Percent.

I created this list for you to find some of our community’s favorites:

Fitness

• Harvard’s Running and Rucking Prescription
  Exactly how many miles you should run or ruck each week for ideal health.

• Why Women Should Ruck
  Four reasons why rucking is the best exercise for women.

• Don’t Die. Do Pullups.
  This simple exercise might be the ultimate longevity test + a tactical plan to do more pullups—or nail your first one.

• How Accurate is Your Activity Tracker?
  Fitness tracker accuracy varies wildly. Find out how yours did and how to use it better.

• The New Science of Outdoor Exercise
  The case for moving more outdoors is clear. Learn the benefits and how to leverage the takeaways here.

• Six Fitness Lessons from a Fascinating Study on the Amish
  You’ll learn: How farming changed human fitness; the upsides of farm and manual labor; six ways to mimic farm and manual labor in your exercise to fill fitness gaps and build grit.

• Rucking: Backpacks Vs. Weight Vests
  A deep dive on which you should choose and why.

• 6 Pillars of Useful Fitness
  Training for the outdoors is likely the best path to overall health, longevity, and fitness you can use.

• How to Find the Right Exercise Shoe
  This one led to shoe industry insiders emailing me saying I’d condensed years of knowledge into a single, simple read.

• Lessons My Wife Learned Walking 31,576 Steps a Day
  On the incredible power of steps and how you can get more of them.

P.S. Interested in rucking? Type “rucking” into the search bar on our homesite, TWOPCT.com.

Health

• Microplastics and Your Health
  A guide to an insidious and growing health problem.

• Carrying Kids: The Incredible Science and Benefits
  Not just for parents. Understanding the evolution of child carrying can shape how you think about health, exercise, and development.

• How Many Steps a Day Is Best?
  Hint: It’s not 10,000. But the number that’s best for you depends on what your goal is.

• Nose Breathing: Science vs. Snake Oil
  Are you breathing wrong? Learn the good, bad, and ugly of this new wellness obsession.

• You Probably Don’t Get Enough Vitamins and Minerals
  Micronutrient deficiencies are overlooked, and they can hinder your health, sanity, and performance. They’re associated with everything from obesity and heart disease to fatigue, depression, and impaired intelligence and performance.

Nutrition

• Fasting: Facts, Myths, and Best Practices
  What fasting can and can’t do for you, and four ways to try it.

• A Nutrition Rule That Cuts Through Nonsense
  You’ll learn: why and how many online nutrition claims are wrong and a rule that will help you navigate the complicated world of food and health.

• The 2% Hydration Guide: Part I
  You’ll learn: the truth about hydration and performance, how to tell if you’re dehydrated, how dehydration does and doesn’t impact health, three guidelines for hydrating, and more.

• The 2% Vitamin and Mineral Guide
  Even healthy diets can lack some vitamins and minerals. But knowing your status is complicated, and getting more isn’t so straightforward.

• Wild Findings From an Analysis of 400 Diet Books
  A scholar read 400+ diet books going back to the 1860s. She discovered the real reason why diets become popular—and ultimately fail.

• Can You Out-Exercise a Bad Diet?
  You’ll learn how much exercise it takes to eat what you want within reason—and whether you’re even capable of that.

Mindset & Mental Strength

• Why We Get Hooked On (Insert Anything)
  A dive into a big revelation from my New York Times Bestselling book, Scarcity Brain.

• Three steps to Build Good Habits
  The S-R-O model works. Use it and get better.

• The Misogi Guide

  The greatest list of real Misogis ever published—a great guide to find your own epic challenge.

• Four Lessons from Misogi
  Why doing hard things can transform us, and how to navigate challenge better.

• Use Science to Reduce Screen Time
  Get your time and attention back. Years of behavior science back up this simple phone trick.

• Absolve Yourself of First-World Problems
  This might be the ultimate mindset shift.

• The True Science of Gratitude
  Gratitude is essential for wellbeing, but the science and advice around it is murky. We’ll explore what really makes people grateful.

• The Heavy Rucking Mile
  A challenge that will push you to your edge—and expand it.

Gear

• Gear Not Stuff: Travel Edition
  My favorite gear for travel.

• Don’t Die: Wilderness Edition
  These four simple guidelines will help you follow the 2% motto: Have fun, don’t die.

• Gear Not Stuff: June Edition
  Three outdoor necessities.

• Gear Not Stuff: July Edition
  13 items to stay healthy while road tripping.

• Gear Not Stuff: October Edition
  Great gear under $100, sourced from the 2% community.

• Gear Not Stuff: December Edition
  The best gifts for people who like to have fun and not die.

P.S. If you’re a gearhead, search “Gear Not Stuff” in the search bar on the homesite, TWOPCT.com. That’ll allow you to easily find past Gear Not Stuff columns.

Work and Productivity

• How to Talk to Anyone
  Asking better questions can improve your conversations, make you more likable, and increase your success in business, relationships, and life.

• The Truth About Morning Routines
  Many morning routines are often a distraction. Here’s how to make your morning routine work for you—and not the other way around.

• The Paradox of Making Your Bed
  Why a common piece of morning advice has downsides.

• Leverage the Power of Silence
  How escaping the noise can boost your productivity.

• The Problem with Goals
  A simple question that will help you accomplish more in 2024.

Two Percent Subscription: What You’ll Get

By subscribing to Two Percent, you’ll get:

• Three high-impact emails a week
  Each post covers the most useful ideas in wellness—tools to improve your health, mindset, and performance.

• Proven strategies for busy people.
  Wellness shouldn’t suck up all of your time. Our tactics are backed by research, tested by top experts, and designed for real life.

• Multiple viewpoints.
  Perspectives from different sources and disciplines so you can understand topics better and select an approach that works for you.

• Info you won’t find elsewhere.
  I travel extensively to bring you proven insights—blending new research with on-the-ground reporting (I’ve traveled 200k+ miles to get info for Two Percent).

• Tactics for everyone.
  No one-size-fits-all advice. Information that works whether you’re 18 or 88 and the epitome of health or just getting started.

• Results that ripple.
  Our readers get stronger, think clearer, work better, and live well. The benefits show up in our health, work, and relationships.

Choose Your Membership

Paid Members save far more money and time than Two Percent’s monthly cost. (You may also be able to expense the newsletter—see below).

🔓 Free Plan

A great but limited place to start.

• 1 full post a week (Monday)

• 1 free podcast episode

• Useful previews of Member content (I always give something useful)

🔒 Member Plan – $6.87/month or $68.70/year

Life-enhancing info that saves far more time and money than its cost.

• All weekly posts (Mon, Weds, Fri) and full archive

• Audio versions of each post

• Access to Two Percent community and comments (more on its power below)

• Q&As, workouts, nutrition, and mindset plans

(Again: You’ll save more time and money in the long run than the cost.)

🔒🔒 Founding Member Plan – $247/year

For those who are all-in on living well.

• Everything above

• Free Two Percent hat + full SUPERMEDIUM training program (the best fitness, nutrition, and mindset plan I’ve found).

• Priority AMA responses + answers to your personal questions

• $200+ value in bonus materials

Pro tip: You may be able to expense your Membership

Many subscribers expense Two Percent using their corporate wellness, learning, professional development, or training budget. Here is an email you can send to your manager to expense the newsletter. You can generate receipts and invoices that are suitable for expensing at companies on this page.

Two Percent Works—Testimonials

Read Two Percent. Take action. You’ll improve.

Our readers span 190 countries and represent all ages, income levels, cultures, backgrounds, and stages of health and wellness.

Two Percent Community: The Best People Online

Since launching in 2023, Two Percent has grown into one of the most inspiring communities online. I truly love this place.

Two Percent is a community—a community full of people who are smart, funny, kind, well-read, and dead set on betterment. We make each other think and live and experience life better. Our readers have:

• Lost thousands of pounds.

• Walked, rucked, and run millions of miles.

• Dramatically improved fitness, health, and mental resilience.

• Rewired their mindset and taken on epic challenges.

• Made smarter life and business decisions.

• Overcome anxiety, depression, and addiction.

That’s the tense of living we’re after: Fully alive, fully engaged, fully human, fully well.

Why The Two Percent Name?

Only 2% of people take the stairs when there’s an escalator available. We call this the Two Percent Mindset—choosing the harder path for a better future—and apply it to all areas of our lives.

It’s the foundation of lasting health and growth—and it changes everything.

This newsletter is for the few willing to choose better. Read more about the Two Percent Mindset here.

Welcome to the 2% Community. Now let’s do big things.

Have fun, don’t die.

-Michael