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Are You Living the Life You Designed — or the One You Fell Into?
Emily Rose Adams
May 08, 2026
Hi, I hope you're well.
Emily from The Health Review here 👋 I'm writing from Tokyo, ticking off what has been a very long-standing bucket list trip. A few days in and Japan has already exceeded every expectation. I've been drinking lots of matcha, forest bathing, marvelling at the architecture, the food, the extraordinary attention to detail in everything, and thinking a great deal about what this culture understands about nature, mindfulness, community and respect that most others seem to have largely forgotten. I’m posting stories about it over on The Health Review’s Instagram page in case you’re hoping to plan a trip here sometime too.
This week’s edition covers:
🧬 Health News: Your brain has a hidden cleaning system — and movement triggers it; why creatine may be the most underrated supplement most women aren't taking; and why science now suggests travel might be one of the best things you can do for ageing.
🧠 Feature: Are you living the life you designed — or the one you fell into? I've been thinking about this a lot lately, partly inspired by a fascinating conversation with Michael Faulkner, and partly through my own coaching training. The stats on how many of us are simply frustrated with where life has landed us are difficult to ignore.
🎙️ Podcast: Michael Faulkner — CEO of NKD and co-founder of Moxie — on why so many of us are living on autopilot, how to identify the mental scripts holding us back, and what designing a life you actually want looks like in practice.
🧴 Cutting plastic from your diet slashes hormone-disrupting chemicals in your body in just seven days
A landmark clinical trial found that 100% of participants had at least six plastic-associated chemicals in their urine on any given day. The good news: by switching to low-plastic food, plastic-free kitchenware and low-plastic personal care products for just seven days, phthalates dropped by over 44% and bisphenols — including BPA — fell by more than 50%. Given that these chemicals mimic oestrogen in the body and have been linked to hormonal disruption, fertility issues and metabolic problems, the speed of change is noteworthy. The next phase of the research will look specifically at effects on fertility.
💊 People who lose weight on Ozempic face more judgment than people who remain overweight
Research from Rice University, the Mayo Clinic and UCLA found that GLP-1 drug users face more social stigma than those who lose weight through diet and exercise — and even more than those who don't lose weight at all. The stigma seems rooted in a perception that these drugs are an “easy way out,” creating a double bind where individuals are judged both for their weight and for how they choose to manage it.
🧠 Scientists discover a hidden brain “cleaning” effect triggered by movement
We've known for a while that exercise is good for the brain. We didn't know quite why, until now. New research from Penn State, has found that when the abdominal muscles contract during movement, they push blood into the spinal cord in a hydraulic-like action that gently moves the brain itself. This subtle movement drives the flow of fluid in and around the brain — which researchers believe is key to clearing out waste products and protecting against neurodegenerative diseases. The mechanism involved is the glymphatic system — the brain's waste removal network, most active during deep sleep and now shown to be activated by movement too.
💪 Scientists reveal creatine’s hidden power beyond muscle gains
Creatine has long been associated with gym culture, but a new review published this week makes a compelling case for paying it more attention. Beyond its well-established role in muscle performance, creatine is naturally produced in the body and plays a key part in powering the brain, heart and nervous system. Studies suggest it may support memory, mood and processing speed, and researchers are now investigating its potential in depression and menopause-related bone and muscle loss. Women typically have lower baseline creatine levels than men, meaning supplementation may actually deliver greater relative benefits.
✈️ Travel may be a surprisingly powerful anti-ageing tool
A new study suggests that positive travel experiences may help the body stay biologically balanced and resilient — with researchers finding that exploring new environments, encountering novelty and breaking from routine all appear to reduce biological "entropy," the gradual disorder that accumulates in our systems as we age. Genuinely good news for anyone who already suspected that a holiday was doing something more than just rest!
Are You Living the Life You Designed — or the One You Fell Into?
A survey of 1,500 working Brits published last year found that more than a quarter were simply frustrated with where life had landed them. Nearly half said they'd have pursued something completely different if they'd had the chance, while one in five still felt actively resentful about the career they'd ended up in. I found those numbers striking — but yet not surprising. Most of us know could say at points we’ve felt like we’re living a life that happened to us, rather than one we’d consciously chosen.
I've been doing my coaching diploma with the brilliant Andy Ramage over the past few months, and this question — why do so many of us drift into a life by default rather than building one by design — keeps coming up. It's one of the central things good coaching helps people unpick, and it turns out the reasons are more interesting than simple inertia. A lot of it comes down to the scripts we carry around — stories we wrote about ourselves in difficult moments years ago, which our nervous system has been treating as fact ever since. What I find fascinating, and what I've observed in my own coaching sessions, is that when you say those scripts out loud to another person, they almost never sound as convincing as they did inside your head. Getting them out of your head and into a room is often where change actually begins.
I spoke to Michael Faulkner this week — CEO of NKD and co-founder of Moxie, a life design system combining neuroscience, positive psychology and somatics — and he made the point that the British in particular have a complicated relationship with the idea of wanting more, in the sense of saying: this is the life I actually want, and I'm going to work out how to build it. There's something in our cultural wiring that finds that slightly uncomfortable to admit. And meanwhile, according to the World Wellbeing Movement's 2025 report, around seven million UK adults are now estimated to be living below what they call the Happiness Poverty Line. That's more than the entire population of Scotland.
Michael's point — and it's one I've come to agree with through my own training — is that awareness is always the starting point. Not a huge dramatic overhaul, more of an honest look at where your time and energy are actually going, and whether that matches what truly gives your life meaning. And then, as he puts it with a simplicity: just do something - one thing. Because the longer you stay stuck waiting for the perfect plan, the more that becomes its own kind of answer.
You can hear the full conversation with Michael in this week's episode of The Health Review — it's one of those that may ask a bit more of you than most, in the best possible way.
This feature is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult your own doctor before making changes to your health.
Emily x
Stop Living on Autopilot — How to Design a Life You Actually Want | Michael Faulkner
How many of us are actually living the life we chose — rather than the one we fell into?
In this week's episode I sit down with Michael Faulkner — CEO of NKD, co-founder of Moxie and someone who has spent 20 years at the intersection of human performance, behavioural science and leadership development — to explore exactly that.
We talk about why so many of us end up on autopilot, the scripts and limiting beliefs that quietly keep us there, and what it actually looks like to take conscious control and design a life that genuinely reflects who you are and what you want.
Michael also shares the framework behind Moxie — a science and soul-based life design system built around the idea that you deserve a life you've chosen, not one you've simply ended up in.
If you've ever had the nagging feeling that something needs to change but you're not sure where to start, I think this conversation will feel very familiar — and very useful.