How to Be More Empathetic (And Why Your Brain Avoids It)

Welcome to the positive corner of the internet. We’re here to make your life healthier, happier, and less stressful. At the bottom of each email, we explain our editorial process, stance on AI, and partnership standards.

If you were forwarded this message, you can get the free daily email here.

Today’s Health Upgrade

Beyond The Headline
Before You Buy Black Seed Oil

Black seed oil gets recommended for everything from thicker hair to lower blood pressure. Such big promises require strong evidence, but most studies have lasted only a few months and involved small groups.

If you want to take black seed oil, know there’s some evidence of benefit, but too much uncertainty to say what results (if any) you’ll see.

The blood-pressure research is the most encouraging. A review of 11 trials found that taking black seed for four to 12 weeks lowered systolic pressure (the top number) by roughly three points and diastolic pressure (the bottom number) by about three points compared with control. But most of those trials used ground seed powder, not oil.

Results also varied widely from trial to trial, and reviews disagree on whether powder or oil works better.

For perspective, a much larger review of walking found about a four-point drop in systolic pressure, with stronger evidence behind it. These weren’t head-to-head comparisons, but they provide context.

When researchers graded the evidence on oral black seed, 88 of 110 outcomes received a “very low certainty” rating, and none was rated high. The main reasons were poorly conducted or poorly reported trials, inconsistent results, and small sample sizes. Different doses and preparations across studies made it even harder to know how much benefit to expect.

For hair, a three-month trial of 20 women with temporary shedding found improved density in nine of 10 using the treatment, versus three of 10 using placebo. But the authors reported no statistical tests, and the treatment was a scalp lotion containing 0.5% black seed essential oil. This type of shedding also often resolves on its own.

So the study hints that black seed could help, but it doesn’t show that bottled oil delivers the same results or that it helps other types of hair loss.

Side effects reported in trials were generally mild, mostly stomach upset, though many trials didn’t track them closely. Topical oil can cause allergic skin reactions. Lab and animal research also suggests it could affect blood clotting and how the body processes some medications, including warfarin.

If you want to try it, we recommend checking with your doctor, especially if you take blood thinners, blood-pressure medication, or diabetes medication, and don’t replace any of them with a supplement.

Together With Zimmer Biomet
Can You Predict And Prevent Knee Pain?

Nobody decides to give up on their knees. It happens one swap at a time. Lunges become leg presses. The run becomes the bike. The stairs at the gym become the elevator you tell yourself you took because you were in a hurry.

Most of us call that being smart, and often it is. But every exercise you’ve changed because of a sore knee is also a data point. Most people have been collecting that data for years without ever looking at it.

Swapping exercises isn’t the problem. Subtracting them is.

A review examined 139 trials involving people with knee osteoarthritis. Compared with no treatment or usual care, exercise improved pain by about 13 points and function by about 12 to 13 points on a 100-point scale.

The review found something that more people need to know, especially when battling pain or age: the type of exercise didn’t seem to matter.

So going from running to the bike isn’t a failure. It’s a substitution: you moved the work somewhere your knee tolerates better.

The pattern that deserves attention is subtraction, when the work disappears altogether. No more stairs. No more single-leg exercises. No more bending your knee while it holds weight.

One likely reason load matters is that cartilage has no blood supply of its own. It relies on joint fluid for nutrients, and movement and weight-bearing help circulate that fluid. 

Your joints are built to be used. Arnold’s version is shorter: if you rest, you rust.

And this isn’t just an over-50 story.

If you’ve ever badly hurt a knee, this applies to you sooner than you might think. 

A widely cited review in the American Journal of Sports Medicine found that, on average, about half of people diagnosed with an ACL or meniscus tear had osteoarthritis with pain and lost function 10 to 20 years later. 

The researchers called it “the young patient with an old knee.” Blow out a knee at 24, and the bill tends to arrive in your mid-thirties to mid-forties.

The same review found little evidence that surgically repairing the ligament or meniscus protected against arthritis later on. 

That shifts the focus to what you control: how strong and active that knee stays in the years after.

If you want to protect your knees, here’s a quick 5-minute audit:

List your swaps. Write down every exercise you’ve changed or dropped because of a knee over the last few years.

Sort them. Mark each one as a substitution (the work moved) or a subtraction (the work disappeared).

Check the direction. If the list keeps growing or keeps moving toward less bending and less weight on the leg, it’s worth getting a professional opinion. A physical therapist is a great first stop.

Add one back. Pick one movement you subtracted and bring back a version you can handle: step-ups onto a low box, split squats with a hand on something for balance, or a slow walk up a flight of stairs. Shorten the range or lighten the load until it feels doable, then build from there a couple of times a week.

How do you know if you’re pushing too hard? Mild discomfort that settles by the next day is generally fine. Sharp pain that keeps building, or leaves you worse the next morning, means it’s time to scale back.

Some signs mean it’s time to get your knee checked rather than manage it yourself: swelling, locking or catching, the knee giving way, or pain that wakes you up at night.

If you’re further along and surgery is on the table, timing matters both ways. Northwestern researchers followed 8,000 adults with knee osteoarthritis or at risk for it for up to eight years. 

By the researchers’ criteria, roughly 90 percent of people who could have benefited from a knee replacement waited too long, and some had surgery before they needed it. 

As the lead author put it, “You don’t get as much function back when you wait too long.” Neither waiting nor rushing should be a guess. 

That’s why we’ve partnered with Zimmer Biomet, a leader in innovative joint replacement technology that can help give people back their health and movement. 

Zimmer built a free knee health quiz on a standard seven-question knee survey developed at the Hospital for Special Surgery, the same kind orthopedic surgeons use with their own patients. 

It takes a couple of minutes and gives you a score on a scale doctors actually recognize. Not a sales pitch. A number.

For most Pump Club readers, the number will be reassuring: keep training, keep loading, maybe add some single-leg work. For some, it will be the nudge to get a knee looked at while there are still plenty of options on the table.

You can take the free knee health quiz here.                                              

The swaps you’ve been making were never a weakness. They were information. Now you can do something with it.

Better Questions, Better Solutions
The Empathy Test: Why You Tune Out When Someone Needs You

Someone you care about starts telling you about their rough day.

Two minutes in, you’re nodding along while your brain drafts tomorrow’s to-do list. They notice before you do. “Anyway,” they say, and the moment is gone.

The Old Question: Am I an empathetic person?
The Better Question: When do I check out, and how do I come back?

It’s tempting to treat empathy like eye color. You either got it or you didn’t, and every time you drift feels like proof you got shortchanged.

That’s not what the research shows. People differ in how naturally empathy comes. But when researchers reviewed 18 randomized trials of empathy training, the training produced a moderate, reliable improvement. 

Empathy works more like a skill than a fixed setting. It also works like a choice you make over and over, and each one costs effort.

In one set of 11 experiments, researchers showed 1,204 online participants photos of strangers. People picked between two tasks: try to feel what the person was feeling, or simply describe how they looked.

People chose empathy only about one in three times. They avoided it even when the faces were happy. The more draining it felt, the more they steered away. Nobody was asked for money or time. 

Mental effort was the only price, and it was enough. So if you tune out sometimes, you’re normal, not broken.

Here’s the interesting part. When researchers told people they’d scored in the top 5% at empathy (the feedback was made up), the avoidance disappeared. People chose empathy about as often as the easier task.

The barrier wasn’t ability. It was a forecast: this will be hard, and I’ll be bad at it.

You can’t just talk yourself into a better forecast, though. A large 2025 project ran five preregistered studies. It tested short messages saying empathy is unlimited, can grow, or is what good people do. None reliably raised empathy toward the strangers in the stories. One message sometimes backfired: hearing that empathy is a limited resource made people feel less of it.

That doesn’t mean empathy can’t grow. It means a few sentences on a screen don’t train it. 

Real confidence comes from reps you actually complete, like in the gym. (Also worth knowing: these studies used strangers in photos and stories. Your partner after a long day is a different test.)

So the goal is to make each rep cost less.

Care without carrying everything. In a small brain-imaging study of women, training to feel others’ pain while watching footage of suffering increased negative emotions. Compassion training came next: warmth and wanting the person to be okay, without taking on all their distress. It reversed the negative emotions and boosted positive ones. 

It’s a small study, so treat it as a clue rather than proof. But it matches what most of us know. Absorbing someone’s pain is exhausting, and exhaustion is when you check out.

Give your attention a job. In one study, strangers chatted online for 15 minutes. People randomly told to ask at least nine questions were liked more than people told to ask four or fewer. Follow-up questions did the most work, because they prove you heard what came before. Partners saw the question-askers as more responsive. Most people don’t expect questions to matter this much.

The next time you notice yourself drifting while someone talks, ask one follow-up question about something they just said. Then listen to the whole answer.

If even that feels like too much, start smaller. Repeat back the last thing they said before you respond.

You don’t need to be born empathetic. You need to notice the moment you leave and come back with one question. Every time you do, that’s a rep, and reps are how this skill grows.

The Positive Corner of The Internet
About Arnold’s Pump Club Editorial Standards

We do things a bit differently here, starting with transparency.

—

Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger​

Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell