More Isn't Better: Why Optimizing With Purpose Beats Optimizing Everything

We live in the golden age of health optimization. There's a supplement for every goal, a wearable for every metric, a protocol for every function of the body. The promise is intoxicating: if you just track enough, take enough, and tweak enough, you'll unlock peak health. But there's a catch that the optimization culture rarely mentions. Doing more is not the same as doing better, and beyond a certain point, the relentless pursuit of optimization can actively work against the very health you're chasing.

The most effective approach isn't trying everything. It's identifying what you specifically need, and doing that with intention. Here's why, backed by some recent and eye-opening real-world examples.

When the Tool Meant to Help You Hurts You

Perhaps no example captures this better than the sleep tracker paradox. Sleep trackers are supposed to improve your rest by making you aware of it. But researchers have documented a genuine downside: a condition called orthosomnia, where the obsessive pursuit of perfect sleep data actually makes sleep worse.

The term was coined in 2017 by researchers at Northwestern University and Rush University Medical Center, after they noticed a troubling pattern of patients arriving at sleep clinics anxious about their tracker scores, even when they felt fine and clinical tests showed their sleep was normal [1]. The irony is sharp: the very technology meant to improve sleep can, in some cases, worsen it, causing anxiety, obsessive behaviors, and even insomnia [2]. Part of the problem is that consumer trackers consistently overestimate sleep and underestimate wakefulness, so people end up distrusting how they actually feel in favor of an imperfect number, and some even lie in bed longer trying to "improve" their score, which only fragments their sleep further [3].

The lesson isn't that tracking is bad. It's that a tool used without purpose, chasing a perfect metric for its own sake, can create the exact problem it was meant to solve.

When More Supplements Means More Harm

The supplement aisle is optimization culture's playground, and it's another place where "more" quietly turns dangerous. Stacking supplement after supplement in pursuit of optimization isn't a neutral act; it carries real, measurable risk.

The data is sobering. Herbal and dietary supplements now account for about 20% of liver injuries in the United States, and one study found roughly an eightfold increase in drug-induced liver failure from these products between 1995 and 2020 [4]. A 2024 JAMA study estimated that around 15 million Americans take supplements that are potentially toxic to the liver, specifically naming common "healthy" choices like turmeric, ashwagandha, black cohosh, garcinia cambogia, green tea extract, and red yeast rice [4]. Even ordinary vitamins can backfire when overdone: too much vitamin A can cause liver toxicity, and too much vitamin D can lead to dangerously high blood calcium [5].

As one physician put it, building your own supplement stack is a lot like trying to diagnose and treat yourself without a medical degree, because supplements interact with each other and with medications, and it's entirely possible to exceed a safe dose without realizing it [4]. Unless you're correcting a specific, identified deficiency, piling on more rarely adds benefit, and sometimes it adds harm.

Even the World's Most Extreme Optimizer Pulled Back

If anyone has earned the title of "maximum optimizer," it's tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, whose Blueprint project famously involved a team of doctors, hundreds of daily measurements, and at one point over a hundred supplements a day. His story has become an accidental case study in the limits of optimization, precisely because he learned these limits the hard way.

Johnson has publicly acknowledged that he stopped taking rapamycin in 2024 after concluding it "probably did him more harm than good," despite having run what he called one of the most aggressive protocols in the industry [6]. More tellingly, his approach evolved away from maximalism entirely.

He shifted toward reducing his total supplement count, focusing only on compounds with clearer measurable impact, monitoring biomarkers before adding anything new, and avoiding unnecessary overlap between products [7]. In his own words, his current protocol is less about maximizing quantity and more about refining inputs based on data, response, and long-term sustainability [7]. He also drew public criticism from hepatologists over the liver risks of certain supplement combinations, a reminder that even a heavily monitored protocol isn't immune to the dangers of doing too much [8].

The takeaway is striking: the person arguably most committed to optimizing everything ended up concluding that less, chosen carefully, was more.

The Deeper Problem: Your Body Isn't a Machine

Underneath all of these examples is a single flawed assumption, that the human body is a machine you can max out by tuning every dial. In reality, the body is a complex, variable, deeply individual system. Sleep quality, heart rate, energy, and countless other markers naturally fluctuate day to day, and treating every fluctuation as a problem to be fixed is a recipe for anxiety, not health.

Researchers studying wearable technology have noted this directly: when the process of optimization becomes an obsession, the tools designed to make us healthier can instead fuel chronic health anxiety, leaving people more stressed while trying to maximize their wellbeing [9]. Chronic stress, of course, is itself one of the most damaging things for your health, which means over-optimization can become genuinely self-defeating. You end up worse off, not because you did too little, but because you did too much.

And critically, what helps one person may harm another. A supplement that corrects your friend's deficiency may be useless or even risky for you. A protocol that transformed an influencer's energy may do nothing for your physiology. Optimization is not one-size-fits-all, because you are not the same as anyone else.

How to Optimize With Purpose

So how do you get the genuine benefits of a proactive, health-focused life without falling into the over-optimization trap? It comes down to intention and individualization:

Start with your "why," not the tool. Before adding a supplement, a tracker, or a protocol, ask what specific problem you're solving for your body and your goals. If you can't name the purpose, that's a signal to pause.

Test, don't guess. The most defensible interventions are the ones targeted at something real, an identified deficiency, a diagnosed issue, a measured gap. Bloodwork and professional assessment beat blindly copying someone else's stack.

Change one thing at a time. Piling on ten changes at once makes it impossible to know what's helping, what's doing nothing, and what's causing harm. Purposeful optimization is patient and methodical.

Remember that less is often more. Adding is easy and feels productive; the harder, wiser move is often subtraction, cutting what isn't earning its place.

Watch for when the pursuit becomes the problem. If tracking your sleep is costing you sleep, or optimizing your health is fueling anxiety, the optimization itself has become the issue. Stepping back is not giving up; it's good sense.

Work with a professional who knows you. Individualized guidance, someone who looks at your specific labs, history, symptoms, and goals, is the antidote to generic, one-size-fits-all optimization.

The Bottom Line

The goal was never to optimize everything. It was to be healthier. And true health rarely comes from doing the most, it comes from doing the right things, for the right reasons, for your specific body. The sleep tracker that steals your sleep, the supplement stack that stresses your liver, the protocol that trades genuine wellbeing for anxiety, these are the predictable results of optimization without purpose. Choose intention over intensity, and individualization over imitation, and you'll get further than any maximalist ever will.

At Mana Loa Health, this is the heart of how we practice: prevention, education, and treatment with purpose. We don't believe in throwing everything at the wall. We believe in understanding you, and building a plan around what will actually move the needle on your health and your quality of life.

Currently treating patients located in:

Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, and Washington!

-The Mana Loa Health Team

Patient safety is Mana Loa Health's top priority. The information discussed on this blog is not intended to recommend the self management of health problems or wellness. It is not intended to endorse or recommend any particular type of medical treatment or advice. The information provided on this website is for informational purposes and not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have questions or concerns about your health, please talk to your healthcare provider. No information contained on this blog should be used by any reader to disregard medical and/or health related advice or provide a basis to delay consultation with a physician or a qualified healthcare provider.

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https://mana-loa.clientsecure.me

References

1. Is Your Sleep Tracker Hurting Your Sleep? Signs of Orthosomnia (origin of the term, Northwestern/Rush, 2017). Sip2Sleep, citing Baron et al. https://sip2sleep.com/blogs/news/is-your-sleep-tracker-hurting-your-sleep-signs-of-orthosomnia-and-how-to-sleep-better-naturally

2. Orthosomnia: Losing Sleep About Losing Sleep. Psychology Today (2026). https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/am-i-dying/202603/orthosomnia-losing-sleep-about-losing-sleep

3. Orthosomnia: Can Your Sleep Tracker Cause Insomnia? The Brain Docs (2026). https://www.thebraindocs.com/articles/orthosomnia-sleep-tracker-anxiety

4. Supplements people take to improve health may harm the liver (20% of U.S. liver injuries; ~8-fold increase 1995–2020, Liver Transplantation; 2024 JAMA study on 15 million Americans and liver-toxic supplements). AOL/Health. https://www.aol.com/lifestyle/supplements-usually-taken-improve-health-100048233.html

5. I Tried Bryan Johnson's Full Blueprint Stack (fat-soluble vitamin overdose risks: vitamin A liver toxicity, vitamin D hypercalcemia). Hone Health. https://honehealth.com/edge/bryan-johnson-blueprint-essential-capsules/

6. Bryan Johnson's Supplement List 2026 (stopped rapamycin in 2024, "more harm than good"). Omre. https://omre.co/blogs/news/bryan-johnson-supplements-list

7. Bryan Johnson Supplement List (2026): Full Protocol & Breakdown (shift to fewer supplements, biomarker monitoring, avoiding overlap). Fast Life Hacks. https://fastlifehacks.com/bryan-johnsons-supplement-list/

8. Liver Doc Calls Blueprint CEO Bryan Johnson a "Fraud," Sparks Debate (hepatologist warning on supplement/herb interactions and liver injury). Medical Dialogues (2025). https://medicaldialogues.in/news/health/doctors/liver-doc-calls-blueprint-ceo-bryan-johnson-a-fraud-sparks-debate-145900

9. Biohacking and Health Anxiety: When Health Tracking Becomes an Obsession. Psychologs (2026). https://www.psychologs.com/biohacking-and-health-anxiety-when-health-tracking-becomes-an-obsession/