🚨 Welcome to this week’s issue of Generation Xcellent. I’m Stephen Perrine, New York Times bestselling author and former top editor at Men’s Health and Maxim. And like you, I’m doing all I can to survive the moshpit of midlife. Thanks for joining me on the journey! (And as always, our content is 100% Organic Intelligence—written by guys like us, for guys like us.)

📩 Thanks for joining the conversation!

- SUCCESS -

Bill Belichick’s 7 Rules for Bouncing Back

He had a tough game last night, but he’s got 8 Super Bowl rings and a girlfriend who’s half a century younger than he is. Think this guy might have an idea or two worth stealing?

By Jeff Stevenson

Don’t trust “helpful” people: Whenever you start a new job, you’ll have someone in front of your desk pledging to help with “whatever you need.” Do not trust that person. Take note of when they actually do step up to help, and what their motivations are. Remember that “help,” when promised in a public setting, always comes with an asterisk.

Stay paranoid: Never stop watching. Never stop being afraid. There will always be someone better. And if someone better doesn’t exist, then it’s up to you to become that person. In life, as in football, there are two reasons why you lose out: either you’re not playing well, or someone else is playing better.

—Jeff Stevenson has written for Men’s Health, Maxim, and other classic men’s magazines.

- FATHERHOOD -

How to Get Your Kids’ Phones Down—and Their Grades Up

A school phone ban could change your child’s education dramatically—but only if it’s done the right way. Here’s what to fight for.

By Jennifer Wolff

>With the clang of the first morning school bell this fall, many students across America are encountering a new reality: a school day without the use of their phones.

“I think it’s terrific,” says attorney Peter Tomlinson, 56, whose daughter Schyler is entering her senior year of public high school in New Haven, Connecticut, where a daylong cellphone ban has been put in place.

Since the pandemic, Tomlinson has futilely tried to break Schyler’s 10-hour-a-day phone habit. A school day ban might be his last and only chance. “Taking the phone away from my child does not have an impact,” says Tomlinson, who has attempted to limit Schyler’s phone with parental controls, an array of useless apps, and impotent consequences for when she inevitably finds a work-around. “Taking it away from all kids is going to have an impact.”   

This year, seventeen states have enacted new laws, policies or mandates targeting cell phone use in schools, joining 18 others with existing cell-phone restrictions. Some schools now require students to place their phones into locked pouches, dedicated phone lockers, or regular lockers. Some require students to keep their phones in their backpacks, while others have installed phone caddies in each classroom to prevent use during instruction.   

“When students have access to their phones during class time...their grades and learning suffer,” writes Jonathan Haidt in his bestselling book, “The Anxious Generation,” noting that benchmark test scores started declining in the early 2010s, with the proliferation of smart phones. “No school ever regrets going phone-free,” Haidt posted recently on X. “Benefits are large and come quickly.”    

Just ask San Mateo High School physics teacher Patrick Thrasher. “There was such a pretty clear, drastic difference in the classroom,” Thrasher told a local newspaper after the 1600-student high school experimented with a cellphone ban. “It was just night and day.”

Even the most skeptical San Mateo teachers were blown back by the difference in students after the six-week program “Teachers have told me they would quit if we ever went back,” San Mateo High School Principal Yvonne Shiu told me. “They can teach again.”

Still, the question remains: do cell phone policies in schools work? Most don’t, according to a recent study of cell phone policies in 30 schools. “The data consistently shows that if you want impact, you have to do a hard ban,” says neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, PhD. That means forcing students to leave their phones at home, or lock them in designated lockers for the entire school day. More lenient policies don’t work: A quarter of students still spend an average of one hour a day on their phones, and 10% spend as much as three hours.

There are two reasons for this, Horvath explains: First, policies that let students access phones during breaks, recess or lunch, or that let students store them in their backpacks, cause cravings that distract them during instruction time—it’s like telling a man with a terrible thirst that he can have a drink, but only after the bell rings. As well, 90% of learning occurs after class, when kids hang with their friends or eat lunch – and their hippocampus – where memories are formed and stored -- processes what they just learned. “Allowing cellphones after class interferes with the biological process of learning,” Horvath says.

“It’s a different feeling in the cafeteria,” says Zach Mangino, a senior at Wilton High School in Connecticut, which instituted a bell-to-bell ban this year. “Everyone’s having a good time and smiling,” compared to last year when students were just looking down at their phones. 

“At first, I was like, this is so stupid,” Hushindi Abwe, a student at Hoover High School in DeMoines, told NBC News. “As time goes on, I can actually see an improvement in my mental health and how I’m doing in classes.”

Ted Wilkerson didn’t attribute his daughter Abigail’s middling middle school performance to anything beyond a lack of motivation. However last year, when she enrolled in a private high school in Montgomery County, Maryland, with a no-phone policy, her grades shot up. So did her participation in sports and clubs. Admittedly, Abigail was never as engaged with her phone as other girls her age, says Wilkerson, 52. But the phone ban at her new school seems to have made a difference. “The evidence is there,” he says.  

—Jennifer Wolff is an investigative journalist specializing in health, parenting and social issues.

Ask Jen: The X-Rated Files
“How Can I Meet Women Without Stupid Dating Apps?”

>Got a question about sex, marriage, dating, or whatever’s happening in your DMs? Ask Jen X. She’ll sort it out, no judgement. (Well, maybe a little.)

Q: I’ve just re-entered the dating market after 15 years. Do I have to use those stupid apps? Isn’t there another, more human (and humane) way? —Scott D., Columbus, OH

A: Scott, welcome back to the hellscape. It’s true, dating apps are like the DMV for your libido. But if you refuse to touch them, you’re basically saying, “I’d like to date, but only if I can meet someone in the wild, preferably while holding a boombox over my head in 1992.”

The “humane” ways still exist, they’re just slower. You can meet people through friends, at concerts, in cooking classes, or anywhere that isn’t a strip mall parking lot at midnight. The catch? You’ll have to actually talk to strangers without the warm-up of swiping left on their gym selfies first. So don’t be afraid of the apps, but think of them as one tool in the box, not the whole renovation. Use them to make a couple of quick connections, then move things offline as soon as possible. Otherwise, you’ll waste six weeks crafting witty replies to someone who’s already matched with 47 other dudes. And yes, that number is real.

- FITNESS -

Build More Muscle (Faster!)—With
Less Gym Time

Master the art of recovery to get stronger, leaner and healthier at any age!

By Gwen Lawrence

>The linebacker was pissed off, all 245 pounds of him. He didn’t like how I was criticizing his workout.

“But I NEED to get stronger,” he said, frustrated that I was holding him back from another brutal gym session. He wanted to push harder, to lift more, to grind every day. What I told him was simple but hard to swallow: if he wanted to build more strength, he needed to work out less.

During my days as the yoga coach for the New York Giants, I had to walk a lot of enormous men through gentle recovery work. NFL players, especially linemen and linebackers, are wired to go full throttle — practice, lift, eat, repeat. But the truth I’ve seen firsthand is that recovery isn’t weakness; it’s where the gains actually happen.

Related: Eat This to Build Muscle at 45+!

Why recovery matters. Strength is not built in the gym. It’s built in the space between workouts.When you train, you tear muscle fibers and stress the nervous system. If you don’t allow time for repair, the body never gets the chance to adapt. Instead of growth, you’re digging a deeper hole of fatigue, soreness, and insomnia—all common symptoms of overtraining—as well as injury risk. In a study in The International Journal of Exercise Science, researchers put a dozen men through identical workouts—bench press, back squat and leg press—testing various lengths of time between workouts ranging from 24 to 96 hours. They found that maximum increase in strength occurred when the men rested for 48 to 72 hours between workouts.

Like that linebacker, you may want to train like a beast every day, but you can’t pour from an empty cup. Without recovery, even the strongest athlete will eventually break down. With recovery, performance skyrockets. In addition to adequate rest, I teach athletes — and men of all ages — a toolkit of simple recovery practices:

1. Foam rolling. Think of it as self-massage. Rolling out quads, hamstrings, and back muscles helps release tension, improve circulation, and speed up healing.

2. Compression boots. These high-tech tools use air pressure to flush out metabolic waste from the legs and bring in fresh blood. Pro athletes swear by them after games or intense lifts.

3. Restorative yoga. Yoga offers long, deep holds that increase flexibility, loosen fascia, create a smoother range of motion, and relax the body and mind.

4. Cold showers and ice baths. For acute muscle soreness, ice baths can be helpful, but don’t use them after regular workouts: ice lowers inflammation levels, but you want inflammation after a workout to push nutrients into the muscle tissue. And a little cold water goes a long way: One study found that people who added a 30- to 90-second blast of cold water at the end of their morning shower reported higher energy levels and 29 percent fewer sick days.

Men often think recovery makes them “soft.” Taking a day off or doing light, easy movements doesn’t give you the adrenaline rush of a heavy squat or max bench press. But recovery is what separates a burned-out athlete from a high-performing one. The Giants I worked with weren’t always convinced at first — until they noticed fewer injuries, better sleep, and even stronger lifts when they followed recovery protocols.  Here’s the truth: training breaks you down. Recovery builds you back up. Ignore it, and you plateau. Respect it, and you thrive.

—Gwen Lawrence has served as the yoga coach for the New York Giants and New York Knicks. She is the former cohost of The Better Man Show and the author of Self Care Is Essential. 

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