The health companion to selfdriven.you

selfdriven.health

Look after how you feel, how you grow and how you move.

Mental, developmental and physical health, treated as one system. Each guide explains how part of you works, grades habits by the evidence, and gives you a routine to start today. Pair it with selfdriven.you to choose how you spend your energy.

Mental Developmental Physical
Check in · 1 min Browse the guides

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Education, not medical advice. The guides are for general education only. They don't diagnose or treat any condition, so talk to your GP or another health professional about your own health.

Three areas

Three areas.
One you.

Most health advice treats these separately. Your sleep, your learning and your mood don't. Each area has a definition, what it covers, one thing to try today and the guides that go deeper.

01 · MENTAL

Mental health

How you feel

How you feel, think and cope day to day, and how quickly you recover when things get hard.

  • Stress and recovery
  • Mood and sleep
  • Attention
  • Connection
Start today

Five minutes of slow breathing at about six breaths a minute, then tell one person how you're really going.

02 · DEVELOPMENTAL

Developmental health

How you grow

How you learn, adapt and change across your whole life, from childhood through to older age, and how your brain is wired to do it.

  • Learning and skills
  • Focus and planning
  • Neurodiversity
  • Life stages and purpose
Start today

Practise one skill for 15 focused minutes. Stop while it still feels easy, so you want to come back tomorrow.

Why together

The real changes happen where they overlap.

Three overlapping circles: mental, developmental and physical health. Mental and developmental overlap at focus and learning, mental and physical at sleep and stress, developmental and physical at skills and ageing. All three meet at you. Mental Developmental Physical focus learning sleep stress skills ageing you

Mental and physical

Poor sleep lowers mood, and low mood disrupts sleep. Exercise helps break the loop: in a 2024 review of 218 trials, walking or jogging, yoga and strength training all reduced symptoms of depression.

Mental and developmental

Stress narrows attention, which makes new things harder to learn. Settling your nervous system first is often the fastest way to think clearly again.

Developmental and physical

Balance, coordination and strength respond to practice at any age. Learning a new movement trains your body and your brain at the same time.

Health is how well you can feel, grow and move, all at the same time.

selfdriven.health
Take a minute

Where's your
health at?

Rate each area for the past week, from 1 (struggling) to 5 (strong). You'll get one place to start.

Example
Mentalmood · stress · sleep
Developmentallearning · focus
Physicalmovement · food · energy
1 struggling5 strong
Start here · Developmental

Pick one small thing to learn.

Choose one skill and practise it for 15 minutes today. Stop while it still feels easy to come back to tomorrow.

Showing an example. Tap the numbers to set yours.
Guides

Start with
a guide.

Each guide explains how something works, gives you something to do today, flags when to get help, and ends with the sources or support lines behind it.

MentalPhysical

Vagus nerve

The nerve that links your brain, heart and gut. How to track it with heart rate variability, which habits help, which claims don’t hold up, and a guided breathing timer.

Paced breathing · 5 minOpen guide
Physical

Fascia

The connective web around every muscle. Its layers, a tappable body map, what the evidence supports for back pain and foam rolling, and a guided movement sequence.

Movement · 5 or 8 minOpen guide
Physical

Eye movement routine

Twenty smooth-pursuit patterns with a dot to follow, adjustable speed and reps, and a plain account of what eye exercises can and can’t change.

20 patterns · 7 minOpen guide
DevelopmentalMental

Obsessive by nature

For minds that lock on and stay. Nine common patterns, from looping thoughts to running on empty, read through the four modes, with small moves to try for each.

9 patterns · 27 movesOpen guide
MentalSupport

The undertow

When an obsession starts costing your health, money or the people around you. Count the cost, spot the red flags that need a real person, and plan your way back.

Self-check · repair planOpen guide
MentalSupport

Depression

Why depression isn’t sadness or the opposite of happiness. The nine signs doctors check, why the low-serotonin story didn’t hold up, and small moves that start the way back.

PHQ-9 · 12 movesOpen guide
PhysicalMental

Walking

Why about 7,000 steps a day does most of the work and 10,000 came from a pedometer’s name. What walking does for your back, blood sugar and mood, a 15-second pace check and a week planner.

Pace check · plannerOpen guide
Physical

Anti-inflammatory bowls

Five bowls built on the Mediterranean pattern, in Australian measures. What food can and can’t do for chronic inflammation, plus a week planner and a shopping list.

5 bowls · shopping listOpen guide
Physical

Good gut smoothies

Six fibre-rich smoothies for a personal blender and a formula to build your own. Why kiwifruit helps with constipation and no smoothie repairs the gut lining, plus a week planner and a shopping list.

6 smoothies · shopping listOpen guide
Physical

Probiotics

Which strains help with which problems, from antibiotics to IBS, and where the evidence runs out. How to read a label past the big number, who should skip them, and a 12-week trial log.

16 situations · trial logOpen guide
DevelopmentalMental

Protocols

Andrew Huberman’s first book across its seven areas, with one place to start in each. Why behaviours come before supplements, and the viral five-supplement thread checked against Australian limits.

Book guide · 7 areasOpen guide
Planned

Coming next

Guides in progress, so every area has somewhere to start.

  • Sleep
  • Stress and recovery
  • Learning that sticks
  • Neurodiversity
  • Life stages
The four modes

Put it into practice
with selfdriven.you.

selfdriven.you organises your day around four modes. Each one has a health job to do.

01 · CURIOSITY

Curious

Ask better questions about your health before you act on an answer.

  • Read the back of the bottle
  • Find the original source
  • Take questions to your GP
02 · CARING

Caring

Connection is part of health, for you and for the people around you.

  • Check in on someone
  • Let someone check in on you
  • Ask for help early
03 · CONSTRUCTIVE

Constructive

Build routines small enough to keep. A checklist you tick off beats a plan you drop in a week.

  • Start with five minutes
  • Tie it to something you already do
  • Track a week, then adjust
04 · CHILL

Chill

Recovery is when your body repairs. It makes the other three modes sustainable.

  • Slow breathing
  • Screen-free breaks
  • Enough sleep

Not sure which mode you're in? Do the vibe check on selfdriven.you, then come back here for the health side of it.

Where You At? selfdriven.you
Curious mode

Five checks before you
trust a health post.

Supplement threads spread fast and often link to a shop. Here's a typical one, with the questions worth asking before you buy anything.

A typical post
Health account · verified

A famous podcaster takes 5,000–10,000 IU of vitamin D a day.14 He says his bloodwork looks better at the higher dose.5

This is the one I personally use. Thank me later.2

Triple Strength Fish Oil 1,250 mgshop link · online store
3
Back of the bottle · per capsule
Fish oil1,250 mg
EPA + DHAexample: 750 mg
Other fats and oilsthe rest

  1. Who said it, and where?

    "Someone famous takes it" reports a habit. It isn't evidence that it works for you. Find the original interview or study before you act on a summary of it.

  2. What does the poster earn?

    "The one I personally use" next to a shop link usually means a commission on each sale. That doesn't make the advice wrong, but it's a reason to check it yourself.

  3. What's on the back of the bottle?

    The big number on the front is the total oil or powder. The supplement facts panel shows the active amount, such as EPA + DHA in fish oil, which can be a fraction of the front label.

  4. How does the dose compare with the safe limit?

    The Australian upper level of intake for vitamin D in adults is 80 µg (3,200 IU) a day. 10,000 IU is about three times that. Higher doses are sometimes prescribed after a blood test, but they aren't a safe default.

  5. Was it tested on people like you?

    Age, pregnancy, health conditions and other medicines all change what's safe. Ask your pharmacist about interactions, and your GP whether a blood test makes sense first.

Seen the "five supplements" thread about Huberman's new book? We put each pick through these checks against Australian limits.

See the five checked About the book
How this site works

Four commitments.

Graded by evidence

Habits in the body guides are marked solid, moderate, limited or unproven, with the studies listed at the end.

Nothing to sell you

No affiliate links, discount codes or sponsored products. When a guide names a dose, it compares it with Australian limits.

Your data stays with you

Check-ins, checklists and timers are saved in your own browser. Nothing you enter here is sent to us.

Alongside your GP

The guides help you understand your body and prepare better questions. They don't diagnose or replace care from a professional.

Get help now

If things feel like too much, talk to someone today.

These services are free and confidential, and you don't need a referral. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 000.

Not sure if it's urgent? Call healthdirect and a registered nurse will help you work out what to do next. Numbers are for Australia.

  • EmergencyPolice, ambulance or fire, when someone is in danger
    000
  • LifelineCrisis support and suicide prevention, 24/7
    13 11 14
  • Beyond BlueBrief counselling for anxiety and depression
    1300 22 4636
  • 13YARNCrisis support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
    13 92 76
  • Kids HelplineCounselling for young people aged 5 to 25
    1800 55 1800
  • healthdirectTalk to a registered nurse about any health worry
    1800 022 222

Sources

  1. National Health and Medical Research Council. Nutrient Reference Values: Vitamin D (adult upper level of intake 80 µg a day).
  2. Noetel M et al. Effect of exercise for depression: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. BMJ, 2024. Open-access record.
  3. Mental Health First Aid Australia. Immediate help (helpline numbers).
  4. healthdirect Australia. healthdirect helpline.