Almost Timely News: 🗞️ Solving Real Problems with Generative AI (2025-02-16)

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What's On My Mind: Solving Real Problems With AI

This week, let's extend our use of AI as a practical research and recommendation tool to deal with stress. Now, I'll start with a huge, huge disclaimer.

• I am not a medical professional.

• I do not give medical advice.

• Before making any changes to your health and wellness regimen, consult your qualified healthcare provider for advice specific to your situation.

• You waive any and all liability for, well, anything from this newsletter and from me, my company, my proxies, representatives, and others.

Okay, whew.

I had a thought recently: does all the stress that everyone's under all the time these days have a specific impact? Regardless of your point of view, politics, geography, or life, chances are you're under a fair bit of stress - and chronic stress at that.

We know stress is bad generally. That's not news. But my specific wondering was, what does chronic stress do to us mentally?

Here's why. Ever since November, I've found myself struggling more and more with things like memory, like remembering stuff. There's just so much to pay attention to. And that got me wondering: how does stress impact executive function, things like attention, memory, emotional regulation, etc.?

I know the general, broad, ungrounded answer: it affects things adversely. Chronic anything tends to affect things adversely.

But that's not enough. That's not grounded in facts, in research, in data, in science. Despite the current vibe, opinion is not science, and given what I do for a living, data and science are kind of my thing.

So, what did I do?

Part 1: Do The Research

I specifically needed to find research broadly about how chronic stress impacts the brain, from neurochemistry to psychology. Today's AI-enabled search engines, such as ChatGPT Search, Deepseek, Gemini 1.5 Deep Research, and Perplexity are all capable of doing in-depth research, but you have to give them strict parameters. If you don't, they tend to find the fastest, easiest results - not the most thorough or correct ones.

Here's the prompt I used:

You're a world class researcher. You know academic journals, academic publishing, systematic reviews, meta-analysis, PRISMA, DOI locators, open access journals.
Your research task today is:
Identify and collate papers about the impact of chronic stress on executive function, with an emphasis on neurotransmitters and neuromodulators such as cortisol. The source of chronic stress should be something like ingesting a constant stream of bad news on social media and the news. What are the effects of chronic stress on the body? What are the effects of chronic stress on executive function and memory? How might chronic stress mimic disorders like ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, and other similar disorders?

Restrictions and conditions:
- Use only research published after January 1, 2015
- Use only research from credentialed academic journals and scientific publications that have been peer reviewed
- All research must be non-retracted
- All research must have valid DOI numbers. Reject any result without a DOI number
- Produce all the DOI numbers in your citations
- Prefer sources that are PDF documents
- Explicitly reject mainstream media news sources such as CNN or Fox News, as these are not credentialed academic journals or scientific publications
- Explicitly reject consumer health news sources such as Self Magazine, Men's Health, Women's Health, and similar publications, as these are not credentialed academic journals or scientific publications
- Explicitly reject all social media content such as Reddit, Twitter/X, YouTube, and similar publications, as these are not credentialed academic journals or scientific publications
- Order your results in order of relevance to the research task
- There is no limit on the number of valid results you may gather. Gather all available valid results that meet these conditions

Stepping through this briefly, I use a short role statement mainly for the jargon, following by the problem, then relevant information, then success measures, mirroring the Trust Insights PRISM framework. Since tools like Perplexity have a reasoning option, this makes the most sense.

The tools all come back with AI-generated summaries. I ignore those. They're unhelpful.

What they do come back with is sources, and I love sources. Sources from credible academic journals and peer-reviewed publications because, for as much scandal and as many problems as there are in academia, they pale in comparison to the absolute garbage you find on the public internet. I'd take a pre-print paper over Madame Peony's Rectal Healing Crystal Magic any day.

With each source, I download the PDFs and save them to a folder on my desktop. In the USA, the federal government is deleting research left and right, so it's a good idea to make copies of anything you've found in case it vanishes the next day; thousands of papers and datasets from the CDC and NIH have been deleted by the government this year, and getting archived copies is possible, but a pain in the butt. It's a best practice to always make and save copies of the data you're using. You never know when you'll need it.

There's a good chance at this point you'll have dozens of sources, especially if you decide to use more than one research tool (which is generally a good idea). For example, if you use Google Deep Research and Perplexity Deep Research, you might find different sources. Grab all the relevant ones.

Part 2: Synthesis

The next part is to use a locked RAG system to synthesize the data. Let's unpack that sentence. A RAG system stands for retrieval augmented generation. When you use generative AI, you have the option of providing data to it. You can do this in a variety of ways, from simply pasting information into a prompt to uploading documents to putting documents in a special database for AI to consult. That latter option is retrieval augmented generation; AI tech companies build a system where the AI knows to consult the library of documents you've uploaded first.

Some systems are locked, meaning that if you didn't upload information that you have questions about, the AI will simply refuse to answer the question. It'll say "Sorry Dave, I'm unable to answer that question" and then open the pod bay doors. Locked RAG systems are super useful when you want to avoid hallucination, which is when AI tries to be helpful and makes up information to fulfill your request, even if that information has no basis in fact.

In areas like law, finance, and health, that's canonically a Bad Idea™. Hence we use locked RAG systems for any kind of information retrieval.

Now, you might say, well, what's wrong with the synthesis put together by Perplexity / Gemini / OpenAI Deep Research? A few things. First, they don't always get all the sources right, even with the best prompting. Second, we want to review the sources ourselves, and see the citations in context from the sources.

As we did with the health and fitness episode earlier this year, there's something to be said for looking at the source material yourself. That's why, for this particular application, we'll use Google's NotebookLM. The free version allows you to use up to 50 sources; the paid version allows you to use up to 300. Depending on how often you do research like this, you might want to upgrade to the paid version.

We load up all the sources into NotebookLM and now we start to ask questions of it. Here's an example prompt, specific to the question I wanted to answer:

You're an expert in neurochemistry, neurobiology, psychology. You specialize in understanding stress effects on the brain. Based on the sources provided, analyze how, if at all, chronic stress impacts the executive function of the brain. What are the effects? Order the effects in terms of severity from most to least.

You might wonder, why do we need to do this when we're providing all the data? The underlying model of NotebookLM is Google's Gemini 2 Flash, which means that it still benefits from things like role statements. It may be restricted in what knowledge it can access (by design) but it's still an LLM at heart, so any steering we can provide helps to further encourage good outputs.

If we've done a good job of pulling accurate, trustworthy sources, we'll get a strong answer to our question, backed by plenty of citations:

---

• Impaired Cognitive Function:

  • Chronic stress impairs several executive functions, including planning, decision-making, and impulse control.

  • It leads to difficulties in concentration, problem-solving, and information retention.

  • Working memory is significantly impaired.

  • Chronic stress is associated with poor performance in tests of attentional shifting.

  • It can also lead to cognitive decline and memory problems, particularly in older adults.

• Functional Impairments:

  • Chronic stress biases decision-making strategies towards habitual responses.

  • It impairs the ability to regulate emotions and cope with stress.

  • There is a negative impact on attentional bias to threat-related stimuli.

  • Chronic stress can contribute to the development of psychiatric disorders.

---

There was a ton more in the results, including literal degeneration of your brain, which is scary as hell. You can download a PDF of the results here, if you're curious.

We might want to pursue several different angles or levels of depth to our questions. In this particular example, I might want to spend more time examining and decomposing the different aspects of executive function, such as attention, emotional regulation, and memory.

That said, just based on these results alone, it's clear that chronic stress will definitely show up in your memory and in particular your ability to easily shift from task to task. If you feel chronically stressed, you might notice these symptoms too.

Part 3: Solutions

Now that we've identified the problem, what about solutions? Well, it turns out in this particular case, with all the research we compiled, there are plenty of solutions to be had. I asked NotebookLM for exactly that.

Based on the sources provided, what are the known, effective solutions for reducing chronic stress and in particular, cortisol levels? List solutions in terms of efficacy, most effective to least effective. Indicate whether a solution is a pharmaceutical intervention or a non-pharmaceutical intervention.

What it came back with, unsurprisingly, is a nice list of solutions:

---

Based on the provided sources, the most effective solutions for reducing chronic stress and cortisol levels, ranked from most to least effective, are as follows. It is important to note that efficacy can vary based on individual circumstances and the specific nature of the stressor.

Most Effective Interventions

• Meditation (Non-pharmaceutical):

  • Meditation, in general, is a highly effective method for stress and cortisol reduction. Longer meditation programs tend to be more effective.

  • Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) combines mindfulness meditation with elements of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and has been shown to be effective in reducing self-reported stress, decreasing cortisol levels, enhancing emotional regulation, and improving pain perception.

  • Mindfulness meditation has moderate benefits for reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression.

  • Meditation interventions are particularly beneficial for individuals at risk for elevated cortisol levels due to mental or somatic illnesses or stressful life situations.

  • Integrative Body-Mind Training (IMBT) which combines mindfulness training, body relaxation, and mental imagery is also effective.

  • Various forms of meditation, including zen or transcendental meditation, offer similar benefits.

  • Meta-analyses indicate meditation has a significant medium effect on changing cortisol levels.

---

Again, there were a ton more results, but that would make this newsletter the length of a novella.

I hadn't heard of the specific practice of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, or MBSR. I asked about it and got back a short summary, so I went back to step 1 and fished out a bunch of new sources to add to the notebook. With that, I had a much more clear idea of what MBSR entailed.

Now, this is a good academic solution, in that we have confirmation from reviewed, researched, credible sources about how we might be able to reduce our levels of stress, and the answer is meditation. But this is theoretical, academic in nature. It's not something we can do something with, other than to ask our qualified healthcare provider for a referral.

Suppose we wanted to get started on something today? Basic, breath-focused meditation is about as basic as it gets and in terms of side effects, for healthy individuals there are almost none. Again, I’m not a doctor and I can’t give medical advice, but as far as low-hanging fruit goes, this is as low as it gets.

Now, what if we wanted to adopt a basic meditation practice but we need a little basic technology to help us? Maybe something as simple and as easy as a web page that showed us what to do and when to do it? Could we make such a thing?

With generative AI, the answer is yes, absolutely, and we’ll build this step by step. The best part of this approach is that it’s entirely on your computer, you pay nothing for it ever, and it’s yours. The only skills you’ll need are the ability to prompt an image generation model and the ability to copy and paste a few things.

Part 4: Building Your Own Meditation App

More disclaimers time: this is, at its heart, building software. Software always comes with non-zero risks and though I’ve done my best to minimize them with clear instructions, there’s always the possibility that something goes astoundingly wrong. You waive any liability for astonishingly wrong consequences by doing this next part. And again, talk to your qualified healthcare provider first before making any changes to your health regimen.

First, think about things that relax you. If you have images from photo albums, grab 3 of them and put them in a folder on your desktop computer. We’ll call that folder meditation_app. If you don’t have any photos of things that relax you, go to the image generation service of your choice - Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Midjourney, Meta.ai, doesn’t matter.

You’ll prompt it with three fairly basic image generation prompts that specify subject, style, and format. You can use the Trust Insights Image Generator GPT for a more refined version or just rough it with this general format. Here’s an example.

Generate a photo of a tropical beach at sunset, with the waves gently brushing the shore. It’s summer, and the sky is filled with vibrant colors as the sun sets, a few low clouds in the distance. A small sailboat is visible near the horizon. There are a few palm trees at the edges of the photo. DSLR photo, 16:9 format, HD, 1920x1080.

Obviously, change the prompt to match whatever relaxes you. We want three distinct images, so do three different prompts - maybe it’s variations on the theme, like zooming in on the sailboat, or maybe it’s different themes entirely.

Save the photos in your meditation_app folder, sequentially named, like this: image1.jpg image2.jpg image3.jpg

You'll want to download one more file, and that's this very, very tiny MP3 file. Download it here and save it in your meditation_app folder.

It should look like this when you're done:

Now that you’ve got your images, head to the most powerful reasoning model you have access to, such as OpenAI o1, Google Gemini 2 Flash Thinking, DeepSeek R1, etc. We’ll use the Trust Insights PRISM Framework again with these reasoning models.

Here’s the prompt.

You’re an expert in client-side JavaScript and HTML. Today, we need to build a basic web page with inline CSS and a client-side JavaScript. The overall purpose is to build a simple web-based meditation timer.
Here’s the details. The page will display a rotating series of three images, image1.jpg, image2.jpg, and image3.jpg. It will also have text on the page that tells the user to breathe in, to pause, and to breathe out. The timing for the sequence will be breathing in for 4 seconds, holding the breath for 7 seconds, and breathing out for 8 seconds. Image1.jpg will show during the breathing in, image2.jpg will show during the holding the breath, and image3.jpg will show during the breathing out.
There will be a single client-side JavaScript named meditation.js that the page, meditation.htm will reference. All styling should be in the page’s CSS; do not create a separate CSS file. The page’s background should be a neutral pastel color such as a calming green or blue. The text should be in a common, standard serif font at 18 point font size.
The loop runs forever; there’s no stopping point unless the user clicks on the image again. It just shows each image and the associated instructions in perpetuity until the user closes the web page tab in their browser.
When the user opens up the HTML page, there should be the first image and instructions for the user to click/tap the image to start the meditation. Listen for the click/tap and then begin the meditation when it’s received. There should also be a short note instructing the user that they can stop the meditation if they click the image again.
Show a progress bar beneath the image indicating the time to the next phase. The bar should start empty and fill up across the bottom of the image until it’s completely the size of the image. The bar should be 4 pixels high.
Add ARIA attributes to the HTML to ensure accessibility.
Play the bell.mp3 sound (stored locally) at each transition - breathing in, holding, and breathing out.
The images are in 16:9 format, and should be centered on the page with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels.
Produce the code for meditation.js, then produce the code for meditation.htm

Now, this is quite the beefy prompt, but what the AI of your choice should spit it is the code for two files. You don't need to dig into the technicals (though you certainly can). What you do need to do is copy and paste the meditation.js output from AI into a plain text file named meditation.js, saving it to your meditation_app folder. Then repeat the process for meditation.htm, saving it in the same folder.

Once you've done that, drag the meditation.htm file to any open web browser and enjoy what you've built.

If you're a developer, this is probably very mundane. But if you're a non-technical person, and you've successfully copied and pasted the materials as is, chances are you've just built your very first app - congratulations.

Want to kick it up a notch? Perform steps 1-3 yourself and assemble a notebook of meditation and stress papers, then start having generative AI tools build you things like meditation scripts, voiceovers, and even music with tools like Eleven Labs and Suno. I did this recently for a friend who's going through a rough patch, and it's amazing how well it works once you start with solid data.

Part 5: Wrapping Up

There are a few lessons I wanted to impart in this week's newsletter. First, amazing tools and capabilities exist now for us to do research, synthesize knowledge, and create informed, grounded outputs using generative AI. For any question we might have, we have the tools to gather the best possible answer, if we're willing to put in the time and effort to get it.

That's critical - generative AI makes it easy to accept fast, easy, but shallow answers. That might be fine for making social media posts for your brand, but when you're talking about something vital like finance, law, or health, you owe it to yourself to gather and use the best data available.

Second, generative AI tools also give us the ability to turn knowledge into action (with appropriate supervision/subject matter expert consultation). We've heard the recommendations in our lives for the things we know we should do, but we've not taken action steps to bring that knowledge to life. As we saw with a very, very simple web app, it's possible to do that now.

What's powerful about the example I showed is how easy it is for you to customize it, to build it to your specifications and needs. That simple web page could have the images you care about, the sounds that you like, the wording and expressions that resonate best with you. There are no limits to what you can do with customizing it - and when you're done, it's uniquely yours, forever. There's no monthly fee to pay, no service to rent, no information to give. You made it with your own AI capabilities, and there's a tremendous amount of power in that.

Third, the world is changing fast. Things that were available yesterday might be gone tomorrow. In the USA, therapists and healthcare practitioners are in short supply, and demand is higher than ever. You can supplement the care you get with generative AI tools (with supervision!) to make what works best for you. Maybe your meditation app contains images of Tina Turner or Serena Williams. Whatever works for you, make it your own, and make the supplementary tools you need to succeed.

And this isn't limited to a simple meditation app. This applies to anything. You could make your own cookbook, make your own music player, make anything that comes to mind where you might want to own yourdata. For example, if you have a functioning uterus and privacy concerns, maybe you make your own menstrual cycle tracker.

In my keynotes, one of the three pillars of success in the age of AI is whoever has the most, best ideas will win. We're not talking just about business, but in every aspect of your life. If you've got an idea, you can bring it to life in some fashion with generative AI. The time to be fascinated with AI itself is drawing to a close. The time to be fascinated with what AI can do for you is just beginning, and I hope today's issue opened up some new ideas for ways you can turn your own ideas into reality.

Whoever has the most, best ideas will win in the age of AI.

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• Generative AI for Tourism and Destination Marketing

This week, it was covering all your questions from my inbox. The piece on how much energy AI uses was... eye opening.

• Mind Readings: Ask Generative AI What You Missed

• Mind Readings: Which Generative AI Model To Use

• Mind Readings: How Much Energy Does AI Use?

• Mind Readings: Why GRPO Is a Big Deal in Generative AI

• Almost Timely News: 🗞️ What’s My AI Tech Stack? (2025-02-16)

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