I’m usually late to the party when it comes to TV.
Actually, always late.
When Game of Thrones ended, people spent months dissecting plotlines, arguing over character arcs, ranking episodes. Meanwhile, I was the guy finally catching up five years later, excitedly trying to talk about the Red Wedding… only to realize that literally no one cared anymore. The moment had passed.
So when Adria started gently nudging me to watch Stranger Things, for years, I resisted. Not because I disliked TV, but because I genuinely didn’t understand how watching a series fit into my life. I spend most of my time reading, writing, walking, exercising, or talking to myself (a surprisingly productive practice). Slowing down to watch a show often felt unproductive.
But Adria saw something I didn’t.
She reminded me of how left out I felt during the GOT craze and how powerful it is to participate in a cultural moment with the people around you. “You’ll love it,” she kept saying. “And it’s fun being part of something together.”
Eventually, I caved.
And here’s the surprise:
What I thought would be a casual entertainment decision turned into an incredibly meaningful health investment.
Slowing Down With Someone You Love Is Recovery
I’ve spent years making the argument that the biggest levers for our health are purpose, the strength and quality of our relationships, sleep and recovery, and how we move, eat, and care for ourselves.
But the lever that quietly shapes all the others, and is often the most overlooked, is our environment. Not just our physical environment, but our social environment, our cultural environment, and the micro-environments we step into throughout the day.
Environments influence our identity, our sense of belonging, our patterns of attention, and the behaviors that emerge with almost no force of will. They are the most underleveraged health investments we have.
And surprisingly, watching Stranger Things created a new environment for me, one where slowing down, connecting, laughing, and sharing a cultural moment became effortless.
Not once did I imagine “binge-watching a supernatural 80s throwback” would plug directly into those pillars. But it did.
Because watching Stranger Things wasn’t passive.
It wasn’t escapism.
It wasn’t numbing out.
It was connection.
It was shared presence.
It was Adria pulling me into her world and me saying yes.
It forced me to slow down in a way that didn’t feel like a compromise. Slowing down wasn’t the absence of productivity; it was the presence of intimacy, attention, and shared joy.
And that, by any reasonable definition, is recovery.
Shared Cultural Experiences Are a Health Investment
Here’s something we don’t talk about enough:
Our social health is shaped most powerfully by the things we experience with other people, not just by the people themselves.
Stranger Things gave us:
- Group watches with friends
- Inside jokes
- Fun debates about theories and timelines
- A spontaneous trip to New York to see the stage show
- Conversations with strangers waiting in line that sparked real, budding friendships
When we participate in something others are excited about, we’re plugging ourselves directly into the social grid. Our sense of belonging increases. Our mood improves. Our world expands.
For someone like me, someone who grew up in arcades like Tilt in the Enfield Mall, Stranger Things was also a portal into a part of my childhood I didn’t realize I missed. Seeing kids on bikes, mall arcades glowing in the background, that specific 80s palette… it unlocked memories of connection.
Recently, my friend Peter introduced me to a pinball club in Palmer, MA, and the nostalgia, the camaraderie, the simple joy of being in a room full of people having fun echoed the best parts of being a kid again.
That feeling alone is a health investment.
Joy is medicine.
Belonging is medicine.
Shared experience is medicine.
This Is What Intentional Entertainment Looks Like
A lot of people treat TV as the enemy of health.
And sometimes? Sure.
It can be numbing, distracting, a way to avoid rather than engage.
But context flips everything.
The same activity can be:
Passive entertainment
A way to disconnect from yourself
or
Shared cultural participation
A way to connect more deeply with others
Watching Stranger Things with Adria wasn’t a habit. It was an environment. A curated social moment. A deliberate decision to participate in her world and invite her into mine.
Within the Health401k® framework, this matters.
Health investments aren’t just behaviors; they’re environments that pull better behaviors out of us naturally.
And for me, this one crossed three powerful domains:
Emotional health
It gave me nostalgia, excitement, curiosity, laughter, joy.
Social health
It strengthened my relationship, sparked new friendships, and connected me to a broader cultural conversation.
Intellectual health
It engaged my brain with clues, theories, Easter eggs, and the mystery of what is actually happening in the Upside Down.
That’s a lot of yield from a few hours on the couch.
A Health Investment Hiding in Plain Sight
If you had told me years ago that a Netflix series would check every box I care about in health purpose, connection, recovery, intellectual engagement I would’ve politely smiled and moved on.
But here we are.
The truth is:
Not all health investments look like vegetables, meditation apps, gym memberships, or perfectly optimized behaviors.
Some of them look like:
- Saying yes to something your partner loves
- Joining a cultural moment
- Slowing down long enough to connect
- Rekindling pieces of childhood joy
- Letting yourself be part of the conversation instead of watching from the sidelines
This is what Health401k® is ultimately about.
Designing a life where well-being emerges from the environments we create, not from forcing ourselves to be more disciplined.
And sometimes, that environment looks like a couch, a blanket, a bowl of Lesser Evil popcorn, and a supernatural portal in the woods of Hawkins, Indiana.
Thank you, Stranger Things.
Your latest fan is grateful for much more than the show.
Health401k® is a registered trademark of ignite. excite. empower.®, LLC.
People Change People™, The People Change People Paradox™, and HealthBroker by Health401k™
are proprietary educational frameworks of ignite. excite. empower.®, LLC.