Optimizing Health

The Rabbit Hole

4 bullet summary (you should read the whole thing):

• Fast for 12-16 hours per day.

• Sleep is the most important factor.

• Every day you should exercise and walk more than 6,000 steps.

• If you don’t manage stress or any of these other factors you’ll lose 12-14 years of life!

This is not health advice, I’m just sharing what I learned from some books and reputable sources and applied to myself. Always do your own research.

I can’t go in-depth over this, if you want to go more in-depth check the resources at the end of the rabbit hole.

The following is directly from my notes on these books and studies.

Studies found that people who adopted a healthy lifestyle had an 82 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease during a follow-up period and a 65 percent lower risk of dying from cancer.

Men with these healthy lifestyles tend to live an extra 12.2 years, and women 14 years!

So what is the lifestyle?

You need to optimize 4 factors:

• how you eat

• how active you are

• how you respond to stress

• how much emotional support you receive

On eating:

• Consume at least one serving of cruciferous vegetables per day (including broccoli sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, or kale). It’s good to prevent cancer.

• Foods that fight inflammation: olive oils, green leafy vegetables, brightly colored vegetables, fatty fish, most fruits, green tea, nuts and seeds.

• Intermittent fasting for 12 - 16 hours per day. The last meal of the day should be a minimum of 3-4 hours before sleep. This helps prevent diseases like diabetes and some cancers.

• Drink 2-4 liters of water per day (it’s the only fluid you need).

• Eat a variety of foods from your ancestry. Think about “what would they eat”.

• Be nourished. As an extra insurance take a multivitamin and mineral pill, plus an omega-3 fish oil soft gel every two to three days. Purchase the products only from reputable companies, where quality control ensures appropriate supplement content and stability.

On being active:

• Walk at least 30 minutes every day. Even better do more than 6,000 steps every day.

• Exercise around 5 days per week.

• You can change your breath to change your mood and energy. Here are some examples. Do this and meditation for 5 - 20 minutes per day.

  • Breathing for 4 seconds, holding breath for 4 seconds, exhaling for 4 seconds, holding breath for 4 seconds - a segmented 4/4 pattern that you can continue for several minutes while walking to boost your energy and mental clarity.

  • Inhale for 4 breaths through the nose, and exhale a count of 4 breaths through the mouth. Navy seals are taught this to calm their nervous system in stressful situations.

  • There’s also a good ratio to train the body to fully oxygenate to eliminate toxins and stimulate the lymph system. The ratio is 1:4:2. Tony Robbins does 8 seconds (inhale), 32 seconds (hold), 16 seconds (exhale). You could do 7:28:14, or whatever is a natural capacity for you at this stage.

• To extremely reduce the risk for all causes of premature death, do 20 minutes of sauna, 4-7 times per week, at 73ºC. Start by doing 5 to 10 minutes and then slowly go up to 20 minutes.

On sleeping:

• To know why sleep is good, and more important than diet and exercise, remember this daylight savings time experiment: Every year, twice per year, the clocks move forward 1 hour in the spring and backward 1 hour in the fall. Researchers discovered a 24% increase in heart attacks when it changes and we sleep 1 hour less. And 21% reduction in heart attacks when it changes and we gain one hour of sleep.

• Here’s a prescription for a great night’s sleep:

  • First of all, you need to assess whether or not you’re getting enough sleep. How? If your alarm didn’t go off in the morning, would you sleep past it? If you would, then clearly your brain isn’t done with sleep and you need more.

  • Set yourself a regular bedtime and wake-up time. Imagine that you’re alone on a desert island, then ask: What time, typically, do I think I’d probably end up going to bed, and what time would I probably wake up?

  • Focus on giving yourself a long enough “sleep opportunity” each night. Set a get-in bed alarm, since you will take some time to fall asleep. My sleep schedule is 10:30 pm - 7 am.

  • Improve the quality of your sleep, not just the quantity. Besides alcohol and caffeine, and not being too hungry or too full, you need to get cool to get good sleep. Aim for a bedroom temperature of 18-20ºC.

  • Put down your phone.

Bonus:

• Skin is the biggest organ in the body and the quality of your skin reveals the quality of your internal systems. Redness, puffiness, and other visible problems serve as red flags warning you that something is wrong with your diet, medications, or autoimmune system.

• To prevent Alzheimer:

  1. SLEEP: For one, getting enough sleep is of vital importance. This doctor calls sleep "mental floss" because sleep clears amyloid out naturally.

  2. HANDLE STRESS: Reducing stress is also key because stress causes a release of cortisol in the body, which causes neuroinflammation and kills neurons.

  3. INTERACTION: Social interaction, especially in the elderly, is critical since it lowers Alzheimer's risk by 2x.

  4. EXERCISE: Exercise is one of the most important and studied ways to improve brain health. Recent studies have shown that exercise induces neurogenesis, the birth of new neurons.

  5. LEARNING: Learning new things - a language, an instrument - stimulates neuron growth. Intellectual stimulation can cause new synapses to form in your brain.

  6. DIET: A low-sugar diet is important for health. Sugar causes inflammation.

Resources:

• Book: Life Force: How New Breakthroughs in Precision Medicine Can Transform the Quality of Your Life & Those You Love.

• Book: The Longevity Diet.

• Book: The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health.

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That’s all for today, I hope you enjoyed it!

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