Your healthy is in your control. It anchors on 4 pillars, in the following order of priority:
- Sleep
- Hydration
- Diet
- Physical activity
The 4 pillars above are in your direct control. Taking care of them requires your own effort and time, and doesn’t involve other people [1].
Other factors also impact your health, but those tend to be less direct and personal. Relationships, work, and mentality also play a major role. Nonetheless, each of these is positively impacted by the 4 pillars. As long as you take extreme care and ownership over the 4 pillars, other factors will tend to improve or fix themselves.
My thesis (and experience) is that focusing daily on these 4 in large part mitigates other issues (mood, anxiety, relationships). Actually, the first signs of distress usually come in the form of neglecting one of the 4 pillars [2]. Therefore, as long as you stick to all of them, all other factors will tend to improve by consequence.
I found that for each pillar there are some simple general guidelines that are scientifically accepted (as far as our current research suggests). Taking care of these guidelines is enough to guarantee your daily effort for improved health. Then there are some nuances that vary depending on the individual and situation. These are less scientifically sound, but still worth a discussion.
Sleep
Sleep a minimum of 8 hours each night. Go to bed and wake up always at the same times every day.
Sleeping is the most important pillar of human health. It stands above all other factors, so it must always take the priority (with few exceptions). Choose a time to go the bed, the same every day, and stick to it no matter what. Wake up a minimum of 8 hours after that. The most important decisions is the time you go to bed, not the time you wake up [3].
Lack of sleep requires time to offset: If you disregard sleep for one or multiple days, you cannot recover with a single day of 8 hours sleep. You will still feel sleepy and tired even after a good night sleep. 8 hours each night must be consistent over a long period of time for optimal health. Stick to 8 hours for at least a couple of weeks to notice the full benefits.
Keep the room cool: Sleeping requires the body to drop the temperature by a few degrees. External temperature matters for optimal sleep, especially for being able to fall asleep without long delays. There is no proven optimal temperature, but try to stick to something below 20°C. Don’t lower the temperature too much, which may cause issues instead of benefits.
Dress appropriately: What you wear should not be fixed, but it should change based on your sensations. Try to always keep a comfortable temperature when you lay in bed. You should not feel too cold or too hot. Dress more if necessary, and remove or change some clothes during the night if you wake up feeling too warm.
Use light to wake up: Instead of an alarm clock you should consider light. Buy a timer that turns on a light when you want to wake up. Keep the light high above your bed to mimic natural sunlight. This strategy will not disrupt your sleep with a sudden alarm. Instead, you will gradually wake up with the light. You can still keep the alarm clock and set it around 5 minutes after the light turns on, since the light may not wake you up immediately.
Lower the volume of the alarm clock: The effectiveness of the alarm is generally not about the intensity of the sound. The body wakes up from the tune of the alarm, even when the volume is low. Try to keep always the same tune and lower the volume. This strategy is especially useful when you don’t want to wake up other people in the room.
Afternoon naps should not be necessary: Consistent 8 hours of sleep should make you feel rested all throughout the day, to the point that you should not even feel the urge for a nap at all. Instead, naps should be considered more as a tool for special situations. For example, an afternoon nap may aid when you get a cold to recover faster. A proper nap should last around 20-25 minutes. More than that may leave you less rested and prevent a proper night sleep.
Consider coffee as a drug: The neurotransmitter adenosine accumulates during the day and gives you the feeling of sleepiness when it's time to go to bed. It's then cleaned up during sleep. Caffeine acts on the same receptors of adenosine, preventing you from feeling tired. As such, caffeine may lower the quality of sleep. You should mostly restrict caffeine (coffee) to a maximum of 8 hours before bed. Most times it's best to drink it in the morning. Consider coffee as a focus enhancer, and not as a recreative drink.
Create a ritual before sleeping: A ritual acts as a clue for the body that it's time to sleep. An example is laying on your back and doing some breathing exercises.
The bed is only for sleeping: The mind creates a strong association between places and activities. Therefore, don’t use the bed for anything outside of sleeping. Over time your body will associate bed to sleep, making it easier to fall asleep.
Don’t sleep too much: As a general rule avoid sleeping consistently more than 9 hours. Consider extra hours of sleep as an enhancement when you need extra recovery (intense physical effort or illness).
Drink a glass of water after waking up: Water is a signal to the body that it's time to wake up. Furthermore, the body tends to lose water during the night, so drinking after waking up is beneficial. For the same reason, don't drink during the night.
Hydration
Drink a minimum of 2L of water every day.
Stick with 2L as the most general guideline. Drink more during hot seasons (up to 3-3.5L in the heat of summer) and somehow less during cold seasons (never less than 1.5-1.75L).
Drink water, and not much else: Exceptions may be tea, coffee, milk. Generally everything that only gives a sugar-free aroma is acceptable (leaves). Anything containing sugar (fruit juices included [4]), excessive fats, or alcohol is poison [5].
Don’t drink too much: Drinking water is not a race. Drinking too much water can be fatal [6]. In a regular day (without excessive physical activity or hot temperature) consider 3L the extreme maximum.
Spread water intake during the day.
Restrict drinking a few hours before going to bed: Excessive drinking before sleep can cause the need to wake up and negatively impact sleep quality. Restrict drinking 3-4 hours before bed.
Food contains water, but better not count it: Consider all the water from food as an extra, since it’s not possible to count it precisely. Exceptions may be soups and broth.
Increase water intake when feeling distress or ill. More water helps the body recover faster.
Diet
Aim for at least 2g of proteins for each kilogram of body weight. Calculate your ideal daily calories intake and measure your calories. Eat until you reach your calories and proteins intake, and not anymore. Make your food come mostly from unprocessed products. No sugary products at all.
Diet has too many variables to be studied effectively. Therefore, it's not possible to pinpoint the ideal combination of foods and meals for each individual and region. Instead, focus on what we are mostly certain to be true and beneficial: proteins, calories, and food sources.
First, calculate how many calories you need each day. I personally use the Alex Hormozi method, because it's simple, objective, and flexible:
- Choose your goal: from extreme weight loss to extreme weight gain (you must make this choice, there is no way around this. If you don’t, you are implicitly make it anyway).
- Select a number from 7 (extreme weight loss) to 21 (extreme weight gain), where maintenance is between 13-15.
- Multiply your body weight in pounds times the number you choose in the previous step: That's your daily calories intake.
For example: for a person weighting 200 pounds (91kg) that aims for maintenance (say 14 in the number scale), then the calories are 200 multiplied by 14, total to 2800 daily calories.
Second, focus on protein intake. The daily protein intake in grams corresponds to your body weight in pounds. For example, 200 pounds means 200g of proteins each day. Eat to reach these 200g all the while counting your calories. Beyond those 200g of proteins, you can eat anything else (with some caveats explained below).
The rationale of the method is that you can measure your weight and adjust the factor to account for undesired weight loss or gain. Therefore, weight yourself everyday, ideally naked and first thing in the morning after going to the bathroom.
Each day you must both reach your exact calories and protein intake. As long as you reach both, you can eat whatever you like, with a couple of caveats:
- Lower the amount of processed food, and remove all extra-processed food
- Don't eat sugary product (anything that is mostly based on sugar)
- Stick to the guidelines of hydration by drinking (only) water
Measure daily calories. This step is crucial and necessary. It removes all doubts and insecurities about how much you eat.
Count calories also from beverages if they are not zero (but try to stick to only water). Account also for calories from toppings and condiments (e.g. oil).
Most apps store all the foods that you eat. After 2-3 weeks you will have registered all your usual foods, so you won’t need to add them anymore. That makes the counting process fast and easy.
Avoid eating ideally for at least 3-4 hours before going to bed.
Pay attention to volume as well as calories during meals. 400 calories of vegetables will make you feel stuffed more than 400 calories of rice, just because the volume is higher. Avoid high-volume meals to always feel light, while still reaching the daily calories intake [7].
It may help to consider calories and proteins as a weekly goal even more than daily. If for some reason you are unable to reach your daily intake, you can offset with a slightly higher intake the following days. Don't push this too far though, and ideally spread over multiple days instead of recovering all in a single day.
Physical activity
Exercise every day for at least 45 minutes. Both cardio and building muscles are necessary. Stretch daily.
45 minutes every day is the most general guideline for health. Exercise can be as simple as a walk, but make sure to include some exercises to build muscles as well [8].
The objective is to maintain an healthy level of both cardio and muscle mass. Stretching is also crucial to keep muscles functional and flexible.
As long as you factor both cardio, building muscles, and stretching, you can choose whatever activities you most enjoy doing. That may be sports, weight lifting, body weight exercises, walking, running, swimming, or anything else.
Include ideally at least one session a week of high-intensity exercises. The goal is to reach your maximum heart rate, usually in the span of a 5 to 20 minutes bout of exercises.
Stretching must be done on top of the 45 minutes of exercises. Multiple times a day is ideally better than a single session [9].
Physical activity is required every day in some form. Even a rest day should ideally include a light walk and some stretching.
A missed day cannot be recovered with a double session the day after. That's because a double session will make you feel more tired the day after, so that the training becomes less effective. A missed day is lost forever.
Physical activity is a long-term endeavour. The goal is being able to exercise forever. Avoid adding too much stress by training too much. Rest is as important as training. Stop using a muscle if you feel pain and wait for it to recover to avoid serious injuries.
Don’t focus on single muscles, but instead stick to mostly compound exercises (depending also on your fitness goals). Make sure to train all muscles in the span of ideally 1 week.
For more details on the types of exercises and optimal training based on your goals watch the series of Dr. Andy Galpin at Andrew Huberman.
[1]: Even if you may share meals and time with other people, fundamentally each of the 4 pillars depends on you. You must sleep, drink, eat, and exercise by yourself and for yourself. You may share those activities with other people, but taking care of them for you is all your responsibility.
[2]: For example, it's hard to be in a bad mood after a good sleep, workout, and meal. You will feel more energised, leading to better choices and also more healthy relationships in most cases.
[3]: 8 hours are a reasonable amount. For example, if you go to bed at 10pm, you should wake up at 6am.
[4]: Fruit juices are not beneficial, even when prepared from real fruits without added sugars. The natural sugars in the fruit in liquid form creates a high glucose spike, which in normal situations is not good for your health.
[5]: Sugary drinks and alcohol are not just detrimental, but literally poison for the human body. Avoid them at all cost if you care about your health.
[6]: Too much water creates an imbalance of electrolytes (potassium, magnesium, sodium) leading to over-hydration, which is a potentially deadly condition.
[7]: There is a Japanese concept called 腹八分目 (Hara hachi bun me): "Eat until you are eight parts (out of ten) full". It's a good practice for better physical health and avoid overeating and feeling of stuffiness.
[8]: Cardio are all activities that involve full body movement and generally higher heart rates. Building muscles ranges from weight lifting to body weight exercises, everything that strains muscles for grow.
[9]: Even a 5 minutes session is beneficial for stretching. You can fit 2-3 sessions in between breaks each day.