4 Health Hacks Behind High Performers

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance App. Right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com. Post a job for free and get started today. Come to DSW for the shoes. Stay for the fun. Because let's be honest, if shoe shopping isn't fun, are you even doing it right? So go ahead. Try something new. Try something different. Good different. Try something that feels like you. You know, the real you. And then definitely brag about it later. because at DSW, you've got unlimited freedom to play. With sneakers, boots, and everything in between for every style, mood, and occasion, you'll definitely find shoes that get you at prices that get your budget.

1:10DSW, let us surprise you.

1:15This episode is brought to you by Opera Air, the first browser with mindfulness at its core. Now, most of us spend hours every day online, but how often do we pause to take care of ourselves whilst we're doing it? And that's where Opera Air comes in. It's a lightweight, fast, secure browser built not just for productivity, but for your well-being. With Opera Air, mindfulness is built right in. You'll find free breathing exercises, guided meditations, and soundscapes with ambient sounds, lo-fi music, and binaural beats, all designed to help you focus, relax, and even spark creativity while you browse.

1:51Hi there, welcome along to High Performance. It's Jake Humphrey and Damien Hughes here once again to share some of the things that we've learned from over 300 episodes of High Performance. And today we're going to give you the four health hacks that have made a huge difference for us. And I think we should dive straight into it. We had an amazing conversation with Dr. Peter Atiyah about longevity. And this is something that really stood out for both of us. Have a listen. A male who is between the ages of 40 and 50 should be able to dead hang. So just hang on to a bar and hold themselves for two minutes.

2:27A female should be 90 seconds. Why? That's a great marker of grip strength. Why is that important? Because it's a great indication of upper body strength and it correlates very well with the ability to connect the hands through the elbows into the shoulder and the scapula. You see, everything we do in life, every force we transmit to the outside world and we transmit back to ourselves really comes through our hands and feet. So a lot of this stuff has to do with how well you use your hands and feet. So that's Dr. Peter Attia. You can listen to the full episode by checking out his episode on high performance.

3:07I think the two things for me, right, it's a simple thing to do. People, most people can access a bar somewhere, whether it's on a kid's play area or you go and buy one of those things that you sort of jam across your bedroom door and you hang from. right so it's it's achievable and doable and the science says that it matters as as peter shared with us so it's not like like hocus pocus nonsense like oh if you hang you'll live a long time it's a good indicator of your overall health i think the other thing that i thought was important about that and the way it's changed the way i think about my health and why i think it's a really important health hack is for too long i thought about if i do this i'll feel good today if i do this then the next week might be good if i do this then i'll be slightly stronger tomorrow and actually what peter is saying there is think about being a centurion so he's created the centurion decathlon the 10 things he wants to do when he gets to 100 and being able to hang for the amount of time he mentioned is a good indicator of whether you will get there all of us should be looking with that long lens into the future the things that we're doing today you know if you eat badly and you don't exercise and you you don't have great self-talk and you don't work on relationships with people the truth is that tomorrow is probably still going to be okay yeah next week is likely to be okay next month maybe even next year but i guarantee you in 10 or 15 years time the lack of relationship the lack of positive messaging you're giving yourself the lack of exercise the lack of eating well then is a problem and i think we need to look longer term because i think too much of this stuff is well i'm all right tomorrow so i'll be okay yeah there's some really interesting research on this jake that was done at florida university where there's a real concern in the states about people not saving enough for their retirement and it's this very idea about not being able to think long term enough and what they found is that when they put people in brain scanners and ask them to think about themselves a certain part of their brain let's up when they then ask them to think about say a famous person like taylor swift or bruce springsteen a different part of their brain lit up when they then asked the person to think about themselves in 15 years time the part of the brain lit up was the part of the brain associated with where they thought about taylor swift or bruce springsteen and what they found was that it's almost like your brain sees you in 10 years time as a completely different person it doesn't see you as the you that it might imagine tomorrow or next week so one of the ways that they did this of trying to change people's behavior and get them to see that no this is you in 10 years time and you need to start investing in it was they either chunk it down into days and said you're not going to retire in 30 years time you're going to retire in 30 000 days and just even changing the language from years to days made it feel more immediate another way was they had people look in a mirror and then they took their picture and aged them so showed them a picture of what they'd look like in 15 years' time if they maintained what they were doing.

6:01And again, you saw an uptick of people then being able to change the way they saw themselves as a centennial. Good stuff. And do it. So I think what Peter is explaining there, and even that simple health hack, is about seeing yourself hanging when you're 90 years of age, 100 years of age, hopefully, and thinking about the benefits that that'll give you of being able to run around with your grandkids or great-grandchildren or just being able to walk up a hill without getting out a puff. All this stuff is about changing our mindset, which changes our response to doing something immediately, which means that both today and tomorrow are better and healthier and happier.

6:43Brilliant. Right, let's have another clip. You mentioned Peter Atiyah there talking about doing something that's really quite easy to demonstrate. And our next guest, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, who's been a GP for nearly 25 years, as well as a successful podcaster. and a brilliant best-selling author. Spoke to us about a really simple idea that he does. Let's listen to the way he explains it. So I get up in the morning and I do roughly about half an hour now of a morning routine. It's got three Ms. Mindfulness, Movement, Mindset. Mindfulness, what does that look like for me? Either some meditation or some breath work.

7:20Right, I've got various things that I do, but I start off the day, I don't get, literally in my pajamas, come downstairs, do a bit of meditational breath work. Then what do I do? I make myself coffee. So I've got a routine, right? I make coffee, I weigh out 15 grams. I'm pretty particular with it. Pour in the water and then it brews for five minutes. In those five minutes, I don't go on Instagram. I don't go on my emails. I do a five minute workout in my kitchen, right? So I'm in my pajamas. I make it easy to do. If you make things hard, you don't do them. So I make it easy. I've got a kettle by there.

7:53I've got a dumbbell. I'll do a five minute workout. And then I get the beautiful reward of a hot cup of coffee that I've made just the way I like it. And then I'll do something for my mindset. So I've got some books kicking around in my living room. I'll just pick one up. I might read a few pages, a few chapters. If my daughter gets up early and sometimes she knows that daddy's doing him and will come in just when I'm on that final M, instead of reading, if my daughter's there, we'll do affirmations together. So we just sit there, hold hands and we say, I'm happy. I'm calm. I'm stress-free. I'm happy.

8:29I'm calm. I'm stress-free. And we say these affirmations for about a minute. And then, you know, I feel like a million dollars at the end. She's got a big smile on her face. And that's what I try and do every morning. And on the days where I think I'm too busy, I think, you know what? I can't do it today. Got to get onto the email. I've got to do this. I always feel it later. I'm not as productive. I find my focus wandering. I'm a bit more snappy. Dr. Rangan's strategy there. It comes back to habit, doesn't it? Because I think that Dr. Rangan no longer needs his PA to message him and say, don't forget to put your coffee on and do your stretching.

9:05He no longer needs a diary notification to pop up and tell him to do the three Ms, as he mentions. They happen because they've become a habit. And if we can turn these things into habits that the impact is massive yeah but the interesting thing there again anyone that's thinking oh i could do that is look at how he removes friction from his choices so that he's not having to negotiate with himself when he goes down and he puts the coffee on the dumbbells are there next to where it is so the friction's been removed of his ability to pick up those weights and do a little bit of movement is almost on autopilot so that way one good habit follows another so James Clay spoke about habit stacking get the first one right but then create an environment where the next one can follow easily yeah so good um can I move us on to a conversation about alcohol go on you really this really resonated with you yeah it did absolutely we were joined by Ruri Fairburns who's the creator of one year no beer um and he doesn't advocate zero alcohol he advocates alcohol moderation and there's been some research that says not many people don't want to drink anything but an awful lot of people would rather drink a little bit less and I've taken that on board in 2024.

10:15Before I talk about it, let's hear from Ruria. Here he is. We're always looking for something that can move the needle, right? And you try and prioritize what is the needle mover that's going to make it move the most, right? So could it be this? Could it be that? Could it be these? It's alcohol. It is alcohol. Why not say, you know what, I'm going to not drink for a month. It would be easy. Everybody does it every year, right? I'm not going to drink for three months. And I'm going to look at my data. I'm going to look at my sleep. I'm going to look at my fitness. I'm going to look at how I feel.

10:49Maybe I'll track my mood. I'm going to look at my productivity. I'm going to look at the things that I'm trying to achieve in the world. And I absolutely guarantee with every fiber of my being that they'll be up. So do you know what? I remember him saying to me, he said, what would you give us a mark for last year? And then when you stop drinking alcohol, you'll see what the true mark is of last year. so when we sat down and spoke I gave 2023 like an 8 or 9 out of 10 having not drunk much in 2024 I've had the odd drink now and then I would give it a 3 last year because? just because the clarity of thought the ability to not have lost days or lost hours or lost mornings is so different it wasn't a difficult thing for me because I was never a really big drinker but I think in some ways that almost meant that I kind of allowed myself to have those days where I had like three or four glasses of wine or maybe four or five beers if some friends came over and I love as you know I love statistics and information so I wear a whoop I have an eight sleep I use a peloton in the gym and one of the things you can do with a peloton or what bike or a hydro they all have a similar thing you can compare your previous efforts to the latest one and I started to see that every time I'd had even just one or two glasses of wine, I couldn't do in the gym what I could do previously.

12:15Wow. But more than that, the WHOOP was suddenly showing, it measures HIV, heart rate variability, the eight sleep does the same. It collapsed, it literally collapsed after a couple of glasses of wine. And so I think that because you're not drunk after that amount of time, you don't have a massive hangover, you think the impact is minimal, but it isn't, like the impact is genuine and it just allows you to feel better for longer. and I think you know what's the title of Rangan Shatterjee's podcast feel better live more I feel better and I'm living more and it's been an absolute game changer for me you know what that's a real eye opener for me because again for context for anyone watching this you're not a boozer you're not somebody that alcohol is a crutch in like social situations or in your life so for you to notice such a difference of going from an 8 to a 3 without me ever assuming that alcohol was necessary in your life is a really by the way it's actually easy to do because anywhere you go now I think there are less people drinking than ever so any bar you go into they do amazing mocktails alcohol free beer is better than it's ever been wine I'm still questioning the one thing I do love is a really good glass of red wine and I think that's fine every now and then but I would just again I wouldn't say to people this is the answer I've done it so you must I'd just say why not experiment go a week If it's easy, go a month.

13:36If it's easy, go six months. See the difference for yourself. Well, let's pick up on that theme there around making better choices because it leads us directly into the conversation we had with our next guest, Dr. Chris Van Tulleken, who's become a best-selling phenomenon with his Ultra Process People book. I'd want them to ask themselves a question and I'd want to offer reassurance, not advice. And the question I'd ask them to pose when they're eating a product is, look at the packet, read the ingredients and ask yourself, was this made by someone who loves you, who cares about your health? Is this food that will bind you to your community?

14:14Or is this a substance made by a transnational corporation with relentless obligations to institutional investors that mainly wants to take your health and turn it into money for those investors? And the answer to that question might guide not what I think you should do about the food, but it might change the way you feel about the food and what you want to do. Because I don't care what you do. This is your problem, not my problem. I want to give you information. So that's the question. And the other thing I really want to say is if, like me, you're someone who struggles with this food, just remember that this has been designed by teams of geniuses, okay?

14:50If you struggle to stop eating it, that's not an accident. That is not you, okay? That is your social and genetic and environmental vulnerabilities vulnerabilities, meeting a multi-billion dollar industry with unlimited budgets. And so if you're struggling, it is not you, it is the food. The brilliant Dr. Chris Van Tulleken there. You know this conversation about ultra-processed food and gut health? So I think having a conversation with him, Dr. Fede Amati, Tim Spector, loads of other people about the power of the gut, I had no idea 80 % of your immune system lives in your gut. So why we used to think about food as is that food that will give me energy for the day?

15:30Is that food that will help build my muscles? Is that food that tastes good? The complete change for me is, is that food that's going to build my immune system? And all you've got to do to eat food that builds your immune system is try and eat as much high fiber mix of stuff as possible. And so now it just totally changes the way that I look at a table of food. If there's a load of different veggies and a load of different pulses and all sorts of stuff, then I know that it's going to be building my immune system because if people come to this show because they want to be more productive, they want to achieve more, find their own version of high performance, health is the one thing that's going to stop us from getting there.

16:08And if 80 % of your immune system is in your gut, then the food that you put in your mouth is, we could probably call it the ultimate health hack, the number one health hack. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Do you remember? and again we can think about how we express this to others as well do you remember dr salia mahmoud ahmed had that lovely phrase that what you serve up to your family is basically a hug on a plane and are you giving your family the love the attention that you want them to have and to feel with what we're serving up to them not the comfort or ultra processed food but the stuff that we know is going to give them health happiness and long and longevity you're absolutely right and i saw something great the other day where someone said that you know we seem to give up the one thing that we have which is time to achieve so much in life and then when we've achieved all those things we forget about the fact that often those achievements remove our health from us and therefore having spent all that time building up that wealth we then spend it all to try and get healthy again and actually the most important thing that we can do is when we have the time now in front of us prioritizing our health rather than prioritizing achievement or income or status symbols.

17:16It has a real incredible long-term health. What was one of your favorite phrases you like to use? Health is what? It was from Robin Sharma. Go on. Health is the crown on the head of the healthy person that only the ill person sees. And I do honestly believe that we're born with it, right? So we don't have to earn it in our health. Most people are born with it. So therefore, we do take it for granted. And actually, it's a very important thing to not take for granted. Thank you, mate. Thanks, mate. I've loved it. Me too. So there you go. Four health hacks from High Performance that have hit home with us, resonated with us, and maybe they'll do exactly the same for you.

17:52Keep on coming back to more High Performance episodes. There's so much great value, not just about physical health, but about mental health, about high achievement. Some of our conversations are like people just telling you how to go and achieve incredible things. Others are actually just about how you can be a happier person. And I think if we can all be happy, then the world can be a happier place. So thanks for being with us. and we'll see you again soon for more from High Performance.

18:42website, then, well, you. Wix's website builder puts it all in your hands. Create a beautiful website just by talking with AI or choosing from thousands of templates. Customize every detail with simple drag and drop tools and get everything you need to start running business your way. Build more, think bigger, and do it all yourself on Wix. This episode is brought to you by Almond joy with its perfect blend of real creamy coconut rich chocolatey taste and a satisfying almond crunch almond joy is the taste that simply takes you away blissful tropical flavors will have you feeling sunny vibes and ocean breezes in every bite almond joy is the ticket to a sweet indulgent laid-back escape one you'll want to return to again and again grab the creamy coconut and chocolatey crunch of almond joy today and taste paradise.

19:36At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care about your success, like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve. You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program. Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals. A different future is close Thank you.