Peter Attia is an expert on the science of longevity (how to live a long healthy life). His practice deals extensively with nutrition, exercise, sleep physiology, emotional and mental health, and pharmacology to increase lifespan (how long you live), while simultaneously improving health span (the quality of your life).
What can you do to improve your lifespan and overall health? 🔑
Sure, many things are outside of our control when it comes to illnesses and disease, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t effective measures we can take to improve our likelihood of a longer and stronger life.
Aim to optimize exercise, nutrition, and sleep
Those three levers have the most impact on your overall health. If you are taking care of these areas properly, your chances at increasing your longevity potential are significantly higher than someone who is complacent.
“It’s hard to say that somebody who’s achieving 80% of their potential on each of those three isn’t also achieving 80% of their longevity potential.”
Optimize Exercise 💪
Peter highlights 4 main pillars when thinking about exercise: joint stability, strength, aerobic efficiency, anaerobic performance. Each of these serve to improve different areas in your body.
“I think exercise is the single most important longevity drug we have, bar none.”
Joint stability 🏋️♀️
The foundation upon which everything is done. Proper stability allows you to transmit force from your body to the outside world safely. Poor stability creates imbalances and over compensations which can lead to injury.
Peter is especially a fan of a method called DNS (Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization). You can explore some of their methods here. You can also do things like pilates, or incorporate some of the movements in your regular training session warm ups.Strength 💪
Strength training basically just means lifting weights in different planes of motion. This can also include bodyweight exercises depending on the movement and your strength levels.When you think of strength training think of pushing movements (eg. push ups, bench press, overhead press), pulling movements (dumbbell/barbell rows, pull ups), single and double leg (squats and lunges), hinging (deadlifts, hip bridges, kettlebell swings), and core strength (planks, farmer/rack carries).
A sample structure for a movement could look like:
5 sets x 5 repetitions building a semi-heavy weight
or
4 sets x 10 repetitions at a moderate weightor
3 sets of 20 repetitions at a lighter weightAerobic efficiency (Zone 2) 🏃♀️
Not the Jane Fonda type of aerobics! This refers to Zone 2 training; cardio training while keeping your heart-rate at a consistently low level. Think of this as going for a jog or riding a bike while maintaining the ability to hold a conversation (ie. the pace feels easy enough that you can go on for a long time).
Without getting too scientific, there’s something in our cells called the mitochondria, also known as the powerhouse of the cell. One of the hallmarks of ageing is mitochondrial deterioration, so what Zone 2 training does is enhance its function and delay the process of its decline.
Aim for 3 sessions of 30 minute Zone 2 training per week. This can be a light jog or a slow-pace cycling or rowing session.
Anaerobic performance (Zone 5) 🚴
This is the run up the stairs with your groceries, or the sprint to take a kid to the bathroom while carrying them. A short burst of effort that takes your heart rate to a near maximal state. Out of the 4 this probably comes in last in terms of priority, but neglecting it completely would be wrong and you’d have to pay the price.
What Peter does for this one is spend 20-30 minutes once a week doing intervals of:
3 minutes at zone 2 (ie. comfortable pace), then 1 minute of full effort.
Optimize Nutrition 🥗
I think this video explains things very nicely and might change the way you view diets and diet fads.
Most of what the average person eats on a day-to-day basis is referred to as the Standard American Diet (SAD). The result of the food industry optimizing for cheap, tasty, scalable for mass production, portable for the consumer to eat. This had led to the production of very low quality food and a lot health issues and obese people.
There are 2 methods proposed to move away from the SAD.
Time restricted feeding ⏰
Some form of fasting, this can be fasting for 16 hours/ feeding for 8. Fasting for 20/ feeding for 4, etc. Limiting the window of your eating can improve the health of your mitochondria, pancreas, reduce inflammation and increase stem cell production. This can even go as far as a few days fasting of only consuming water.
Be sure to differentiate between fasting for fat loss, and fasting as a means to improve health and longevity. Fasting on its own won’t magically make you lose weight if in that window you are pretty much eating everything in front of you. In order to lose weight you need to be consuming less calories than you are burning.Dietary restriction 🍞
Removing a certain food type/group from your diet can restrict the foods you eat and make you more mindful of your overall selections. This can be sugar, dairy, carbs, fats, etc. I would be sure not to restrict protein though, that is key for muscle maintenance and building.
It’s always good to experiment with different methods and see how your body responds. With fasting specifically, I would build up the capability by starting with shorter hours before braving the longer 48-72 hour fasts. Also, make sure to slowly introduce food after a longer fast to avoid any an upset stomach.
Optimize Sleep 😴
Good quality sleep is restorative sleep. This is where you give your body the chance to recover and get back to optimal state. Poor sleep means your body is not primed for next day’s demands and can leave you cranky, build up your stress levels, and increase your appetite. If this becomes chronic, so do its side effects.
Some of the measures Peter takes to optmize his sleep are:
Limit exposure to bright lights after sunset
Limit screen usage 1-2 hours before bed
Sleep in a completely dark room
Cool room temperature (around 18 degrees Celsius)
Keep the times you go to bed and get up consistent
Now it might feel like a lot of things to do, but let me remind you of a couple of things:
This is not an all or nothing deal. Choose one area and build from there. Last week’s post was all about how to build good habits.
Don’t wait until the prescription comes in a pill format. The above is the prescription to prevent outside interventions as much as possible.
It’s not just about you. Aim to be as fit and healthy as you can be in your 70’s or 80’s so that you can be independent, able to enjoy life, and not be a burden on anyone.
That’s all for this week! Hope you guys enjoy and benefit from this. Any and all feedback on the topics or writing are always welcome and appreciated 😃
Very interesting and useful points. I think I will start following some of the advices immediately. Thank you Haya
Haya, you're a star. Very interesting & exceedingly informative.