The only thing that kept me going in the last weeks was a good diet, sleeping well, and interrupting my long hours and weekends with different workouts.
Some people will scream that it’s unhealthy or can be done smarter. Maybe. But I am playing my game. Feel free to play any other you believe in.
Today, I want to compare these three weeks of intense overworking and putting strain on my body to one night when I had five strawberry margaritas.
I don’t drink on a daily basis, but Mira and I challenged each other to see how tipsy we'd get for her 29th birthday in #Dubai.
My WHOOP device, not informed about my drinking, told me that my body took an alarmingly strong hit last night.
- my resting heart rate spiked to 70, a record, which means that my heart was working like I would be walking the whole night (and I am NOT sleepwalking!)
- my heart rate variability plummeted to 36, an all-time low, which shows an impact on the nervous system,
- I had the shortest REM sleep period since I bought my Whoop, which means my mood, memories from that day, and learning are severely affected,
- I had 650 excess kcal on top of my daily needs, mostly from sugar and alcohol. Simplifying, it has put 90g of pure body fat on me from excess energy.
And this is every Friday and/or Saturday for so many people…
The all-time-worst charts made me think. How come people are making work stress a scapegoat for their nervousness or anxiety while at the same time:
- destroy their recovery and stress threshold with alcohol,
- pour on late evening coffees to destroy their sleep quality,
- eat junk processed foods impacting their gut health and immune system, being hungry or sleepy all the time because of the insulin spikes,
- on top of that, they exploit their dopamine system further through nicotine, doom-scrolling short-form videos, and binge-watching shitty shows.
We are living in a society of legalized drug addicts. I support solutions like the one in Dubai or many Muslim countries, where alcohol is only available in restaurants.
Who is really “boring”? Who is "crazy"?
A. People who can't have fun or talk to each other without alcohol, which lowers their stress resilience for many days to come, so they pour in more alcohol.
B. People who drop unhealthy habits and societal pressures and replacing them with inspiring goals and healthy habits that allow them to live more energized.
I’m all about leverage and it seems that the most significant win you can have today is to quit drinking completely.
Do you have any other minor #habits you can recommend to people to start living healthier lives?