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💪🏽 5 Minute Health Hacks
kenji tomita
May 28, 2023
Hey guys! 👋 Hope you're all having a fantastic week. In this week’s newsletter, I wanted to share 9 of the most useful, high-yield health changes that brought the most value to me so far this year.
☀️ Sun in your eyes first thing in the morning. This is quite important to “switch on” your circadian rhythm and optimise your hormone levels for the day. Even sitting by a window or on your balcony can be enough!
🛌 7-8 hours of sleep goes without saying. Whenever I am busy, sleep is the first thing that suffers, which really has a huge impact on my day. I’ve made a huge attempt to make sure a minimum of 7 hours of sleep a night is now sacred and protected time.
☕️ Coffee only 90 mins after you wake up and not after 3pm. Another game changer. Waiting 90 mins in the morning allows your cortisol levels to wake you up naturally, allowing coffee to then have its full effect afterwards. Not having it after 3pm means that coffee’s 6-hour half-life doesn’t disrupt your sleep when you need to start getting sleepy.
🚶🏻♂️Focusing on your step count. This is a great way to objectively look at your activity levels on a daily basis, and there’s a lot of evidence showing how important walking throughout your day is VS sitting down. I normally aim for a minimum of 10K steps a day as a target, and this reminds me to get active whenever I’ve been sat for too long. I personally use an Apple Watch to count my steps, but there are a bunch of smartwatches out there on the market. Simple ways of increasing your step count passively is walking whilst having meetings, walking whilst doing certain tasks, planning a walk during your lunch or parking further away from your place of work.
🚴 Under desk treadmill or work bike. I haven’t quite done this yet, but it’s definitely on my wish list once I move into my permanent dream home one day. I heard how game-changing a work bike was for Chris Williamson on his podcast, and since watching it I’ve been fully convinced that I HAVE to get one.
🏋️ 30 mins of exercise a day. The second thing to be lost whenever I am busy are my workouts and I’ve been trying to change this through changing my mindset on what I consider to be ‘exercise’. Previously, exercising for me was going to the gym and lifting weights for an hour and a half. Since starting work, I’ve realised that somedays you just are too busy to do this, so I now consider anything that moves my body to be a workout - and I am for 30 mins of this a day. If I am going to be on a 12.5 hour shift at work and I know that getting in a full workout will be impossible, i’ll go for a 30 min walk on my lunch break instead or take my dog for a walk when I get back home. Or if I really am stretched for time, I’ll just book a 30 min HIIT class after work, where all I have to do is show up and listen to an instructor for 30 mins. Literally anything that gets your heart rate up and your body moving is now what I consider a good enough workout.
💡 Low light in the evenings. This is just as important as point 1. During the evenings, we should be mimicking a natural sunset, and having bright blue light on all day right until we go to sleep inhibits our melatonin (sleep hormone production). I personally use these cheap Bluetooth lights that I connect to my Google home mini, which automatically lowers the light to a natural orange tone in time with the sunset. I also wear blue light-blocking glasses from around 8pm and this Hue light in places like the bathroom so when 10pm hits, I’m super sleepy and ready to knock out.
📱Keeping my phone away at home. Keeping our phones away, especially in our bedrooms, is crucial for our health and well-being. First, the blue light emitted by smartphones disrupts our sleep patterns, making it harder to fall asleep and achieve quality rest. Second, excessive phone use before bed can lead to increased stress and anxiety, hindering relaxation and preventing restful sleep. Finally, by creating boundaries between our personal space and digital world, we can foster healthier relationships, improve focus and productivity, and promote a healthier work-life balance.
💤 Maintain a regular sleeping pattern. Maintaining a regular sleeping pattern is crucial for overall health. While it may be tempting to sleep in after tiring days, doing so disrupts our natural sleep-wake cycle and can lead to grogginess and difficulty falling asleep later. Even on the weekends, I often try not to go to bed too late or wake up too late either.
So I leave this question with you - is there one thing from this list that you can take away and implement in your daily life to move your health forward? Reply to this email and let me know which you are committing to - I’d love to know!
P.s When I do have time to work out in the gym, here is the workout plan that I follow. You can download it free here!
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Thanks to Magic Mind for sponsoring this week's newsletter! 👍🏼
👍🏾 Things I’ve enjoyed this week
Phone/tablet stand (gadget) - There are so many points during my day where having my phone on a stand is great, like being on a Facetime call or watching a Youtube video whilst doing the dishes. I’ve had this one from UGreen for a year now and I love it so much that I ordered another one this week to keep in my backpack at all times.
Menos backpack (bag) - Being fully transparent, this bag was sent to me for free, but without any expectations of sharing it (I just really like it). It’s lightweight, very minimalistic and best of all opens up like a suitcase which makes it great when traveling. It’s my new go-to travel backpack. I managed to get a little 10% discount for you guys using ‘KENJI10’ at checkout, making it even more affordable!
App limits (iPhone tip) - Tbh I didn’t even know this was a feature on iPhone. Since this week, I’ve applied 10-minute limits to all my social media apps and it’s subconsciously saved me a bunch of time. I’d sometimes just automatically resort to opening up TikTok whenever I’m bored, but app limits now make me think twice and open up other apps like Instapaper. You can use this guide to quickly set this up for yourself.
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📚 Highlight of the week
“Sometimes all you need for exceptional results is average effort repeated for an above-average amount of time.”
“10 years or 1 hour. Those are the two time frames worth prioritizing. 10 years is shorthand for thinking longer-term than nearly everyone else and doing things that are really ambitious or meaningful. Most of the deeply meaningful things in life require long time horizons: building a business, cultivating a happy marriage, growing a family, getting in the best shape of your life, etc. How do you work toward the 10-year things? In 1 hour increments. 1 hour is shorthand for doing things that can be accomplished from start to finish in a single session like a good workout, a good writing session, reading a chapter of a book, going on a fun date, etc. The key is that you finish with something accomplished, not with half-work still waiting to be completed. If you spend 1 hour working toward a 10-year project—and you repeat this day after day—you’re going to end up living a lovely life.”
Don't live somewhere pleasant surrounded by normal people. Live among your fellow freaks, where obsession is normal and ambition is rewarded.
Resurfaced to me by Readwise
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Want to learn more from me? Check these out👇
🩺 (Free) How to Get into Medical School - From Application to Doctor: https://skl.sh/2TwpH0N
👨🏼💻 An Essay Writing Masterclass - The Best Essay Writing Technique: https://courses.kenjitomita.co.uk
🏥 My Online Medicine Interview Course: https://courses.kenjitomita.co.uk
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🛠 My favourite tools 🔨
📚 Listen to my favourite book of all time (or any other) free on Audible
📝 My favourite iPad screen protector: Paperlike