Bringing life into focus
What do morning light, salty water, naps at work and mild hyperventilation have in common? According to neuroscience, they can benefit mental and physical health and may improve energy levels, sleep, and focus. Reporter Catherine Sylvester put the science to the test by adopting a daily routine created by a professor of neurobiology at Stanford University.
I’m standing in my cold bathroom an hour before sunrise, blinking fiercely against the glow of overhead lights. Normally, when my alarm sounds at 5:45am, I have a relaxed scroll through the apps on my phone to ease my transition into the waking world.
The start to this day is anything but gentle. I am standing in this bright room to allow the rays of light into my eyes. It will, according to American neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman, set my circadian clock and improve my sleep.
It’s still dark outside and I’ve just had to haul myself out of bed and go into another room to carry out this task – the first in a list of biohacking protocols Huberman has collated aimed at optimising mental and physical health.
He has titled the guide The Daily Blueprint. I, perhaps naively, have committed to following his suggestions for two weeks.
So here I am. Standing in my bathroom, blinking. Wide awake and a little stunned.
Biohacking for better health
At my age, going through the midlife equivalent of reversed puberty [menopause], with two teenage daughters, a husband who commutes for work, and with a fulltime job, I wanted to see if these protocols would make a notable difference in sleep, focus, productivity, and mood.
Enlisting a male colleague without children at home to join the experiment, I was intrigued to see if our experiences and outcomes would be different due to our contrasting circumstances.
Medical News Today’s website states, “Biohacking involves someone making incremental changes to their body, diet, and lifestyle to improve their health and well-being.”
Huberman is one of many proponents of ways to, as his free blueprint explains, “maximise your daily routine for physical and mental health and performance”. However, he stands out from the usual social media influencer in that he’s a neuroscientist and professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Standford University in the United States.
Having listened to a few The Huberman Lab podcasts, I felt I was in safe hands and was pleasantly surprised the suggestions in his blueprint were relatively simple and appeared light on time commitment. This was super important as my days are full and the thought of long workouts or expensive treatments would have squashed any notion of attempting to biohack my way into better sleep and energy.
Morning light to sleep well at night
According to Huberman’s blueprint, exposure to outdoor light early in the morning “causes a beneficial cortisol peak . . . increases daytime mood, energy and alertness; and helps you fall asleep more easily at night”. He states on his website that the morning spike in cortisol “prepares the body for sleep later that night . . . (and) will also positively influence your immune system, metabolism and ability to focus during the day”. When natural light is not available, he suggests turning on as many indoor lights as possible and getting out into sunlight as soon as you’re able.
I had hoped to interview the man himself for this experiment but the Huberman Lab team said he was not available. Fortunately, he has ample useful information throughout his website and many podcasts to work from.
Next up in my new and improved daily routine – delay caffeine intake by 90-120 minutes. According to Huberman, this helps increase alertness and reduces the chance of an afternoon energy crash.
While this directive may prove horrifying to a large proportion of the population, I’m secretly excited to embrace this one as I’ve never acquired a taste for coffee or regular tea.
However, the victory was shortlived as the next step is hydration with a capital H, achieved by drinking a litre of water with a pinch of sea salt added, as a source of electrolytes.
A litre of water doesn’t sound too bad until you start ingesting that amount of salty fluid into your still half-slumbering body. Over the two weeks, my colleague and I figured out a few tricks to make this palatable and to ensure it doesn’t come straight back up.
Firstly, under no circumstances do you prepare this the night before. It will only result in your early morning hydration tasting like a giant gulp of seawater. Secondly, a pinch is a pinch — not anything resembling a spoonful. Less is more when giving this suggestion a whirl. And stir the heck out of that water to encourage the salt to dissolve. Apparently, it helps absorption when a little sodium is thrown into the mix.
I hope so because it does nothing for the tastebuds. I can report, however, that once that litre was gone I did experience an overwhelming sense of virtuous and sanctimonious good health.
Driving to work, I left my sunglasses off and the window open so that some of the circadian clock-regulating morning sunlight could get in my eyes as it peeped through the clouds.
The Daily Blueprint states the best time to do hard mental work is during the period one to four hours after waking. This would mean that by the time I plant myself in front of my computer screen [that’s been positioned at eye level or above for “increased alertness”] I’ve only a couple of prime working hours left.
This does not bode well for a job that requires mental work and creativity throughout the day, so was I hoping the ensuing daily suggestions would combat any potential mental inertia I may experience after 11am.
A word of caution
My next task on the list gave me good reason to pause when I read the accompanying warning. Alerting me to use caution if prone to panic attacks or high anxiety, it stated the exercise can cause you to . . . blackout. Excuse me?!
Still riding high from my healthy start to the day and determined to follow the plan to the letter, I took to a private room to attempt the exercise — cyclic hyperventilation. Perhaps the name should’ve been a giveaway.
The process involves inhaling deeply through your nose, then immediately exhaling through your mouth. Repeat 20–25 times. Next, exhale until your lungs are empty and hold for 15–30 seconds, repeating the entire process for up to 5 minutes.
I was genuinely surprised at how uncomfortable this made me, physically and emotionally. The first part made me incredibly dizzy and holding emptied lungs made me anxious. I will confess to only doing this part of the daily routine for the first two days, then giving it a pass. My colleague was able to do this with more ease but I was happy to forgo this for one of my favourite elements of the routine — the 40-hertz binaural beats.
An outstanding winner of the entire process, this simple but effective tool for focus and concentration was soon adopted by others in the office. A quick search of Youtube and headphones are all that are needed to reap the benefits of this nifty little trick.
Psychology Today describes binaural beats like this: “When two tones of slightly different frequencies are played in separate ears simultaneously (usually through headphones), the human brain perceives the creation of a new, third tone, whose frequency is equivalent to the difference between the two tones being played”. What a 40-hertz binaural beat sounds like on the surface is a low drone or hum. Turned down relatively low, we found our ability to focus on writing within a busy newsroom increased.
Phase 2 of the blueprint covers the 5–13 hours from midday, and Huberman’s first directive is exercise to boost optimum energy levels. Straight after lunch (lowcarb to avoid an afternoon slump), I took a short walk.
Splitting the difference of the suggested 5–30 minutes, I whipped around the block in 15 minutes, wondering if my metabolism had been increased as noted in the plan and if I was further “calibrat(ing my) circadian rhythm with light exposure.” Immediately invigorated, I knew for certain that without being directed to, I would’ve opted to sit and do a crossword instead. I kept reminding myself as I puffed up the hill that the short-term pain would reap long-term gain — a decent night’s sleep, which is gold for me nowadays.
A nap at work?
Words can’t describe the joy I felt when reading the next stage of my afternoon — “rest and recharge with naps or non-sleep deep rest (NSDR)”. I’m a committed and practised napper, but no matter how great my manager is, I figured a quick kip at work wasn’t going to fly, so dug further to learn more about the alternative — NSDR.
On his website, Huberman writes: “Non-sleep deep rest, or NSDR, is an umbrella term for a variety of practices that guide your brain and body into a state of deep relaxation without falling asleep completely.”he explains that even 10 minutes of NSDR can positively impact energy levels, cognitive performance, sleep, and mental health.
Feeling a little guilty at first for taking time out from work to do, what felt like, absolutely nothing, I quickly reassured myself it was all in the name of research and silently wished a day spa had been included in the routine for similar purposes. But back to reality and a gentle 10 minutes listening to Huberman’s deep tones talk me through what proved to be a very beneficial exercise. Opening my eyes on completion I felt centred, focused, and the closest to what I imagine zen is than I’ve felt in a long while.
The homestretch
A dinner high in carbohydrates (to encourage relaxation and sleep) and some exposure to outdoor light around sunset (to reduce any negative effects of light exposure later in the evening), and I was ready for Phase 3 — bedtime and sleeping.
Most of us are aware dimming overhead lights and screens after sunset is beneficial to sleep, but by cooling your bedroom to 1–3C lower than usual and making it as dark as possible through blackout blinds or an eye mask, you’ll be optimising your sleep even further.
Huberman also recommends waking up at the same time (plus or minus an hour) each day — including weekends. Sleeping in can disrupt circadian rhythms. My internal body clock woke me as such all but one of the weekend days — but I gladly took that sleepin without any remorse.
My mother always said when you have kids, you never sleep as deeply again, which I’ve found to be true. Learning about using NSDR to promote relaxation and sleepiness if you wake in the night seems like a sanity-saving strategy to me. And if you find falling asleep tricky, physiological sighing can be helpful. After inhaling deeply, take one more ‘top off’ inhale to fully inflate the lungs. Release air with one big exhale so lungs are empty, and repeat a few times.
Be kind to yourself
Each of these practices only took 15 minutes at most. All were free and didn’t require special equipment or preparation. Did I do all of them every day? No, I did not. Occasionally time got away from me, or I forgot to do something – particularly on the weekends when out of routine. Did I feel guilty about that? Absolutely not. Everything apart from the cyclic hyperventilation felt so gentle and nurturing that beating myself up felt antithetical to the whole experiment.
Since wrapping up the twoweek trial I’ve maintained parts of the routine — salty water and light in the morning, the NSDR when feeling anxious or rushed, a walk after lunch, and the nighttime protocol of a dark and cool bedroom. I have 40-hertz binaural beats droning away in my ears as I write this, and as of 11am this morning, no caffeine has passed my lips.
Overall, I did notice an improvement in focus and sleep by incorporating Huberman’s suggestions into my routine, which may or may not have been a placebo effect. Either way, I’ll take the win.