#117 | Dr. Casey Means' 25 Healthy Habits: Part 2 - Movements, Sleep, and Mental Health
A collection of the best hidden gems, mental models, and frameworks from the world’s top thinkers; to help you become 1% better and live a happier life ❤️
Hello curious minds 🧠
In Good Energy, Dr. Casey Means shares 25 habits that can guide us from understanding the theory to actionable steps in living a healthier lifestyle. These habits are grouped into 9 categories:
Movement
Sleep
Stress, Relationships, and Emotional Health
Meal Timing and Habits
Light
Temperature
Ingested Toxins
Environmental Toxins
I shared 8 nutrition habits last week. Today, I will share 8 more surrounding movements, sleep, and mental health.
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🍖😴❤️🩹 8 Habits on Movement, Sleep, and Mental Health
If you’re looking to stick to the habits below, a great place to start is by getting yourself a fitness wearable.
These wearables are full of features that let you track all kinds of health and fitness data, so you can easily see your progress and know if you are hitting your goals.
Movement
Do moderate-intensity movement at least 150 minutes per week
Calculate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220, and then determine what 64 percent of that number is, which is the floor for moderate-intensity movement.
For me, that would be 220 – 29 = 191 x 0.64 = 123 bpm. For me, this means I need to get my heart rate above 123 bpm for 150 minutes a week at a minimum.
Trying out different activities with your fitness tracker will help you learn what “moderate” activity feels like for you.Do resistance training three times per week for at least 30 minutes per session
Commit to resistance training twice per week or more for at least thirty minutes each session. This can be done with body-weight exercises, with resistance bands, or with weights.
Take 10,000 steps per day
Commit to getting 10,000 steps a day, which you can verified using a fitness tracker.
Move at least 90 seconds every hour for 8 waking hours per day
Especially for knowledge workers, commit to getting up and moving around for at least ninety seconds every hour for eight waking hours per day.
Sleep
Get seven to eight hours of sleep per night, confirmed by a sleep tracker
With most fitness tracker, they can track your sleep quality and stages. Aim to get 7 - 8 hours of total sleep every night. If you want to be even more specific, there are many resources online that tells you how much deep sleep, light sleep etc that you should focus on but a good starting point is to just get the total sleep hours in.
Get consistent sleep, with regular bedtimes and wake times
I am terrible at this but the book recommend consistent bedtime and wake time. Stick to one-hour bedtime and wake time window to minimise social jet lag.
For me, this could be a bedtime between 10 - 11pm and a wake time between 5 - 6am.
Mental Health
Personally, I don’t meditate. I have tried, though probably not enough. I prefer visualisation and self-talk over meditation. I have heard great things from others but I haven’t practice meditation enough to see the benefits myself.
Meditate daily
Practice meditation. There are many guided meditation apps out there. Many people seem to recommend Headspace. I don’t have much experience with this. Do it for a minimum of ten minutes per day.
Do self-exploration and/or sign up to therapy
Read at least two books around the topic of mental health. Here, I always recommend How to do the work by Dr. Nicole LePera.
Even better, if you can afford it, sign up for some therapy sessions and connect with therapists to explore your inner state.
I am always curious about what others are passionate about and what they are currently working on. Hit reply and share what’s been keeping you busy these days. I would love to learn!
With love,
Ryan O. 🎮
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