10 good habits for better results

When I ask people what their biggest challenges are, I usually get
the following answers:

- "I struggle with varying levels of energy throughout the day.

- "I often feel stressed about not getting time to do everything I
should do or want to do in a given day.
- "I do not know how much or what to eat.
- "I'm suffering from sleep deprivation or poor sleep quality

In order to offer the best solutions to these very common issues, Im

currently writing a book with the working title: The Biorhythmic
Lifestyle.

Here is a short but informative teaser of what you will learn from this
book.

What, exactly, is the biorhythm?

Almost all life on earth has evolved to be in harmony with the daily
rhythm of light and dark cycles. Most organisms, including humans,
have their metabolic, physiological and behavioral processes
synchronized to a 24-hour clock. Through these signals that tell us
when it is day and night, our body orchestrates a symphony of
hormonal, emotional and behavioral reactions. This is your
biorythm, or what is often called the circadian rhythm.

Why is this important?

A large and rapidly expanding research effort has discovered that
the biorhythm is important not only for when we are going to sleep
or be awake, but also for our health, energy levels, body
composition, and stress tolerance. This new research has also
discovered that almost everybody living in the modern world lives
with a chronically disrupted biorhythm, also known as "social jet
lag".
The consequences of a disturbed biorythm are considered to be
extensive and severe:
Depression, despair, guilt, anxiety, apathy
Lack of empathy can lead to family and social problems
Behavioral problems - where ADHD is common in children
Sleep problems - you sleep less or sleep a lot, but never feel
refreshed
Overeating - disorders of appetite regulation and metabolism,
increased cravings for unhealthy food. This is particularly familiar to
those of you who suffer from sleep deprivation.
Immune system - Increased susceptibility to infections and
autoimmune conditions (when the immune system attacks the
body's own cells).
Exhaustion - Lack of physical vitality and energy, worst case ME
and chronic fatigue syndrome
Cancer - Biorhythmias can increase the rate of growth of
malignant tumors by 200-300%
Inflammation, obesity and obesity through metabolic disorders,
which in turn may cause disturbed cholesterol metabolism,
cardiovascular disease
Also, reduced metabolism, higher cortisol production and lower
anabolic hormone production (estrogen and testosterone), lower
carb tolerance, poorer exercise yield and recovery, impaired mental
and physical performance, are seen.

Does this sound scary to you? It certainly is, but not everyone is
affected by all of these symptoms, or right away. We usually tolerate
short-term disturbances, depending on how healthy and strong we
are - but with a chronic biorhythmic disorder, there is a strong
likelihood that you may experience one or more of these adverse
effects over months and years.
My 5 recommended lifestyle habits
Stress can affect not only your health, energy levels, sense of
happiness and self-esteem, but also your body composition and
recovery in a more profound way than you are aware of. When you
live a very stressful life, you die sooner - let's start with that. You
know this intuitively, but probably underestimate the effect of
allowing yourself to live a hectic lifestyle threatening to spin out of
control.

As with most things in the body, the rule is that too much or too little
is negative, while just enough is a positive. Stress is part of a
natural state called sympathetic dominance or "fight-or-flight". Short-
term high stress followed by a longer period of low stress is healthy.
Prolonged high stress with only short periods of low stress is
harmful.

By creating a more defined threshold for stress, that you can

consciously play around with through different strategies, you can
over time raise that threshold and tolerate more stress. Evolution
has enabled us to stay healthy and able to find food, and to
strengthen and pass on our genes in every climate and under
extreme conditions. When modern humans experience chronic
stress because they sit in rush hour traffic for hours every day to get
to work, where they suffer even more under great expectations and
deadlines, it is no wonder that our immune system and physiology
collapse eventually.

The most obvious thing to deal with is how you organize your
lifestyle.

1: Regularity and consistency

The most important thing is to incorporate rhythms into your daily
routines. As long as your lifestyle is consistent, your biorytm will
sync better and better every day.
Try to get up and go to bed at the same time every day, even during
weekends. A deviation of +/- 1-2 hours is the maximum, so if you
get up at 7:00AM and go to bed at 10:00PM on weekdays, you
should get up by no later than 9:00AM and go to bed no later than
midnight during weekends.

Have your meals at about the same time every day, within a +/- 1
hour deviation from the usual, so if you usually eat lunch at noon,
you should be consistent with this schedule and eat some time
between 11:00AM and 1:00PM.

2: Focus on one thing at a time, as even the superhumans who

think they can multitask just fine, are far from able to when
measured under controlled conditions. Block specific times of the
day into your schedule where you respond to mail, and categorize
them according to their importance. You should try to answer all of
your emails right away, but for most of us there will be emails that
should be put into this can wait queue including those emails
where you need to verify with others before answering. You will
always have emails more or less irrelevant to your main tasks and
these should be put in a queue where you read them and take any
necessary action on them whenever you want or need to.

Most email programs have flags or color codes to categorize emails,

for example:
- Reply immediately (Red)
- Follow up later when you have time to verify the information, or
delegate the whole thing to others. (Orange)
- Read only when you have time and the inclination (Yellow)

With a system in place to handle both mail and daily tasks, you will
both prioritize correctly and feel more in control of your own life.
3: Separate the day into high- and low-stress phases
Instead of dragging yourself out of bed after pushing the snooze
button way too many times, and starting the day by thinking about
all the stressful action items in your calendar, set up a good morning
ritual or routine. This is a good time to enforce conscious stress
contrast methods to raise your tolerance threshold.

My own morning routine consists of:

1. 10-15 minutes of a relaxing breathing exercise, including
cycles of breath holding. The oxygen deprivation (hypoxia) has
numerous benefits for both brain health and immune system.
2. 5-10 minutes of brief meditation, where I first empty my head
(you will get better with repeated practice) and then asserting
a positive theme for the day by reflecting on at least 3 things I
am grateful for.
3. 2-3 minutes hot shower followed by 2-3mins of an ice cold
shower. This will activate the autonomic nervous system and
train the muscles your capillaries to contract (fight-or-flight).
With the right mental attitude and focus, ice cold showers will
become some of the most refreshing thing you can do, and the
benefits are immense. You will discover measurable positive
effects both on your internal "stress thermostat" and the health
of your cardiovascular system. My resting heart rate dropped
significantly after only a few days of cold showers in the
morning.

The daytime is for activity, and you need both fresh air and daylight
to function optimally. Even if you have an office job, you can
counteract the negative effects of being sedentary by standing up
and stretching every half hour, and taking a 3-5-minute walk every
hour - preferably outdoors. I know it might seem strange to walk
around the building every hour, but if your colleagues are standingo
utside having a cigarette every hour, I dont think they should even
open their big mouths. Dont stand around waiting for it if they do.
Passive smoking is also hazardous to your health.

During the late evening, I'll relax with a short and slow walk to clear
my head, spend some more time meditating, read a good book or
have nice conversations with my spouse where we share thoughts
and topics that are bothering us so we can find good solutions to
them. Some times we just watch a reality show. Hey, were not
perfect either, and sometimes its almost like meditation to just
watch mindless banter on the screen.

So many people spend their lives being passive, and avoiding

directly addressing situations, problems or feelings. Postponing or
ignoring the problems will not make them go away, and resistance
is futile - it will only make the problem bigger than what it would
have been if you had dealt with it like an adult. Look into the
research of Gabor Mat (see some of his presentations on
YouTube), who has shown that people with unresolved issues and
lacking boundaries end up with various diseases, and how resolving
them has been shown to cause almost miraculous and spontanous
cures of even chronic and terminal disease.

Active stress management means that you address or eliminate

situations (solution-oriented) or the resulting emotions that follow
(emotionally focused). I have learned some very effective tools to
handle this in both myself and my clients throughout the years.

4: Avoid artificial lighting in the late evening and night

Light pollution is a modern phenomenon, and perhaps the worst
culprit of a desynchronized biorythm. Think of it this way: Most of us
go to work or school during the day and spend too much time
indoors sitting under artificial light. Then we stay awake long after
the sun goes down every night, with electronic devices that emit
bright light where especially the blue light end of the spectrum
causes problems.

The blue light is the wavelength of the light spectrum that gives
signals to our brain that it is still daytime. Our day length is now
ruled by artificial light sources and completely separated from the
sun. Let's say that on a regular day the sun can be up for 12 hours,
but because you stay awake for 4 hours after sunset watching
television, your phone, tablet or computer - with blue light that
shines into your eyes and affects your daylight regulator in the brain
- your day length is now 16 hours.

Our central timer negatively affected by this light pollution controls

the genes of our metabolism (how we well burn the food we eat for
energy), DNA (how well we are protected from toxic chemicals and
radiation), as well as the regulation of the cell cycle and hormone
production (determines how well our cells and tissues are repaired
and improved). Light in the evening and at night interfere with all
these cricital biological processes.

The solution is to use more candles, fireplaces and wood burning

stoves, dampen the artificial lighting or use warm white LED lights,
use the night function that many electronic devices have today (they
dim the light and adjusts it to an orange/red tint), or use various
apps for this purpose (F.lux, Redshift, Twilight).

5: Prioritize sleep
Sleep deprivation or poor sleep quality may be an even greater
hazard to your health than poor stress management. Not only
because it makes you more vulnerable to stress, but because it has
a lot of direct negative effects on every system in your body.

Once you have improved your daily routines and organization of

your lifestyle, it is also important that you sleep well.

Ensure the bedroom is pitch black, and use blackout curtains or

blinds if needed. Remove all electronics, and if you absolutely need
to have your mobile on your nightstand - set it in flight mode so
you're not disturbed by it. Research has shown that even a tiny
bright light, even moreso if it is flashing, will disturb your sleep by up
to 60%.

A constant room temperature between 15-19 degrees Celsius (60-

66 degrees Fahrenheit) in the bedroom appears to be optimal for
deep and restful sleep, but this can of course vary individually and is
also regulated by how warm the cover or duvet you use. I advise
thinner quilts that guide the heat away from the body rather than
warm quilts that make you sweat and shift restlessly around during
the night. If it gets very hot in your bedroom in the summer, invest in
fans or air conditioning. The sound from these devices is called
"pink noise" and can drown out other and more annoying sounds,
and actually induce a relaxing and sleep-inducing state.

If you live in noisy environments you should also use ear plugs.

When you lay your head on the pillow, you should be sleeping and
not spend hours reading (unless it is a very boring book...YMMV) or
frantic brainstorming to solve all of your problems. Feel free to keep
a notepad on the nightstand that you can write out your thoughts
and get them out of your head. Then tell your brain to return to the
problem the next day when you are awake and able to think clearly.

In the next 5 tips, we will cover your favourite subject: Food.

What is healthy food? Asking 10 different people this question,

you will get 10 different answers. What works for X does not
necessarily work for Y. This is an important understanding. A
healthy lifestyle is not necessarily about doing everything perfectly
all the time. You will never be able to eat perfect, and that's fine.

By incorporating better eating habits, most of the work will already

be done, and with the framework in place of stress, sleep, and
activity that I have covered earlier, the rest can be regarded as
minor details in the grand perspective of things.

Before we get started with your new habits, lets have a look at
some simple food rules.

A basic indicator that the food you eat is good for you, is that you
feel good when you have eaten it. When you feel energetic and in a
more positive mood, your health and body composition will improve
as a positive side effect.
You should strive to meet the following criteria:

- The food should provide plenty of energy and enhance your

mood
- The food should sustain and keep you full for several hours at
a time
- Your digestion and gut health should improve on the foods you
eat
- Last but not least: Eat food you like!

An important caveat on the latter point, though: the food you eat
often you will also tend to entrain your tastes to. If your diet is based
on protein bars (essentially a glorified chocolate bar) and high
energy density meals with a lot of flavor (salt, fat, sugar) but low on
micronutrients, you first need to reset your taste buds with natural
foods you prepare yourself, and not by a food industry manipulated
and designed so you want to overeat and buy more of it.

My 5 recommended food habits

1: Start every day with a proper breakfast
Many people have the idea that total calorie intake in a given day
will be decreasted by dropping breakfast, which in turn will lead to a
lower bodyfat percentage. For some, this may be the case, but most
of the time, breakfast skippers will be more hungry and compensate
and SUPERcompensate for the calorie deficit.

Extreme hunger and cravings in the late afternoon and evening is

usually caused by undereating earlier in the day. Whether or not
you are a regular breakfast eater, I advise that you enforce a rule of
having proper nutrition to start off the day. Not that you need to
inhale eggs and toast the minute your feet hit the floor as you get
out of bed, but within one to two hours at the most. Eat to
comfortable fullness or until youre not hungry anymore. You
should notice that overall hunger will be greatly reduced and you
may end up spontaneously reducing your hunger and cravings later
in the day.
2: Three main meals + 1 snack
I recommend three main meals for most people, one of the most
common meal patterns since the dawn of time. We dont really know
at what times during the day Paleo man ate, but I think you should
consider the fact that unless you have to spend most of your day
gathering and hunting your food, and spend most of your life
exposed to both extreme heat, cold and cycles of starving and
feasting, you have no guarantees that eating like your ancestors will
make you ripped and muscular.

So: Breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack somewhere in between

whenever you need some extra energy.

If youre not satisfied after dinner because you underate lduring the
day, this snack can be an evening dessert. If you have a hard
workout, this snack should probably before or after exercise.

A good indicator that you have eaten enough at any one meal is
that it should keep you satiated for a good 3-4 hours until you start
to feel hungry again.

3: Get sustainable energy from foods you need to chew

Make sure you get your daily energy needs mainly from food, not
liquids. Food with chewing resistance provides a much higher sense
of satiety than fluid calories.

To give you an example: 1 glass of orange juice contain as many

calories as about 2 oranges. Which one do you think will be the
most filling? Research also shows that the brain doesnt register the
nutrients from fluids the same way it does for foods that you chew,
so if you dont track your calories, there is a high probability you will
end up getting excessive calories from your daily consumption of
soda, juice, shakes etc. Only milk seems to be able to provide a
proper nutrient sensing signal in the brain, bu teven provided you
can tolerate it, I would advise against consuming large amounts of
it.
4: Mindful eating
Being Mindful means that you take your time to really experience
the full sensation of flavour, texture and smell of food. Take one bite
at a time and get rid of distractions like TV, radio, phones, pc/mac,
tablets and so on. You will be pleasantly surprised by how much
more satisfaction and satiety you can experience from a smaller
amount of food.

This habit applies not only for eating your regular meals, but even
more so when you want to indulge in eating cake, ice cream,
chocolate or candy. I have had clients with former habits of bingeing
on a pound of candy on TV-night, to now be able to savour and feel
satisfied by a few pieces just from more mindful eating an a
complete and fully involved taste and sensory experience. How
much pleasure do you really get just inhaling the calories while your
head is occupied by thinking and feeling about how stressed
out/unhappy/worried/frustrated you are?

5: The last bite of food by 8:00PM

Eating big, calories-dense and slow digesting meals close to
bedtime, or eating late at night is a habit you should get rid of
immediately!

My recommendation is to eat the final meal at least 2-3 hours before

bedtime, and I have personally experienced a host of benefits from
having my final meal no later than 6:00PM. Recent studies are
revealing that meal timing of the final meal is one of the most
important regulators of your biorhythm. Not only is digestion
downregulated, but carbohydrate tolerance is reduced and the body
switches over to fat storage during the evening and night.

You would obviously need to have some nutrients if your schedule

demands late workouts, but in that case you should focus on
covering your expended calories from carbs, supply sufficient
protein for your recovery needs and to cover the nightly fast (you
can actually double up on your normal protein amounts for the final
meal), but go easy on the fat and fiber.
The added benefit from having carbohydrates in this meal is that it
will be sleep-inducing, and playing around with the amount of timing
can actually enable you to wake earlier in the next morning without
an alarm clock (provided you go to sleep at a proper time, of
course)!

It may require 1-2 weeks to get used to this new eating pattern, and
you will also notice that you are more hungry in the morning now
that your final meal is earlier and lighter. If you do get hungry, have
a simple snack of protein (yoghurt, cottage cheese, quark, a high
quality protein powder, or some lean meat or fish) with some easily
digestible starches. Im not saying your circadian clock will explode
out of your brainstem if you have a midnight meal once in a while,
Im simply recommending that you implement better lifestyle habits,
so focus on the bigger picture here, ok?

Did you find this information interesting, and do you want to know
more? In my newsletter, you will get interesting tips and articles
from me, and I will also keep you updated on when the book is
ready. Im getting close to finishing the draft, but from experience I
know that it can take some time to edit, assemble everything into a
nicely flowing and easily digestible read (pun intended) and
translate it into English. I want to do it properly, so please accept my
apologies for not wanting to provide an official publication date.

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Best Regards,

Borge A. Fagerli
www.borgefagerli.com