Own the Day, Own Your Life: Optimized Practices for Waking, Working, Learning, Eating, Training, Playing, Sleeping, and Sex

by Aubrey Marcus

To live one day well is the same as to live ten thousand days well. To master twenty-four hours is to master your life.

You want to take control of your day from the word go. So hydrate immediately (not with coffee!), then seek light and get moving to reset your internal clock. That’s three simple things to do within twenty minutes of waking—and your day will be primed for perfection.

Morning Mineral Cocktail 12 ounces filtered water 3 grams sea salt 1/4 lemon, squeezed

The real problem is when the body can’t distinguish between physical threats and psychosocial threats—threats to our job security, or bank account, or social status. These threats often have no concrete conclusion, and so the stress hormones that were built for brief bursts to ward off acute stress go buck wild in your brain box, and chronic stress develops. Leading neuroscientist and stress specialist Robert Sapolsky summed it up for the Stanford News: “If you plan to get stressed like a normal mammal, you had better turn on the stress response or else you’re dead. But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, like a Westernized human, then you are more at risk for some of the leading causes of death in Westernized life.”

collectively and individually, we are in a dysfunctional relationship with stress. We have too much of the bad, chronic kind, and not enough of the good, acute kind. What makes things worse, we don’t force ourselves to confront acute stress, because chronic stress has eaten away at our willpower, and as a result we don’t know how to strengthen the muscles of our resolve. We become powerless to cultivate the willpower we require to make the best choices for our lives. The bad stress beats us down, exhausts our energy, and in a very real sense, starts to kill us.

STEP 1: THIRTY TO FIFTY POWER BREATHS Inhale through the nose or mouth into the belly with deep, powerful breaths. Exhale without additional effort, just let the chest fall. Keep a steady pace and make sure to focus on drawing the breath deep into your belly. Do this until you feel a slight light-headedness and a tingling sensation in your extremities. That is the sign that a shift is happening and your blood is hyperoxygenated. For most people that effect starts to kick in around thirty breaths, but it can take up to fifty, depending on certain factors.

STEP 2: THE HOLD (RETENTION AFTER EXHALATION) After the thirty to fifty breaths, or once you start to feel the tingling, draw the breath in one more time and fill the lungs to maximum capacity. Then calmly let the air out and hold for as long as you can at the bottom of the breath. You don’t need to set a world record, just hold your breath until you feel that gasp

reflex and you really want to breathe again.

“If you don’t have ten minutes for yourself,” he has said, “you don’t have a life.” He’s right. If I am truly owning my day, owning my life, it doesn’t matter what is happening externally. To wait for the external world to change before you alleviate your stress is a fool’s errand. You know what is beyond that mountain? More fucking mountains. If you’re going to climb, then you better adapt. Chronic stress is less about the environment, and more about your response to it. So own it. Put yourself intentionally into the occasional fire, and take yourself intentionally out of the chronic stress oven. It’s a choice, your choice. Take that power and never give it away—especially to something as capricious as fate and fortune.

THREE POINTERS Chronic stress is literally killing us, and the traditional medical model offers us very little help to deal with it. Counterintuitively, one of the best ways to deal with chronic stress is to seek certain forms of acute stress. Through a process called hormesis, acute stress will help you adapt and become stronger. Cold exposure is one of the best sources of acute stress, and can be accessed in showers, cold tubs, and cryotherapy. The cold also offers the opportunity to practice an essential life skill—what I call “mental override”—the ability to make yourself do something you don’t want to do. The breath, when used in accordance with the Wim Hof method or other forms of intentional deep breathing, is an invaluable tool to modulate and adapt to acute stressors like cold shock, while also helping to melt away chronic stress on its own.

Universal Nutrition Principle #1: Sugar Will Fruc You Up

Universal Nutrition Principle #2: Fat Is Your Friend

What gives you more of these shipwrecking small VLDL particles? Let me tell you what doesn’t, first. Motherfucking egg yolks, that’s what. In a review of seventeen observational studies covering 263,938 total participants, no correlation was found between egg consumption and heart disease or stroke. Surprise, surprise, a lot of evidence points to sugar, particularly fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, as the culprit instead.

And yet many of the doctors who are prescribing you medication to lower your cholesterol don’t know this. A report by Credit Suisse in 2014 showed that 54 percent of doctors still believed that dietary cholesterol (like what is found in egg yolks) significantly correlated to elevated levels of bad cholesterol. It is a dangerous association that is just not true, a fact that was implicitly recognized as such less than two years later, when the newly released Dietary Guidelines for Americans did not specify an upper daily limit for dietary cholesterol, reversing a long-standing position. The body is smart; when you eat more cholesterol than your cells need, the body adjusts accordingly. What does that mean for you and me in practical dietary terms? Simple: whole-egg omelettes are back on the menu, baby!

WHAT FATS (BESIDES EGGS) SHOULD I EAT, THEN? Not all fats are created equal. There are bad fats. Fried oils, refined fats, and trans fats—like you find in potato chips or margarine—drive inflammation and make you feel sluggish, and should be limited or avoided.

The good fats—saturated fats, cholesterol, triglycerides, and omegas of all sorts—are the ones found in unprocessed meats, dairy, fish, butter, egg yolks, olives, avocados, coconuts, and raw nuts, and should be sought out for breakfast.

WHOLE-FAT YOGURT First of all, let’s get one thing clear. Nonfat dairy of any kind is bullshit. Dairy is comprised of largely three parts: protein (where whey protein comes from), sugar (lactose), and fats. The fats and the protein are the only good parts of dairy for an adult human. The lactose is not, because lactose is just another word for milk sugar. By cutting out the fat from dairy, you are basically saying that you want to increase the percentage of sugar relative to the other macronutrients. Great plan! That’s like saying you want to increase the amount of smog relative to your fresh air.

AVOCADO Avocado may be the strongest argument against atheism I can come up with. It’s creamy, fatty, delicious, and comes in the perfect to-go packaging. It is packed with saturated fats and twenty other vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients. Not only that, it has fiber too. I like to eat half an avocado with lime, sea salt, and cayenne when I want a lush, nutrient-dense snack or a quick breakfast and I don’t have time to sit down to a proper meal.

BONE BROTH Soup for breakfast? You’re damn right. It’s the perfect way to start your day. Bone broth may not be the miracle cure that everyone claims it to be, but it is damn good for you.

BACON

BUTTER

Grass-fed butter, like Kerrygold, contains CLA, a potent nutrient with its own class of benefits, along with a great serving of saturated fat to fuel you into the day. Cook your scrambled eggs in it, blend it into tea or coffee, add it to your vegetables with a little sea salt.

Universal Nutrition Principle #3: Skipping Is Better Than Cheating

THREE POINTERS The abundance of sugar in our diet is arguably the worst thing ever to happen to human health. Being aware of the many forms of sugar and minimizing sugar ingestion is key to managing the blood sugar swings that will throw off your day. Dietary fat and cholesterol have been unfairly villainized. To restore metabolic health and optimize weight management, adding dietary fat back into the diet, starting with breakfast, is essential. Breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. If you don’t have good fats and protein available to you, rather than eat a bunch of sugary or starchy foods, you can skip breakfast and reap the benefits of intermittent fasting for weight loss and longevity.

First: our stresses are more in number and different in kind from what our ancestors faced. We’ve talked about it earlier, but it’s worth repeating: we deal with more chronic stressors than our ancestors did, most of which our bodies are not designed to thwart—and it shows.

Second: our environment is robbing us of a lot of the nutrients, minerals, and microbial defenses that used to come into our diets by default.

The final reason to take supplements is that even if you have a perfect diet, there are nutrients available that you can’t find in the produce section of your grocery store.

GREENS BLEND Everyone agrees that we need a balanced spectrum of vitamins and minerals in our diet, and the best way to do that is to eat a varied diet. Consume the bountiful diversity of earth-grown foods: shellfish like oysters, grass-fed beef, leafy greens like Swiss chard, and brassica vegetables like cauliflower, on top of a whole complement of spices and herbs. Of course it isn’t always easy to eat this way, even with the best of intentions, which is why it should be no surprise that the lion’s share of our dietary deficiencies is precisely in the area of vitamins and minerals.

MAGNESIUM Just like calcium, magnesium supplementation has been shown in clinical research to assist with facilitating healthy bone mass, the performance of athletes, supporting men and women during exercise, even improving blood sugar regulation through diminishing insulin resistance. But what you are gonna notice is less. Less stress, less static, and less antsiness throughout your body.

KRILL OIL: SUPPLEMENT OMEGA-3 The reason some of your breakfast options today contain chia seeds, flax, and grass-fed beef or dairy is that those are some of the simplest nutritional sources of omega-3 fatty acids. The other, and probably the best, is oily fish.

Generally speaking, the methylated form of vitamin B, methylcobalamin, is more easily absorbed by the body, so pay attention to your body and make sure you supplement with B vitamins that are packaged the best for your system.

Avoid supplements that make medical claims.

Watch out for supplements filled with caffeine. One of the big ways those great marketers make you think that what you’re swallowing is doing what they say it will is by juicing it with caffeine. The caffeine gives you an instant hit when you take it, and you end up saying to yourself, “Well, it’s definitely doing something!” And it is: it’s sinking its little hormonal claws into your adrenal system and memorizing your credit card number. There are plenty of good ways to take caffeine. They usually don’t involve supplements. So avoid most supplements that contain heavy caffeine; it’s there to cover up the weaknesses of the core product.

THREE POINTERS There are two primary reasons to supplement: to remediate potential deficiencies, and to gain access to unusual or hard-to-find nutrients. You don’t need to think of supplements as something that comes in a capsule, either. Getting the right amount of sun, sleep, and food is itself a kind of supplementation, and the first line of defense. The key things to consider supplementing are greens, probiotics, B vitamins, krill oil, vitamin D, and additional minerals. While dietary supplements are generally safe, and more regulated than you might have heard, they are not all created equal. Look for companies that engage in clinical research on their products and use natural forms of ingredients when possible.

The author Robert Greene has a useful, simple way of thinking about all time: it’s either alive or dead.

What Greene says, and what I agree with, is that any time can be made into alive time, because alive time is a choice, just as dead time is a choice.

Mindfulness is simply being aware and conscious in the present moment. That’s it. Mindfulness is tuning in only to the sensations of life around you. It is real and serious and sustained focus on the here and now. It’s not what’s going on in the world. It’s not the dozens of angry, frustrated drivers boxing you in on the crowded freeway. Nor is it what you have to do in fifteen minutes when the train pulls into your station. Or the creeping stress of your job—it’s especially not that.

The next time you’re supposed to be doing something and you catch yourself focusing on something else, that is a moment when you’re not mindful. You probably have more of those moments than you’d like to admit. But that’s why mindfulness as a practice can be so powerful. It can help bring you back to the present moment, and in doing so expand and prepare your mind for what lies ahead of you for the rest of your day.

THE WIDE PERIPHERAL GAZE Open your eyes as wide as they go without engaging any muscles of the face. Keep your focus relaxed in the center of your vision. With your mind only, become aware of everything happening at the periphery of your vision. Up, down, left, right. Things might be a little fuzzy, that’s fine. Then, still without focusing on anything at all, become aware of everything. Each leaf moving in the wind. People walking by. A bird in the distance. Wrinkles in fabric. See everything, focus on nothing. Every moment something will be different, always changing, just like life. It is life. Breathe with your belly. Become aware of all things happening at all times. Become the observer of every detail in the environment, ignoring nothing, yet focusing on nothing. That strange feeling you have now—of a clear mind, of freshness and lightness? That is mindfulness meditation. Nothing more and nothing less.

I’m not in politics, so the idea that I, an average person, should be following breaking news in real time is ridiculous. While I think it’s important to be an informed citizen, I’m not interested in making myself miserable by plugging into the 24/7 news cycle of endless outrage and conflict. For the same reason, I strongly suggest you resist talk radio of all political persuasions. The point is to learn something, not gorge on nonsense. Far too much media is designed to provoke and distract—the opposite of both mindfulness and mindfillness—and so when people think they are informing themselves, they are in fact falling for a giant con. Psychologists even have a term for it: narcotizing dysfunction. In fact, the more you follow the news, in some cases, the less likely you are to be an active, involved citizen, because you’ve confused consuming information with acting on it.

STEP 1: WOOSAH MOTHAFUCKA As soon as you get in your car take six deep breaths. Expand your lungs as much as possible, and focus your breath into your belly—that same place where the dragon hatches and tells you to melt the traffic in front of you like you were Khaleesi on a bad moon day. A study published by the Japanese Society of Hypertension found that when you take six deep breaths over the course of thirty seconds, your blood pressure ends up lower. This will help center you, and act as a prophylactic frustration vaccine. Then, if at any other time during the drive or life you feel the dragon coming out, cool him down with six more breaths. Remember, it’s not two breaths, not five breaths, it’s six. SIX!

STEP 2: WIDE PERIPHERAL GAZE The bane of driving is distraction. The opposite of mindfulness. First practice the wide peripheral gaze when you are stopped. But some of us might be inclined to explore it while driving. After all, every driver’s safety class tells you to keep your eyes forward but be aware of your periphery. The goal is to notice even more of your surroundings than ever before.

STEP 3: LEARN SOME SHIT Now that you’ve opened your mind, it’s time to fill it. Open your favorite podcast app on your phone and fire up a morsel of mental magic.

I obviously love The Joe Rogan Experience, Tim Ferriss is essential listening, and Lewis Howes’s School of Greatness podcast seldom disappoints.

Finding these pockets of peace is a critical life skill. We have to build them into the ideal day; we can’t just expect to find them.

THREE POINTERS There is a fundamental choice when it comes to your commute. You can choose alive time where you are growing, learning, and improving, or dead time where at best you are wasting your time. Those who consistently choose alive time will have a significant advantage in life. To expand your mind and gain actionable information during the commute, check out podcasts or audiobooks, which offer an opportunity to learn that is as valuable as any expensive education. To combat the potential negative impact of the commute, as well as to practice greater presence and peace of mind, use conscious breathing techniques along with mindfulness practices like the wide peripheral gaze.

if you are looking for maximum benefits, the king of all the teas is unequivocally matcha. A tea that has an entire Zen ceremony dedicated to it in Japan. With 66 milligrams of caffeine per 8 ounces of prepared tea, matcha has more caffeine than black tea but less than a cup of coffee, making it the Mama Bear of afternoon pick-me-ups.

Swedish snus, a moist tobacco powder you tuck under your upper lip, appears to be one of the healthiest forms of smokeless tobacco. One study showed little difference in overall health and life expectancy between smokers who quit entirely and smokers who switched to snus. With no sweeteners and fewer additives—if any—snus is a cleaner option than many of the American snuff or chew products.

THREE POINTERS Caffeine is ideal to alleviate sleepiness and improve your mood. To do it the right way, look for natural plant sources, make sure you don’t interrupt your sleep, and blend with fats to help slow down the release into your body. Nicotine on its own can be beneficial to focus, attention, and the enjoyment of your day. The problems come with the delivery. Never inhale smoke! Instead, look for other means like vaping and absorption through the gums or the skin to get you in the zone. Nootropics have been proven to assist with memory and cognitive performance. Huperzia serrata is a great place to start and is a part of one of the most rigorously tested formulas on the market. If you don’t know about nootropics, now’s the time to find out.