Behaviors

Described as the commonly used traumatic brain injury protocol: five 60-minute sessions per week at two atmospheres. For general longevity rather than acute TBI, Attia says the time would be better invested in exercise.

Recommended as part of preserving type II fibers and aging well; ideally include training that involves jumping and landing to preserve explosiveness and braking capacity relevant to fall prevention.

One of Attia's pillars of strength training; emphasized for braking capacity and stepping down safely.

One of Attia's four exercise pillars for longevity and aging well. Example implementation: single-leg step-ups and very slow step-downs off a box for about 10 minutes, using a 2-second up / 4-second down tempo.

One of Attia's four exercise pillars for longevity; corresponds to zone 2 base-building.

Attia says he uses DBT as a regular part of therapy.

When making a mistake, immediately stop, imagine a close friend made it, and audibly speak to them kindly instead. As part of the exercise, Attia recorded the compassionate response on his phone and texted the audio to his therapist.

If prescribed a prism lens for a slightly deviating eye, discuss with an ophthalmologist or optometrist whether exercises could address the issue without the prism, due to concern about progressive muscle weakening.

Rather than being overly reliant on corrective lenses, consider working with a weaker prescription.

As temperatures cool heading into winter, intentionally wear less clothing to prepare for winter cold and improve cold adaptation; more broadly, avoid bundling yourself up all the time.

As temperatures warm heading into summer, intentionally wear more clothing to be a bit uncomfortably warm and improve heat adaptation.

For people whose hands hurt intensely in cold water, keep hands out for part of the exposure or dip them briefly and then remove them while keeping the rest of the body in.

Avoid dunking your head during cold immersion, especially if you want to limit heat loss and afterdrop risk. Dunking the head can further reduce cerebral blood flow and increase core heat-loss rate by about 36% versus immersion up to the neck.

Insulating the head in sauna can make it easier to stay in longer by reducing the brain-driven urgency to exit.

Do not directly transfer adult protocols to children because of smaller body mass and faster heat loss; brief exposure only, with around 1 minute mentioned as a tolerable upper range in one study.

Do not keep the plunge at one very cold temperature all the time or rely on ice every session. Vary temperature up and down; even milder temperatures such as around 12°C water or 19°C cold air can still activate brown fat.

Keep mental training and visualization very brief, about 15 to 20 seconds, or sequences that can be completed in 15 seconds or less. Make visualizations sparse and simple rather than elaborate, and repeat the same short sequence over and over with high accuracy.

Name the skill or sub-skill you are visualizing using labels that match real-world training; use the same name or identity for the skill in both real-world practice and mental rehearsal.

Move your eyes in the direction of the imagined object or action, even behind closed eyelids, to recruit more of the relevant neural circuitry.

Perform about 50 to 75 repeats of the short mental sequence per session. Do as many repeats as fit into about a 15-second epoch when the skill is short enough, then rest for about 15 seconds before repeating.

Use mental training primarily for skills you can already execute successfully at least some of the time in the real world; it is best for improving speed, smoothness, frequency, and accuracy rather than creating a skill from zero. For language learning, pick a sentence you can already say, even slowly, and mentally rehearse it to improve accent, enunciation, smoothness, and fluidity.

Perform mental training sessions three to five times per week for best effect.

Once the skill is consolidated and improved in the real world, you do not need to continue mental training to maintain it; move on to another sequence or skill.

If injured or unable to train physically, use mental rehearsal of previously learned sequences to maintain or even improve performance, provided you've done that motor sequence before in the real world.

Use first-person mental rehearsal, imagining the skill from inside your own body rather than watching yourself from outside. For pure cognitive tasks that do not lend themselves to overt movement, close your eyes and perform the task internally from a first-person perspective.

Use video or audio of yourself performing the target skill as a visualization aid, ideally on loop for the specific aspect of performance you want to improve. If using third-person rehearsal, prefer actual video or audio of yourself rather than trying to imagine yourself from a third-person perspective with eyes closed.

If the challenge is doing the wrong thing at the wrong time or failing to withhold an action, combine mental training with physical training rather than relying on physical training alone. When training action initiation and inhibition, include both go and no-go trials rather than always practicing only one type.

Repeatedly doing mental training and visualization improves your ability to visualize itself, a form of metaplasticity.

Check in and notice where stress is being held in the body, such as clenched hands, tense shoulders, or fists; presented as step one to releasing stress.

Get away from stress triggers in the office, city, or around food and move to an environment that feels calming; also suggested as a strong strategy for interrupting cravings.