All protocols

Cultivate awareness of where you are on your performance/creative spectrum and train the art of ramping up and releasing. The ability to turn performance on is directly connected to the ability to turn it off; build this oscillation into both mental work and physical training.

Use the MIQ process to identify and train around the most important question in your work: focus on it at the end of the day, return to it first thing in the morning before any external input, and take brief MIQ breaks throughout the day by breathing and avoiding your phone before resuming the question. Track MIQs over days or weeks and compare early versus later questions to use MIQ gap analysis for deliberate practice.

Take some time to lie completely still, keep the body still, and allow the mind to be as active or calm as it wants; described as mimicking REM sleep in wakefulness.

If you wake from a dream and want to continue it, keep your body completely still.

Avoid checking messages first thing in the morning because it shuts down awareness of what has been happening beneath the surface overnight.

End creative work with something unfinished, such as a half-written sentence, so you retain direction. Then let the work go completely and return to it first thing in the morning, when the unfinished sentence or question may have expanded in your mind overnight.

Write insights down immediately on paper rather than on a phone to avoid distraction and preserve morning insights.

Fight back against interruptions by turning devices and notifications off during focused work.

Include workouts throughout the day, including micro workouts, as part of managing stress-recovery cycles.

Use meditation periods during the workday as part of stress-recovery cycling and a quality-over-quantity work structure.

Bottom-up mindfulness practice; when you walk outside, notice three new things.

Use this cognitive reframing when stressed to reduce unnecessary distress; after recognizing most stressors are inconveniences rather than tragedies, take a deep breath and come back to yourself.

Enjoy a simple, isolated activity that you personally find relaxing and enjoyable.

Host's criterion for adequate sleep is waking up feeling reasonably refreshed rather than chasing a fixed number of hours.

Mentioned as a technology people use to track sleep.

Host notes data suggesting positive anticipation of next-day events can reduce sleep need and improve sleep quality; he contrasts this with trying to force sleep early before an early wake time.

Trying to sleep early before an early flight often fails because sleep need is dictated by the prior day, not the next day.

Entertaining thoughts about decline can accelerate it by making people search for confirming evidence.

Move the book farther away as an alternative to defaulting to reading glasses.

Try periods without glasses in order to notice when you can and cannot see.

Track variability in vision across times and conditions rather than assuming it is fixed; possible responses mentioned include taking a nap or having an energy bar when vision is worse later in the day.

Suggested as a practical energy boost later in the day when noticing poorer vision or reduced function, especially if not napping.

For chronic illness or symptoms, notice when symptoms are better or worse rather than assuming they are constant; ask why they changed and look for solutions.

In studies, asking people to notice new things about disliked activities increased liking; examples included rap music, football, and art. Variants mentioned were noticing one new thing or three new things, with greater noticing linked to greater liking.

Host links embracing new forms of learning and challenges to maintaining cognitive function into later age.

Make tasks into games to increase enjoyment and engagement; examples include flossing mindfully by predicting how much debris will come out and from which teeth, and making work game-like by guessing outcomes, varying how you do it, or trying different constraints.

If one arm is injured and healing slowly, using the other arm can exercise the opposite side of the brain.

For non-competitive athletes, use military or law-enforcement PT standards as practical strength targets that provide a reserve of strength for life.

Focus on very few exercises that build general strength carryover. Choose exercises you enjoy, that do not hurt you, that you have equipment for, and that you can get proper coaching for; then stick with them for years, using only small variations on the margins if needed.

Include posterior-chain work in your routine. Examples discussed include narrow sumo deadlifts and ensuring the rest of the posterior chain is trained even if using belt squats.