20 health hacks, straight from a hack
“You look younger now than when I started listening to your music ten years ago”
It’s a comment the likes of which I’ve heard repeatedly in recent years. I have a sizeable ego, I am vain, and I operate in an industry that fetishizes youth. So yes, I can’t help but appreciate the dopamine bump from comments like this. I like getting older. I don’t want to go backwards. But I do want to age gracefully and feel healthy.
My go-to joke response is: “I drink the blood of my children”.
But the truth is that I’ve made some habitual changes to my daily life, and I’m proud of myself. I didn’t really like how I was feeling day to day, and decided to adjust course.
I’m not a health professional. All of the following should be taken with a grain of salt. I cannot speak to the scientific efficacy of one “health hack” or another, but anecdotally, I do simply feel better than I used to feel. I have a more finely tuned internal compass for anxiety and ennui. I feel stronger and more comfortable in my body. I feel an empowering correlation between my self-care disciplines and my general sense of well-being. Like I might have a morsel of control in the matter
It sounds like a joke but I swear my farts smell better than they used to.
For most of my adult life, I felt helpless when it came to self-care. I didn’t know what to do or who to ask about it. There was nothing particularly wrong with me - I was lucky enough to coast through life with few visits to the doctor… but why did I feel slow and lethargic so often?
These health hacks below come from many places - books, social media, practitioners, doctors, friends, myth, placebo... I try not to get too hung up on dogma from one field or another - just what feels good and gets results.
Some are painfully trendy. Self-care as a whole is a bit overblown (and overcapitalized) in the zeitgeist, and I do get pangs of cringe even writing this down. But if any of this can be helpful to even one person, perhaps it’s worth posting them all here in one place. I would have appreciated having them in my life at a younger age.
They’re not ordered by any kind of importance - just in the order that I thought of them.
One last thing - let’s acknowledge that it is a privilege to be able to allocate resources and time to self-care, and for that I am grateful.
1. No absolutes with health hacks.
Moderation is key. Err on the side of health hacks most of the time, and give yourself wiggle room to break the rules now and then. Otherwise, you will go crazy. It’s about creating new norms that become enjoyable, not white-knuckling yourself away from things you want.
2. Try to fast for at least 12 hours a night.
14-16 hours is even better. I rarely eat after 7pm, and have a late breakfast / early lunch around 11am (I’ll still have tea or coffee and plenty of water before then). After a few weeks, I didn’t crave snacks in the evening anymore, and I wasn’t even hungry in the mornings. Less brain fog. It’s hard to explain but I just kind of felt cleaner inside.
As does the rest of your body, your digestive system needs to rest overnight. If it’s trying to process a pound of late night crackers and cheese while you’re asleep, it’s not getting any rest. I sleep better on an empty stomach.
3. Eat less filler.
Less crackers, chips, low quality bread. Focus mostly on protein & fibre. Rather than putting nutritious yummy stuff on bready things, just eat the nutritious yummy stuff. If you’re going to eat bread, go whole grain. Get fancy bread now and then and think of it as a treat instead of a staple. Those thin rice cakes are great.
4. Your body needs salt and good fats.
Cook with butter if you like! Presuming it’s made from quality ingredients, food should be flavourful and delicious. Salt to taste with real sea salt (not iodized table salt). Do not starve yourself or strangle the joy of eating. Food rules and it literally keeps you alive.
5. Avoid processed foods.
With exception to frozen veggies, try to avoid the freezer aisle as much as possible. For the most part, stick to the outside edges of the grocery store.
6. Keep sugar to a minimum.
Treat yourself with nice desserts in moderate quantities, but don’t default to sweet things on the regular. Pop/soda is the devil.
Read the nutritional labels on the food you buy. The amount of sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) in most packaged beverages and processed food is insane. We have eroded our societal tastebuds. The less sugar you consume, the more flavourful and delicious everything else becomes.
7. Cold therapy.
Okay. This might be the most trendy and tired one of all. There are memes about bros preaching the cold plunge. But I’m willing to die on this hill.
2-5 mins in a cold bath every so often can change your life. Relax your shoulders. Slow down your breathing. Accept the cold. It’s a sensation, just be in it. It’s a metaphor for life - accept the pain and live in it, rather than fighting it. Cold baths nuke anxiety, especially when paired with heat from a sauna. When you get out of the cold water, you feel absolutely incredible. Invincible. It’s like a lightning bolt of adrenaline and clarity.
Cold therapy is proven to help your immune system, lymph system, digestive system, nervous system… all the systems! According to David Sinclair (professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School), cold water tricks your body into producing all kinds of anti-aging hormones or enzymes or something (I really don’t know - it’s just awesome, okay?).
I don’t find it to be quite as effective as a cold bath, but you can also turn your shower cold for the last 1-2 mins. Make sure the cold goes on the nape of your neck and right on your face for at least 10 seconds. This stimulates your vagus nerve (or something like that - who tf knows, folks, but you’ll feel good afterward).
8. Don’t inhale through your mouth.
At all, if you can help it. The health detriments of regular mouth breathing are shocking. If you breathe through your mouth while sleeping, consider using a small postage-stamp-sized patch of medical tape across the front of your lips to remind your brain to keep your mouth closed. It sounds a bit crazy, but this simple and inexpensive hack has been proven beneficial for the system in a myriad of ways, even curing sleep apnea and snoring.
9. Conscious breathing.
Apparently, the perfect breath is 5.5 seconds in (through nose), 5.5 seconds out. It’s also beneficial to sometimes double the length of exhales to your inhales, or to try to empty your lungs entirely with an extreme exhale several times a day.
I’m not certain I’ve got the mechanics of the science correct, but as I understand it, holding your breath OUT temporarily increases the cellular CO2 in your body. This is helpful because the heightened CO2 level actually encourages more metabolic reaction with the oxygen in your blood, coming in from your lungs. Exercise also increases CO2 in your body, which is partly why it’s good for you.
We breathe in oxygen and breathe out CO2.
Essentially, if you increase your CO2 levels, more of the oxygen in your lungs actually gets into your extremities because it flows around in your blood trading places with the CO2 that’s built up. You’re removing stale oxygen in your body and replacing it with fresh oxygen.
I know it sounds backwards but runners and other athletes have used this practice to great effect. That said, I’m an idiot, and I’m probably not understanding OR explaining it correctly.
Consider reading James Nestor’s book Breath. It blew my damn mind.
10. Active breath-work.
Almost once a day, I take about 10 minutes to do a mixture of extremely heavy breathing and breath holding. Afterwards you feel light as can be. Calms down the whole body. Resets the nervous system. Reduces anxiety. Like a natural and free high. Try this guided breathing session from Wim Hof. At every show, about 30 minutes before I go on stage, I lay on the floor in the green room and do this:
11. Take care of your skin.
Moisturize your hands after you wash them. Use a delicate face cream to moisturize your face after your morning shower and after washing your face at night (using a very delicate face wash). I literally had never put soap or cream on my face until I was nearly 40, then started digging into my wife’s stash. It’s awesome.
12. Drink less alcohol.
Try not to drink at all when you’re alone. It’s literally poison and counteracts all the other awesome stuff you’re doing to be healthy. That said, it’s fun, so sometimes drink as much as you like. I tend to either have zero drinks, or a bunch socially with friends. I no longer drink on tour and there’s no question - touring is better sober. I cut out drinking at home on a casual evening. And if you’re going to drink, maybe drink less beer. It’s like drinking a loaf of bread. Instead, try cocktails or wine (or low sugar hard seltzers).
13. Put a 4x4 block of wood under the head of your bed.
This puts your body on a slight incline as you sleep, which keeps gravity in your favour, and keeps stomach acid from going northward up your esophagus, which can result in reflux and other ailments.
15. Exercise regularly.
Even if it’s just 5-10 mins a day. Frequency is more important than intensity. Make it habitual. Go for long walks sometimes. Do some push ups while you watch TV.
Every morning, I do 2 rotations of the following exercises in my bedroom before getting in the shower. It takes about 10-12 minutes and there’s no equipment required (though I do the crunches on a rug).
20 squats (I began with 10, then 15 when it felt easy)
1 minute plank (I began with 45 seconds)
30 crunches centre, 30 crunches side to side (I began with 20 / 20)
25 push ups (I began with 5-10, then 15, then 20)
If you can run or have access to an exercise bike, try to incorporate 20-30 minutes of cardio a couple times a week. Even just once a week makes a big difference.
15. Chew slowly.
Eat slowly. The more you chew your food, the easier it is for your stomach to break it down and digest it. It also causes you to notice when you’re full sooner, and generally fosters more gratitude and enjoyment of flavour. Consider even taking a moment before you start eating to thank the food. Sounds weird but it feels good.
16. Eat sitting down.
Apparently studies have proven that food is more nutritious if consumed in a state of calm. It allows your digestive system to absorb more nutrients from the food.
17. Posture.
Engage your core muscles when sitting or standing. It makes it easier to not slump your neck forward also. This helps prevent a sore back/neck (also keeps your abs looking good). A strong core is pretty much foundational to not injuring your back, knees, hips, etc as you age.
18. Supplements.
I don’t like the idea of always taking supplements because your body starts to adjust and expect them, but now and then, it’s not a bad idea to have a B complex and vitamin D drops (especially in winter) in the morning with breakfast. I sometimes take a probiotic at night on an empty stomach before bed.
Lately, I’ve been drinking a powdered catch-all supplement on an empty stomach right when I wake up, but it’s expensive and I’m not really convinced it’s doing a whole lot.
19. Drink less coffee.
Coffee is delicious! But not great for the gut. Just don’t overdo it. I overdid it for 15 years and paid the price in the form of “silent reflux” which has been really hard on my singing voice. It’s been a whole thing. More on that HERE.
I cut out caffeine cold turkey years ago and it was absolutely horrible. Days of brain fog, headaches, irritability and multiple naps a day. Now I mostly drink decaf and every now and then I’ll have regular coffee.
It does feel nice to no longer be beholden to that first cup of the day. If you want to kick caffeine, I’d recommend gradually mixing decaf into your regular coffee over the course of a week. Less abrasive to the body and mind.
20. Stop at 80%.
We watched this Netflix show where they studied the lives of people who live in “blue zones” - parts of the world that have the highest concentrations of centenarians (folks who live to 100). One thing that stuck with me is that Okinawans (from an island in the south of Japan) tend to stop eating when they sense that they are “8 out of 10”.
I’ve been a fast eater and an over-eater my whole life. If I pause just before I feel totally full, I find that in 5 minutes time, my brain catches up to my stomach, and not only do I feel full - I feel pleasantly full, rather than over-full. An after-dinner walk makes it even more pleasant.
That’s it for now. Maybe I’ll add more if I think of some, or edit the ones above. Feel free to add ideas in the comments. Honestly, I don’t have any credentials or legitimacy to give this advice. I’ve just felt the personal benefits of adhering to a loose structure of healthier habits and practices. And it is loose. It’s not about robbing yourself of pleasure. It’s about fostering contentment through a balanced relationship with pleasure.
x
Dan
Love the post and always love the honesty.
Find what feels good. Experiment. Try new things. Look to nature and your inner compass for possibilities (and watch out for the sneaky messages trying to disguise themselves as your inner compass...that's just cultural conditioning). One thing I would add that Thich Nhat Hanh taught me: be mindful of what you consume, not just food, also news, social media, etc.
Last thing. I don't agree that self care is a privilege. I believe it is a right. And everyone deserves this right.
Dan, Dan, Dan!
This is absolutely amazing, you legend. Thank you for continuing to inspire through action.
We at Music Fit endorse this message, wholeheartedly. I’m so happy to see you taking that little spark back a few years ago and turning it into a message you’re confident in sharing with your fans, followers and the world in general.
Health is necessary for sustaining a successful career, heck - nowadays I’d argue it’s necessary for most artists looking to start with the intent of making it a career and you have clearly found what works for you.
That’s the most important part. Second most, these are all things I would say generally work for most people… there’s nothing harmful for anyone in here. (Heck, if you’re eating a loaf of bread everyday, a few rice crackers will be a big step in the right direction.
My summary goes like this, lemme know if I got it right, dude:
Raw, organic naturally grown food, spring water, stop eating after sundown, get plenty of rest, sunlight, do hard things like cold exposure and exercise, eat less fake food and poisons, breathe properly, move more often, move with intent, take time for yourself.
That about sum up what you’ve learned?
Love this dude, I’d love to explore this further with you and help more artists explore what health “lessons” like these can do to the quality of their art and lives.
Keep going, man. You’re a Rockstar. 💫