Optimising life - The road to Silicon Valley?
My top takeaways from hosting the BodyClock Podcast by Owaves for anyone wanting to find some inspiration. The strategies needed to succeed in Tech, Health and Entrepreneurship via PhD's and MD's.
Owaves is a concept and an app around circadian rhythms, time management and planning to improve mental wellbeing.
When I was working as VP of Innovation I began the Body clock podcast to interview the experts in the fields of human performance, mental health and technology. I am a medical doctor with a board certification in lifestyle medicine and I am a fellow of the NHS clinical entrepreneur programme. My interest in start-ups, tech and mental health meant Owaves was the perfect fit for me as a company. Most of the guests that I hosted were MD’s or had PhD’s. This enabled me to sieve through the mentality and thought processes of experts in various fields of health and technology. As I interviewed these experts there were many parallels which helped to shape my thinking on the habits, routines and mindset needed to bolster one’s health whilst pursuing ambitious careers. It was a privilege to not only learn but challenge these guests on how they think and live their lives. I wish I could have done this 10 years ago and I feel I can distill some high yield insights from what I learnt from these interviews. The reason for this is that I learnt so much about how to set up an ideal daily routine, combat the struggles that come with life and learn to plan in a way which makes me both productive and happy in the long term.
I will split the takeaways into overarching themes whilst referencing the guest who provided the thought.
As a company we are trying to change calender planning and help college students utilise time more effectively and plan health into their calender to develop healthy habits and therefore reduce the risk of poor mental health.
A quote I found very useful to capture the essence on why we must plan our time in our day to day life.
-‘When you lose track of time you’re either living your best life or wasting it.’-
By planning my days using the Owaves app, I have been able to visualise and plan my day much more easily.
We shall proceed to see what I learnt from these great guests-
1/ A breakdown of Circadian Biology, Routine and Performance -
We know how important daily routines are for success and health but often we don’t understand the deeper mechanisms behind the body’s natural ‘routines’. If you can get a good routine when you’re young you will really thank yourself when you’re older for your health, success and happiness. I will start with this theme (also the name of the podcast ‘The Body Clock’) because we had so many experts who have done or were involved with research in this field. Whilst being a complicated topic, I hope I can simplify the importance of circadian rhythms and why they are important using quotes from our guests. I was surprised at how much it impacted our health and performance. Circadian cycles are essentially our body’s cycles dedicated by various hormones and when sleep and wake-up.
Benn Smarr PhD in neurobiology and behaviour with a postdoc from UC Berkeley and is scientific advisor for Owaves outlined the modern life problem for many people but especially students.
‘These days, we can do anything we want at any time we want. I can eat a pizza and watch Netflix at 2:00 in the morning if I want to. But the problem is that food is acting as a timing signal to my GI tract. That light is acting as a timing signal to my brain. They’re going to try to talk to each other. They’re gonna try to talk to the rest of my organs and the rest of my organs are going to go, “What are you doing? It’s the middle of the night. I was trying to recover.
Sleep is what makes you sharp, right? And if you don’t sharpen your blade, it’s not going to be as good. And this mantra of sleep is a weapon, and so you invest in it because it makes you smarter, it makes you faster, it makes you tougher. That was really successful. That was able to get into that culture much better than just some doctor saying,” I told you need sleep more.” So that was a huge win, right? And it’s absolutely true.
I think it’s not about being prescriptive. I think it’s just about realising the opportunity cost. So I think right now the culture says sleep is a waste of time. And therefore, if I can stay up and talk to people, and if I can stay up and do work, you know, good for me. The missed cost of that is that you’re not socialising as well as you think you are. You’re not as attentive as you think you are the next day.’
Even though we think we are saving time by not sleeping or taking the time to plan it really prevents us from being at our best and therefore producing our best work. This may work in the short term but can really harm your health in the long term. This asks the question what are the best ways and tools to opitmise our health.
Let’s move onto exercise, nutrition and sleep.
Alan Flanagan who is a barrister and nutritionist doing research in circadian science recommended a plan to optimise health and suggests the importance of light for our body.
‘The Go Light Blue (amazon product) is a good one and you spend 30 minutes with this blue light box on your face just just on and your eyes will pick up on it in the morning. And people really notice a difference in their energy levels, in their moods, and all of these variables. And it’s important to note the mood thing isn’t random. Light is physiologically arousing to humans and that’s why we get up and go when we respond to it.’
Timing is important and that’s why we advocate planning our days at Owaves. I remember being a student and wanting to incorporate routine so I could take part in different activities.
'Doing some movement that then helps you build that as part of your routine. That’s gonna be much more important. So it kind of just depends on where you are in that system. And if you’re trying to build a habit, making it a regular part of your structured day is gonna be really important. So then, you know, just making sure you get out and do something may be enough to help ground that habit and help you build it rather than say that the advance trainer who’s been doing this forever, who just feels pretty beat down and just wants to spend the night on the sofa.’
Bill Lagakos who has a PhD in circadian biology also added insight about why a disrupted circadian rhythm can make things more difficult for you to be healthy.
‘And what I’ve found with working with clients is doing all of these habits, a lot of people have these abnormal cravings that kick in in the late afternoon and all of a sudden they get hungry. And since it’s not really a mealtime you’re not eating real food you’re just snacking on things. And that can lead to an energy surplus and waking or may sort of hinder your weight loss efforts. So by doing all of these circadian behaviours like getting light exposure earlier, a bigger breakfast and really working on sleep quality.’
Molly Maloof MD who teaches about health span at Stanford and has worked with many Silicon Valley executives to optimise their health talked about sleep. As a student I remember how stress of studying and keeping up with friends and family could compromise my sleep.
‘Some people noticed that when they would drink or eat heavy, heavy meals in the evening you would disrupt your sleep and you know there’s there’s a lot that I’ve learned since about circadian rhythm biology and glucose sensitivity and so a lot of people eat really late in the night and it’s really kind of a problem because you’re the least insulin sensitive (body’s response to sugar isn’t as good) in the evening. Did I take my supplements? Did I check in with someone in my family? Did I do something kind for someone? Did I check in with my long term goals like, I do a lot of daily routine habits that really add up over time to just better performance.’
2/ Resilience and mindset-
As a former medical student this is a character trait which is built and really helps navigate the tough process. Every young person should think about this carefully as it’s inevitable that you face challenges along the way. So it’s essential to learn the mindset and strategies we can adopt to overcome them.
Anushka Patchava who works for Aetna and is a former doctor who studied at Oxford University talked about the importance of resilience.
‘Hundred percent. And I think I think the best characteristic trait anyone could ever describe anyone else is resilience. And because I think if you have resilience, you can achieve and conquer anything. And so I strive, I strive for people to see me as resilient. So, yeah, I think, as you say, you’ve got to find a personal challenge and then you’ve got to fight it and beat it and grow from it.’
Dr Gabrielle Lyon a muscle centric medicine physician talks about what approaches she uses to stay positive, resilient and how that helps cultivate success.
‘I visualize what the day is going to look like what I’m looking forward to even if there are negative things or challenges that I might anticipate. I really focus on making that into a positive.
It’s never I have ‘to’ it’s ‘I get to’ if that makes sense so I don’t think I have to go to work. I set that in my mind. I truly do think I get to have an amazing career and I get to help a tremendous amount of people which, in which I feel very fortunate. So my day you asked me how I modulate the stress and the crazy activity of New York. It’s not an emotional response it is you execute based on commitment. I think that building that internal resilience makes for a better person that then leads to other areas of their life.’
Behaviour underpins what we do and if we can manipulate our behaviours we can be more successful. Dr Dave Rabin who is a Psychiatrist and Neuroscientist gave an insight into why routines are essential and shape our behaviour.
‘Yeah, it is a great question. I mean, I think so. So repetition is important for training. So there has to be certain aspects of your routine, your structure that are repeated, because when you repeat, you create new synaptic formations in the brain that create easier pathways of neurological flow, of information flow.
So effectively, the simplest idea is that every time you get stressed out, the first thought that goes into your head is I need to have an ice cream cone, because when I was a kid that always made me feel better. And so when you’re an adult, you do the same thing and this is ingrained in your mind. And every time you start to feel any bit of anxiety, you start to go, you go find ice cream. And the response to that would be, OK, you know, to be able to overcome this.
You could go to a psychologist, psychiatrist, and take medicine. But the truth of the matter is that all you have to do is you have to just retrain your behaviour and your thought process to say no to the ice cream when that impulse comes to your mind. And then over time, that’s no longer the first thought that comes to your mind. The other activity that you put in place and so that repetition is critically important.’
Josh Turknett who is a Neurologist talked about learning and persistence being key for growth and learning which helps become resilient.
‘And I think that a lot of times in learning, people get frustrated by not getting better or not understanding something or not being able to do something right then and there. And I think what’s important to remember is that anytime you’re learning something new, the goal of whatever you’re practicing is simply to kind of provide the inputs the brain needs to then turn that thing to where your capacity for it is improved for it the next time around.’
The virtue of patience with a resilient mindset is something I have witnessed when often trying to get things done. I learnt that it’s important to give things a go and then wait for the results and if there are no results keep trying whilst changing your approach.
Rupy Aujla, Doctor and founder of Doctors Kitchen talks about continual effort and patience which compounds into growth. Building something will always be hard but you need to persist.
‘It’s very overwhelming. But it’s such an incremental thing and it takes time. None of this stuff. Even the Doctors kitchen (his brand) when I started in 2015, people think it’s happened overnight. I was thinking about the doctor’s kitchen for 4 years prior to that. This is all been in my head for about 8 years now. It’s very very slow. Incremental advances every minute, every day and people look at sort of the snapshot on social media- Oh my God, Rupy is on BBC and he’s doing his high player thing. It doesn’t just happen out of nowhere like that’s been a huge planning exercise for months and probably even a year actually thinking about it now but I first got the phone call about that. I think we’re in a world of instant gratification we like to believe that these things are quick. They are not.’
2/ Having a coach or mentor-
The Netflix special ‘The Last Dance’ which is a celebration of Michael Jordan’s journey and hard work in his career highlights how Phil Jackson’s coaching is essential to the eventual success of the team. For any young person this is an example of how pivotal it is to find the right mentor or coach.
Similarly I learnt the importance of coaches and mentors from the experts. Dr Tommy Wood an MD from Oxford/ Cambridge University who is now a research scientist at the Florida Institute of Machine and Human cognition talked about why the differences in individuals demands using coaches but the basics remain the same
‘How am I going to help that coach implement this one change that’s going to give them the biggest bang for the buck? So it really depends, again, on the person in front of you. What’s the bandwidth? What are they willing to do? What are they trying to achieve? And then making sure that they can implement whatever strategies we design.’
‘5% of performance, that’s a certain subset of knowledge that you can go for. You can work there. But if you’re trying to make as many people as possible, as healthy as possible and say, you know, the students who are gonna be using your app, making sure that they’re as healthy as possible. The basics are always gonna be the same’
My mentor who has guided me tremendously- Dr Jack Kreindler- a technologist, physician and founder of the Centre of Health and human performance reiterated this view. I think with a coach every student should be using a calender which will prevent you wasting time.
‘And we live in a technology enabled world that’s helped us to live longer. You need technology to help you learn how and when to structure your days. For me, my calendar is probably one of the most important things. My calendar tells me and I build now into my calendar. You’re trying to really push the boundaries, you can’t do that without a coach, you can’t do that without the plan. And, you know, that’s a really good way of thinking about it is that not everyone can have a coach and a plan. So they can have an app.’
Dr. Dannhauser a London based Psychiatrist talked about how this also applies to be successful as an entrepreneur. With more and more young students now having ‘side hustles’ I think this is very useful advice.
‘But in terms of of entrepreneurship if you think about you know all the all the coaching that I’ve had and what I’ve read about it the general themes are that you need to find a problem that’s worthwhile solving and it’s even better a problem affects you or the people around you because then your motivation will be high. Then if you have an approach where you don’t really do many new things but you’re able to stick to one thing you’ll probably be successful in the end.’
I then explored the theme of combining digital media with coaching with an eminent professor. Dr Cameron Sepah a Harvard trained Psychologist who is also an investor popularised the concept of dopamine fasting and how we need to minimise distractions and increase discipline. He had an interesting take on how the human interaction is needed for coaching.
‘While I imagine if, you know, if you’re in a place that doesn’t really have an ecosystem of entrepreneurship, you’re figuring it out on your own. And, you know, thankfully in the Internet, age is a lot that you can Google and find on YouTube. And people who are prominent entrepreneurs, investors blog a lot and you can learn a lot that way. But I don’t think there’s anything it’s replacement for someone sitting there advising, mentoring, coaching you directly.’
Dr Cameron Nichols who is a doctor, rower and olympian emphasised the power of community, mind and coaching as well as how to seek a mentor. I wish I picked a mentor when I was 18 as it would have helped shape so many of the decisions I made.
‘Now I run a few fitness ventures. I view feedback as almost coaching cues and I try and constantly search out for mentors or for people that I want to kind of be and role models that I want to emulate in life. And I do feel as though-it’s almost like me gravitating back into that kind of coach-athlete relationship which I found so valuable.
Like Tim Tim Ferriss, one of the people I digest a lot of content from, he’s got a lovely phrase which is that “tomorrow becomes never, so just start today.”
They always have, they always do things that are better. Right? We all do, we all have our strengths and you can learn from the people within your tribe, your community that is doing things amazing that in that way you mentor each other.’
4/ Building habits -
We know habits compound over time and many of these successful guests talked about how we can change our behaviour gradually over time. It can be hard changing your lifestyle but it can be done when using the right strategies.
Darshan Shah MD, Plastic Surgeon and founder of NEXT health in LA explained how habits are formed.
‘Yeah that’s great. So first of all the keyword is habits and that to me the definition of a habit is something that you can easily do every single day without even thinking about it. And when I talk a lot about habits I talk to people about how they can form healthy habits and what’s kind of the best strategies to do it. So you know I’m an early riser. I use my mornings as my healthy habit time. So my first hour of every morning is spent on myself maintaining brain health in general and body brain and body health. And I talked to people when they’re trying to form healthy habits start small. You know if you’re not exercising at all to start with one push up a day or start with one sit up a day you’ll find your body wants to do a little bit more than that and you’ll automatically start getting into the habit of working out daily. Then you want to do what’s called habits stacking. Now that you’re doing 10 pushups a day you stack on top of that two minutes of meditation 10 pushups two minutes of meditation. Once you start stacking habits on top of each other you’re going to have all of a sudden a healthy routine and that’s what you kind of want to do.’
Peter Pirolli a PhD in cognitive psychology and researcher at the Florida Institute of Human and Machine Cognition talked about self- regulation and taking on challenges in building good habits. I have had to use self-regulation in my life when coming to exams and can realise the struggle we face when encountering something hard.
‘Well, there’s certain psychological aspects - but there’s lots of psychological aspects to that, including just being motivated, but also, you know, kind of fear responses, right? If you don’t have a lot of self-efficacy about being able to tackle new things and, you know, the idea of taking on a challenge like, you know, starting to run more or walk more or eating better.
If you don’t kind of overcome that, then you can just switch off.
And so the psychological component and answer being able to take on challenges that, you know, are probably a little bit out of your comfort zone. That probably has a lot of commonality with these guys who are elite performers. They’ve learned how to overcome their fears and the things that are challenging.’
Tom Stubbs an Oxford and Cambridge trained PhD in computational biology and genetics emphasised the importance of holistic health and why it is important to track your time with daily planning to build these habits. I realised that when we are young it is more important to focus on self-improvement and I often found it hard to not get obsessive about one thing but to strike the right balance. Now that I plan, my thinking is more across the lines of how much time do I allocate to work, sport, socialising etc. This change in mindframe has helped me progress in aspects of my life more equally.
‘Yeah, I think you raise a couple of interesting points there. One is this tendency for people to focus on diet and exercise and ignore the more holistic picture of health because as you say, there are things that are more quantifiable in a sense. And also, like you say, they feel like you’re making self-improvements in things. But actually, if you’re doing them to such an extent that there’s a detrimental effect on other aspects of your health and well-being, then perhaps the overall benefit is not so great for exercising huge amounts.’
This statement is important because it points out to me how health involves many things and not just building a few habits around ‘fitness’ but also advancing your studies and looking after your mental health.
5/ Strategies to manage stress for mental health-
An area being ignored for decades is now in the limelight and we are learning how important it is to look after our mental wellbeing. Tech and data promise to deliver the next wave of mental health solutions for young people. If you’re familiar with the apps Calm and Headspace you may appreciate how technology is helping us when we feel anxious, stressed or overburdened.
Stanford trained MD and Entrepreneur Dr. Aaliya Yaqub talked about how we need to tackle the work culture and think about downtime.
‘We can’t be on all the time. Like in Silicon Valley, I see this culture of people constantly attached to their email, to their phones, responding to every message whether that’s on their Apple Watch or on their phone or on their computer. And I think as humans we really do need that time to disconnect and to use other parts of our brain and our body. And so as both as a physician but also as a wellness advocate that’s what I’ve been advocating for for the last several years.’
This view was shared by Adam Chekroud, PhD who is co-founder of the mental health start up Spring health and a Neuroscientist and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry from Oxford and Yale Universities. For students taking breaks is important, popularised methods that have caught on recently such as the Pomodoro method advocate the best learning styles which involve talking breaks after 25 minutes of hyperfocus.
‘Am I stressed about the work or am I stressed because I’m overworking and I’m not taking time to, you know, taking breaks throughout the day just going for a breather because I’m not eating lunch at my desk I’m not walking, I’m not exercising.’
Taylor Burrows who has. PhD in relationships and is a counsellor talked about being authentic and discovering yourself first. This is the introspection I wish I had done before starting college but since I have has really helped me in managing stress and my expectations.
‘Absolutely. Because a lot of people do it backwards. A lot of people project like some image of what they’re looking for. But it has nothing to do with who they are. So first you have to figure out who you want to be and become that person. And that should be some good fit. Like you’re not going to pretend to be something that really doesn’t work for you. right? And if you are, it’s not going to work. So we’d have to sort through that disconnect. But then once you’re able to say, OK, I’m not perfect, I don’t need to be some sort of elusive idea of ideal. So people are basically losing a decade to, you know, more frivolous, impulsive, escapist behaviours.’
My takeaway being that don’t fake it till you make it but make a conscious effort to work out what you want to become and how you are going to get there.
Keeping the right friends and interacting with them helps us be more motivated and will help in times of stress. Piere Fournier who is CEO of Hexoskin an Artificial Intelligence and wearable sensor company summed the importance of social connection in our increasingly isolated world.
‘And the second thing is we see that people are highly motivated by human interaction, meaning that people are way more likely to follow an exercise program or training program, if they are part of a group or if they have a personal trainer. Basically, if they interact with other humans, when they engage in these activities, it’s really, really motivating. And people crave human interaction, especially these days where we’re more isolated than ever before. And it is the paradox. But that’s how it is, I think. We should favor these activities where people develop more social connections and more human interaction.’
Social connections are very important in our life and they form a community. There was a time I used to think I didn’t need a ‘tribe’, but realised how many times I’ve relied on these people behind me. Quantified Bob a technology Entrepreneur talked about how we must have tight knit community or what we call at Owaves- ‘My Moai’ (a concept of tracking the social rhythms and daily activities of friends/family).
‘So I think the idea of really looking at, you know, social connections, I mean, that’s been shown in all these studies on blue zones where, you know, they found where people live longest around the world. There’s always a tight sense of community and social bonds. And that’s I mean, that’s the you know, we can eat the best diet in the world and whatever. We’re sitting by ourselves at our computer and eating it in five minutes without really giving, chewing it slowly and, you know, it’s not really helping us as much. You know, we would like to pay attention to the emotional pieces.’
I have used quotes from these guests as I felt the need for me to convey the thoughts of the guests and make them ‘real’. As a young person I would want the best advice from the people who have succeeded and are experts in their fields. What I found was that there were a lot of recurring themes in the podcast and this showed that there are underpinning principles we can adopt to improve our chances of living a fulfilling life. With more than 30 episodes there is a lot of content but I thought I could highlight some quotes from real people who might help motivate you or inspire you on your journey.
Overall what I learnt and would be valuable to many people is that-
1- Life is not linear and there will be challenges along the way, planning is the best tool to minimise these hurdles
2- Mental health should be prioritised over everything else and this can be done by allowing yourself downtime and incorporating time to meet loved ones, exercising, sleeping well, eating right and mitigating stress triggers when they occur.
3- To be successful, it is important to have routine, be resilient and have a positive mindset with an attitude which looks out for opportunities.
4. Technology can really help improve our lives and lead to increased productivity as well as reducing our cognitive load but also can do the opposite if we don’t regulate our use.
5. Behaviour is learnt over time and there are many things we can implement to help change behaviour which can lead to increased happiness over time.
I hope this resonated with you and you can draw on these quotes when you feel you need some inspiration.
If you found this useful, please leave a comment. The feedback will be very valuable for me and help me improve.
Sneak Preview of Upcoming guests-
Ali Abdaal- Doctor from Cambridge University, Productivity guru and YouTuber with over 800 k subscribers. He is a trailblazer in all things productivity and how to live a happier life.
Storyofstyle- Dr Hina Cheema- A Obs/Gyne doctor who talks about how she used planning and routine to overcome her ADHD and bipolar disorder.
Sarah Frier- Bloomberg technology reporter who has just published her book with incredible insight into Silicon Valley- ‘No Filter’- The Inside story of Instagram.
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