“The most important aspect of sleep is regularity,” says Dr. Daniella Marchetti, a clinical health psychologist specializing in behavioral sleep medicine at Rise Science. “Going to bed every day at the same time and rising every day at the same time (regardless of how you slept that night) is the best thing someone can do to feel refreshed in the morning.”
So pick the window that works best for you: and stick to it, no matter what.
The Best Morning Gym Routine
For longevity, muscle mass is key. You don’t need to be stacked, but having a decent amount of muscle mass is both useful and very hard to achieve in older age, so starting sooner rather than later is your friend here. Morning can be a good time to get it done: the gym’s a little quieter, the crowd’s a little more focused, and you’ll go through the rest of your day with the smug satisfaction of having already done a hard thing.
“Muscle mass is much harder to build in your 60s,” says Richard Faragher, a Professor of Biogerontology (the biology of aging) at the University of Brighton. When you’re in your 20s and 30s, it’s as simple as ‘lift heavy, lift consistently, and supplement that with a [0.8 grams] of protein per [pound] of bodyweight,” Faragher says. “For a 60 year-old, they need to eat 1.5 to twice that amount of protein to build muscle. That’s really hard.”
Cardio is important too, and you’ll want to achieve a balance between lifting and running. The exact nature of that balance might depend on your goals. While gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time might be possible for some people, Faragher says that it’s generally not a sensible plan to pursue both goals at the same time. So if you want to achieve both, focus on one for a while (more lifting, more eating), and then the other (more cardio, less eating). Provided you keep using your muscles during the latter phase, you don’t need to worry too much about losing muscle. Maintaining muscle mass is much easier than gaining it.
Like with sleep, the best plan is the one you’ll actually follow.
The Best Time to Eat Breakfast
Consensus seems to be solidifying around the idea that delaying your first meal might be a good idea. The thinking goes that doing so gives your gut a little more time to get itself in order, and avoiding a carbo-load helps avoid spikes in insulin (and therefore energy), which can be worse in the morning.
As for what to eat, Faragher says getting some protein is a good goal too. Some yogurt and a handful of fruit should do it.
Other Health Tips to Live By
“My advice is always get the basics right,” Faragher says. “There are five behaviors that you should be adopting, and they are: don’t smoke, moderate alcohol, watch your weight, exercise, and try and get your five [servings of fruit and vegetables] a day.”
In summary, if you want to devise the perfect morning routine for longevity, be consistent with your sleep pattern, exercise with the aim of building muscle, and keep breakfast light and vitamin-filled. What you do with the rest of the day is really up to you.
This story originally appeared in British GQ.