In this solo episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick emphasizes the importance of daily incremental health improvements and presents Dr. Andrew Huberman’s nine pillars of mental and physical health as a practical checklist. He outlines each pillar—sleep, sunlight exposure, exercise, stress regulation, relationships (including self‑relationship), nutrients and hydration, oral health and gut microbiome, spiritual grounding, and purpose/mission—explaining why each matters, offering brief personal observations, and urging listeners to assess their daily habits against the list. Gubernick frames the pillars as essential foundations for achieving broader life goals such as stronger relationships, business success, and financial security, and encourages listeners to use the list as a daily guide for continuous health optimization.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today I want to talk about health. Remember, here at No Days Off, we are striving to get better at things every single day. We're going to talk about health because I want all of our listeners to be improving their health in some capacity each and every day, be it taking a minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes to be more active or to read something that helps you better understand something health-related. Maybe to introduce some sort of new exercise or new nutrient or whatever it may be. The idea here is get healthier every day. And I feel very firmly about this. Because we are striving to accomplish so many things in our life, you know, be it building bigger relationships, bigger businesses, creating greater wealth and financial security. None of that stuff gets done unless we are living the healthiest versions of ourselves. None of that matters if we don't take care of priority one, which is our health. Okay, so we're going to dive into health. And I want to reference something that Dr. Andrew Huberman posted recently. Dr. Huberman, Huberman, very well-known Stanford professor and doc that you can listen to his podcast. It's amazing. He posted something on his social media the other day, and I wanted to run through it almost as a reminder for the No Days Off Nation around these things that, that Dr. Huberman calls his 9 pillars of mental and physical health. It's a reminder because we've talked about virtually all of these pillars in different episodes. So today should just be a refresher. And we'll dive a little deeper on a couple of these areas. So Dr. Huberman's 9 pillars of mental and physical health, in no particular order. Number 1, sleep. Sleep. I bet that if you asked him to rank these things, sleep would be right at the top. All of them are important. But we all know the value of sleep, which is great. The studies will show you right now that year over year, comparing, say, '23 to '24, '22 to '23, and '21 to '22, there's actually been an increase in the number of minutes that individuals are sleeping. It's more prevalent in younger generations than it is older. In other words, the younger generations are buying into this concept that sleep matters. More so than their parents, but their parents are still getting it. So we're seeing improvement in terms of number of minutes slept, as well as time that individuals are going to bed. Bottom line is sleep is a critical pillar of mental and physical health. I don't know if we have to look at all, all that much research. Uh, you can go to bed early and sleep 8 hours. You can go to bed later and sleep 5.5, 6 hours, Tell me which version of you is better. To me, that's enough research. So number 1, sleep. Number 2, sunlight. Sunlight. I think this one is— me personally, I think this is right at the top of the list. And again, I bet Huberman would say the same. Sleep's up there, but sunlight, getting sunlight. Why? Why do you need sunlight? Well, Huberman will tell you that light exposure regulates your body's internal clock, your circadian rhythm, all of that. It also influences hormonal and neurotransmitter levels. So natural light, especially exposure to sunlight, promotes optimal health and performance. So I'm here in Arizona, we have a bit more sunlight than most, but even right now, right, we're here, we are in, you in the dead of winter still. Many of you listening, the sun is coming up at, you know, 9 o'clock and going down at 4 o'clock right now. So there's not a lot of sun, it's cold, doesn't feel great. You still got to get outside. You still got to get outside. I would recommend getting outside early in the morning when the sun's coming up. Getting exposure to that sunlight is going to be the best sunlight you're going to get. It's going to make the most impactful, optimal health impact that I think you could have. And so you want to get out there, you got to get out there and get some sun. Being inside again, spend all day inside, spend all day outside, compare those two days. Tell me which one makes you feel better the day after. You know the answer. Going back to Dr. Huberman's list, he's got sleep, he's got sunlight. Number 3, exercise. Remember, this is his 9 pillars of mental and physical health. Exercise. We won't dive too deep there. Bottom line, being active is going to boost your physical and your mental health. Number 4, stress regulation. We haven't talked all that much about stress regulation at No Days Off, and I think I need to spend some more time here because most of my listeners, again, The, the intention is to get better every single day. There comes with that a degree of stress, which is not necessarily unhealthy, but the desire to get better every day, you know, the drivers that are getting after something like that, odds are you've got to manage your stress a bit more purposefully as well. Dr. Huberman says regulating stress is significant in terms of your mental and physical health. I think we could all agree on that. Breathwork and things of that nature are things that are things you ought to consider. Number 5, relationships, which includes relationships to yourself. Relationships. We talked not too long ago about a Harvard study that more or less showed the key to happiness. When you study those that have lived happy lives, the key to happiness ultimately came back to your, your, your relationships, your social circle, how you are communicating or collaborating with people. Relationships are critical. Number 6, nutrients. I think this is pretty broad in terms of its definition. I think nutrients probably incorporates hydration. If it doesn't, I would add hydration to this list. But I think nutrients, meaning the food you're consuming, as well as additional supplements, the quantity, the quality, the timing, and I'm going to throw hydration under this one. This falls under Dr. Huberman's 9 Pillars of Mental and Physical Health. Number 7, oral health and gut microbiome. Oral health and gut microbiome. I am not an expert in any of these, but I'm especially not an expert in oral health and, and gut microbiome. But, um, I do have some new experience specifically with gut as I went through some tests a few months back, and I've been on a protocol. We're going to be talking about it in the future, about GI and improving your GI and how it impacts— how gut microbiome impacts your overall health. Oral health as well. Number 8, spiritual grounding. Spiritual grounding. So Spirituality: 9 Pillars of Mental and Physical Health. He's not going to guide you to go, you know, to do anything specific. With your spirituality other than be seeking. You know, I, again, some of us have a closer relationship, say, to religion or a, you know, or God. Others, you know, those are not topics that, that are important to you, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a degree of spirituality or definition of spirituality that doesn't work. So in terms of pillars of mental and physical health, Spirituality, spiritual groundings right there. Then number 9 in the 9 pillars of mental and physical health according to Dr. Huberman, purpose slash mission. So really your purpose, why you do what you do, your mission, what you're aiming to accomplish, your vision, where are you going, right? These things, having a purpose, having clarity around what gets you out of bed and why you do what you do falls on these 9 pillars of mental and physical health. So the idea here today in sharing this, as I run through this list, and I'm going to run through it one, one more time real quick: sleep, sunlight, exercise, stress regulation, relationships, nutrients, oral/GI or gut microbiome, Spirituality. And lastly, purpose/mission. These are the 9 pillars of mental and physical health as according to Dr. Huberman. I love this list. This list should be up in front of you. And you should be asking yourself each day, did I get some sunlight? How was my sleep? Did I get some exercise? You know, was I active? What have I done to manage my stress? Hey, how are my key relationships? You know, what's my food, my nutrients? How am I in touch with my spirituality? What's my purpose, mission? You know, then that oral health and gut microbiome, I think it's more specific, but something for you to investigate. So let this list from Dr. Huberman, a brilliant, brilliant doc who understands health at a very, very deep level, let this list serve as a guide for you as in terms of the 9 pillars that should be success— or I'm sorry, sorry, should lead to your mental and physical health. Optimization. This list, let it serve as a guide. Have it in front of you. Start taking action today. That's all I have. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
