+1: #920 Borrowed Energy

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. In one of our very first notes, we took a quick look at Brendan Brazier's the Thrive Diet. I read the book when it came out nearly a dozen years ago, loved it. Then Brendan and I met at an event, became friends, etc. If you're looking for ideas on how to be a high performance plant based athlete human, I think you'll enjoy Brendan and his work. We've got some links in the plus one. He's a former professional endurance athlete and the formulator and co founder of the Vega nutrition brand. Today we're going to chat about one of my favorite ideas from his book. It popped into my head during the Q and A with our coaches after our session on sleep as we discussed having curfews on our caffeine while remembering the fact that when we routinely get less than six or seven hours of sleep, we one more time double our risk for cancer. First, here's the wisdom from Brendan. He says, I quote, I consider coffee drinking an uncomplimentary stress. I view it as a form of credit similar to shopping with a credit card. You get energy now that you don't actually have, but you pay for it later when the bill or fatigue hits. He says simply drinking more coffee to put off the inevitable is like paying off one credit card with another. It will catch up with you sooner or later. You'll most likely pay a high interest rate as well, needing more time to recover. And than if that energy had not been borrowed in the first place, this is the beginning of a vicious cycle. Let's call that borrowed energy. Now let's connect that to the Matthew Walker gem we keep on talking about. Two thirds of adults throughout all developed nations. I'm quoting one more time. Fail to obtain the recommended eight hours of nightly sleep. I doubt you're surprised by this fact, but you may be surprised by the consequences. Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system more than fill in the blank, doubling your risk of cancer. So you know what Most of those 2/3 of adults who aren't getting enough sleep do to make up for the fatigue they almost certainly feel most days. They of course borrow energy in the form of caffeine via coffee, sodas, tea, etc. And or sugar, etc. Now it would be great if we actually had a running tab on all the energy we've borrowed. Some super simple energy budgeting app like Mint for Energy. One glance and we can see how much more energy we borrowed today and how high our interest rates are, etc. Unfortunately, and this is truly unfortunate, we don't. Instead, we go on borrowing more and more and more energy day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, decade in and decade out. And then we don't just continue to feel fatigue. Instead we double our risk of getting cancer and make ourselves unnecessarily vulnerable to to all the other chronic illnesses we don't want. And wham. Our debt is due. And we run a very high risk of paying a very steep price in the form of one of those dreaded chronic diseases that are currently plaguing our modern society. Let's remember that the vast majority of chronic diseases could be prevented with a few simple fundamental lifestyle changes. I repeat myself yet again. One of the biggest levers we can pull. Get a good night of sleep, stop borrowing so much energy, pay down your energy debt, start building your energy wealth portfolio today. So how will you plus one it today, my energized friend?

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Optimize with Brian Johnson. To find out more, go to Optimize Me.

Hey guys, this is Brian with a quick little P.S. i'm really excited to let you know.

About an event we're working on.

Plan is to make it the premier self optimizing event of 2020. We're calling it Optimize 2020. You the modern hero. Basic idea, five days, 101 world class luminaries, 1 million people. You can learn more and get your tickets to the online and offline event at Optimize Me2020. Again, that's Optimize Me2020.

Hope to see you there.