The productivity trap killing your focus 🧠 | Archie Mackintosh

If you spend your whole life chasing outcomes, what inevitably happens is you internalize this belief of, I'm not quite happy with how things are now, but once I get to this point, then, then I'll start enjoying life, then I'll be present. And the sad reality is I think a lot of people spend their whole lives feeling this way, and then they die having never actually learned to enjoy the present. We have this crisis of meaning where for 300 or so thousand years of evolution, all of our purpose was trying to survive, trying to reproduce. There would be no crisis of meaning at all. And now we're in a world, especially in developed nations, where it's so incredibly easy to be comfortable, to survive, to propagate our genes, so to speak. How do we find meaning? What we should all be trying to do is live an enjoyable, prosperous life that impacts others.

This week's Millennial Master is Archie McIntosh, Founder and coach at True Productive, Archie's on a mission to fix our broken relationship with productivity, moving beyond hacks to help founders actually enjoy the journey. With a Cambridge science brain, a rock band past, and the raw story of burning out and bouncing back, Archie breaks down the biology of focus, rest, and meaning without the guru nonsense. In this episode, we talk about why chasing outcomes leaves founders empty, how understanding your brain chemistry helps you beat burnout and get more done with less stress, and simple science-backed hacks for focus, energy, and sleep that actually work. Millennial Masters is brought to you by Jolt, fast, reliable web hosting built for founders. Whether you're launching a WordPress site or scaling an app, Jolt gives your project a rock-solid home starting from just £3.95 a month. You'll get 99.99% uptime, support in under 30 seconds, and flexible payment options including Bitcoin and Amex, so you can rack up those points while you build. Get your first 3 months free at jolt.co.uk. Smart hosting for people building what's next. Archie, welcome to Millennial Masters. How are you today?

Good, happy to be here, Dan.

This is gonna be all about productivity, but before we get into that, I'm curious for you to share, Archie, about your origin story, because I know you graduated with first-class honors in natural science at Cambridge, and then have been on a turn to become a thinker in neuroscience, productivity. So I'm curious, what drew you to this field of science and human behavior? And when did you realize that traditional ideas of productivity were broken? Because there's lots of gurus out there online telling you about it.

I'd say it started from being a bit of a weird kid. So from sort of as early as I can remember at school, I struggled to make friends. I got good grades, but I never really enjoyed my work. I was heavily addicted to video games as sort of an escape. And my approach to working, to school was what I call a brute force approach. So sort of just turning up and through sheer discipline, doing what is required. It wasn't efficient, it wasn't enjoyable. And I was constantly burning out. I was falling asleep in lessons and things like that. But that's the approach I used. Okay, that's sort of what happened in high school. Bit of a weird kid, not really enjoying things very much. Initially, I wanted to do music. I spent my childhood playing in nerdy psychedelic rock bands and playing piano and guitar and things like that. But I didn't have the confidence, so I ended up going into science because that's what I was good at. I went to a different sixth form to study biology, chemistry, and maths was what I picked. And I started to become a bit more interested in things there. But I noticed that my ability to learn wasn't very good. So lessons, I'd be zoned out for nearly all of them almost constantly. And then I'd have to go and relearn things in my free time. And then what initially kickstarted my interest in science was evolution. So I went to a Catholic school and we used to have a vicar come in and talk to us and about all the things that happened. I just sort of brushed it off and then I ended up starting to ask more questions and a teacher suggested I read The Blind Watchmaker Richard Dawkins, which is one of his books, one of his many books, just sort of walking through how evolution works. And this blew my mind. I was sort of like, you know, this is incredible. It made me incredibly interested. And I started to get good grades. I started to perform better. And someone suggested I try applying to Cambridge. So I did. I got an offer. And then, yeah, essentially, despite getting good grades, I was lacking a lot of confidence. I was really burning out. I wasn't enjoying things. And then The coronavirus came about, so I didn't actually take exams. We just got given predicted grades. So I got in, and that's where the story really begins. I started Cambridge. I was used to being top of my class, feeling quite confident, thinking it would be good, and it was a complete disaster. So I completely failed my first year. I ranked 600th.

Luckily, the grades in the first year don't count as much.

They don't count at all, strangely. It's only the third year that counts. Yeah, I ranked 603 out of 623rd. I'm amazed that there were 20 other people who did worse than me because I did not do well. And then second Second year, again, it was a similar story. And this is where I really started to experience a lot of frustration. And this is what kickstarted me into my journey of productivity. So I was surrounded by people who could seemingly work, they could focus, they can engage in things. I struggle. I spent maybe 80% of my time in lectures zoned out. And I initially got diagnosed with dyslexia, which is the first thing where I realized that my brain doesn't process things a normal way. It takes a lot more effort. And I have to go about roundabout ways to sort of memorize words and numbers and things like that. And then just a few weeks ago, I was diagnosed with ADHD, although I started to understand that my brain was wired in that way early on. I was, you know, I had failed my second year. I was experiencing all this frustration. I was going to drop out. And then this pain, this frustration was the final push I needed to go into a state of hyperfixation on just trying to understand myself. So I was like, no, screw this. I want to learn what's happening in my brain. I want to be like other people. I want to stop being a weird, unproductive, nerdy, anxious kid. So I obsessed over trying to understand, um, human nature. And so I managed to get into my final year. I don't know how that happened. I guess there were some alleviating things. And I specialized in zoology, studying how animals evolve, why they behave, the evolution of behavior. And then a subject called biological anthropology, which I absolutely love. Which is essentially looking at the biological origins of human evolution. So that's sort of how I ended up in this academic space. And then I don't know how miraculously I started to learn how my brain works. I started to see gaps where I could improve things. I started to implement some of the things that I was learning and my grades went up a lot and I started to get more done in less time. I started to become more of a confident social person. I started to enjoy life more. And by the end of the year, I graduated top 4th out of, I think it was 161 people in my year. My dissertation, which is on how homosexuality evolved in men, and that scored 94%, which I think is the highest grade that has ever been seen in my subject. And yeah, it was this amazing transformation. And so that's sort of what led me into this area. But then of course, I graduated, suddenly I had a crisis of meaning, I floated around in a few different areas, and I ended up starting my company.

And your company and your business is all about true productivity. That's the, that's the thesis, to your work and program. So Archie, how do you define true productivity, and why do you believe most founders are chasing the wrong outcomes?

So first, I'll just quickly ask you, because I'm curious, how would you define productivity?

You put me on the spot here. Productivity, I would say you need to have a system in place where you can achieve most of the tasks and aims you have in place for a day, week, month, or year. You might have spurts of productivity on some days or some weeks, and you might be less productive at some times, which is why I was so interested in talking to you about your framework. Okay.

Yeah. So you gave the answer that I think is what people typically go for, which is outcome-centered. So it's about how effectively are you able to get the things done that you need to do, achieve the results that you need to get. And the problem with this is firstly, if you spend your whole life chasing outcomes, what inevitably happens is you internalize this belief of, I'm not quite happy with how things are now, but once I get to this point, then, then I'll start enjoying life, then I'll be present. And the sad reality is I think a lot of people spend their whole lives feeling this way, and then they die having never actually learned to enjoy the present. So that's the first thing, you know, we have this crisis of meaning where for 300 or so thousand years of evolution, all of our purpose was trying to survive, trying to reproduce. There would be no crisis of meaning at all. And now we're in a world, especially in developed nations, where it's so incredibly easy to be comfortable, to survive, to propagate our genes, so to speak. How do we find meaning? So I think that's the first thing. What we should all be trying to do is live an enjoyable, prosperous life that impacts others. So this is the first aspect. The second thing is if you chase outcomes, you are paradoxically decreasing your ability to get results. So the way I would define productivity is with 3 key features: agency, gratitude, and curiosity. So to break that down, agency is this feeling that life is in our hands, that we're moving towards goals, that we're being efficient, we're being effective. It's a feeling of progress, and that is a requirement for good mental health. Then gratitude. Gratitude is the feeling that we don't need more to be whole. And if you can break this down, it's how fulfilled you feel in your work, how much are you enjoying it, how much do you feel that you're helping others. And a big part of gratitude as well, which people miss, is, um, It's not so much about what you are grateful for, but if you feel that others are grateful to you, this has a huge impact on the brain in terms of the way different circuits activate. So being able to experience gratitude from others by contributing to the world, that's important. And then curiosity. I define curiosity as having the freedom to explore new ideas unshackled from the ego. So this means true openness. Most people go out and they explore ideas, but they already have a predetermined idea of what they hope to find. They want to find information that reinforces their existing worldview. And this hinders growth because you don't know everything. And I think especially again, there's this idea of evolutionary mismatch. When we are comfortable, when we are winning, so to speak, you know, when it's so easy to have shelter and food and a family and success, The brain is designed to say, well, our worldview is probably working. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And so this causes us to have quite a rigid ego. It makes us think that our view of the world is accurate, but this hinders growth. So I think that is the final component. So to bring that all together, how would I define true productivity? I would define it as moving towards meaningful long-term goals in a way that isn't as efficient and effective as possible, whilst also being truly present in the process of getting there.

Is that long form for enjoy the journey?

I wouldn't say so. I'd say that's part of it. Of course, there are things that you're not going to enjoy. And of course, lots of people, if you take a path that feels enjoyable, it might not be very effective. I think the problem here is the approaches to productivity that intuitively feel good, that intuitively feel right. Aren't effective. And again, this is because, um, so a big thing you will see with my, my approach is this idea of evolutionary mismatch. So just to go over this quickly, our brains spent around 300,000 years as Homo sapiens evolving in response to living in a hunter-gatherer environment, tribes of around 100 and 150 people in different environments, no ability to accumulate material wealth, no farming. Agriculture began around 12,000 years ago. And quickly developed into the world we experience now. But evolution can't keep up. It can't act that quickly. So our brains are essentially still adapted to this previous environment. And I think this causes a lot of issues. So in terms of distractions, food—

well, there's plenty of those in the modern world.

Yeah, yeah. Sources of dopamine. But then also the type of work we're expected to do. Sitting down, going through spreadsheets of data, constant emails, constant meetings. This is not what we're wired to do. And so if you try and approach things in a way that feels intuitive, you're sort of holding yourself back. And in order to unlock true productivity, optimal productivity, you have to understand the underlying biology of this mismatch so that you can overcome it.

So why you're basically saying, Archie, is that the human brain is poorly adapted to modern work, if that's my correct understanding. So I'm wondering then, What's the biggest mismatch you see between our instincts and today's work environment where, like you described it, and we all know it, there are so many distractions and in a way, so easy to get comfortable?

I wouldn't say that there is one biggest mismatch because one of the things that I've found with— so I've coached between 15, nearly 20 founders now and who have a portfolio of companies. So I've explored this quite a lot. People have different sets of problems and the mismatches that they experience tend to vary quite a lot. So I can go through some common examples, but I wouldn't say there's one. So, um, okay. So a very common one is, um, someone will say to me, I'm already very productive. I go to the gym. Um, I eat well, I sleep well, and I take nootropics. Nootropics being, um, cognitive boosting supplements. And then these people, their approach to productivity will just be absolutely appalling. So this is the first sort of mismatch, this idea that if you have the fundamentals dialed in, you're just naturally productive. So a common mistake people make is chasing flow state as the pinnacle of productivity. So just to quickly define that, flow being this idea that you are in the zone, you're engaged, time is flying by, you feel so productive. People look at this as the pinnacle of productivity. Because it intuitively feels the most productive. But the problem is flow is a performance state. So flow is where you're great at executing skills that you're already good at. It's where you reinforce existing neural pathways. So it can be great for particular types of creativity. It's a great example for performance in sport. If you're a jazz musician and you're improvising live. But if you're doing day-to-day tasks, flow is going to be inefficient. And essentially, if we look at focus, so it's a spectrum of different types of focus. So one end you have flow, you might even have really wild flow. In the middle, you have what I call deep work, which I think I define slightly differently to other people. And then on the other end of the spectrum, you have difficult, effortful, resistant, you know, discomfort type focus. This is where you're trying to learn something new. You keep making mistakes, you're solving a really hard problem. And I think most people intuitively seek flow as the pinnacle of productivity because it feels good. So just to dip into some of the underlying neurobiology here. Okay, so the, I think the simplest way to understand this is that you have two networks in the brain. You have the default mode network and you have the task positive network, the DMN and the TPN. So default mode network, this is where our brain is sort of free to wander. It's where our attention is broad. We're more introspective. It involves regions of the brain to do with our self-narrative, to do with idea generation, things like this. It's where you're sort of daydreaming. You're not focusing on anything in particular. And the task-positive network, when this is activated, it suppresses the DMN and it allows us to laser focus, start to engage in something specific, allocate more of our resources to more of a finite pinpoint of attention. And there are two, or there are three main chemicals in the brain that influence focus. So the first—

I was about to ask, how do you get into the better second state rather than just daydreaming and floating about?

So the thing is, I wouldn't say that the second stage is better. There are different types of work that respond best to different types of focus. So I'll just quickly go through the neurobiology and then we can walk, we can go through how to tap into the state that is optimal. So you have epinephrine and norepinephrine, which essentially both provide energy, broad alertness in the brain. And this is sort of a jolt that temporarily suppresses the default mode network. So this is why, for example, if you want to start focusing, maybe something useful you can do is do some pushups, some star jumps, get yourself a bit more energetic. It's why it's harder to focus when you're tired. Secondly, you then have Dopamine and acetylcholine, and they both promote focus but in different ways. Acetylcholine, what it does is it cuts down your attention span into something more specific, more finite. It's like putting blinders on. It channels your energy into more specific, um, pinpoints and it, it diverts resources to more specific neural networks in the brain. And so if you are relying more on acetylcholine for focus, this is a state where you are learning, your brain is paying more attention to what you're doing. You are more in a state that is prone to recognizing and fixing errors, and you are also using time more efficiently. So when you are in a, a focus state that is relying more on acetylcholine, it feels a little boring because you are slicing time into a finer resolution. Which means it might feel like, you know, 2 hours have passed, but you realize you've completed a task and only 1 hour has passed. And if we go to dopamine, flow is typically characterized by relying on higher levels of dopamine to sustain focus. Well, dopamine, it makes it feel great, makes you feel really energetic, but you're not as good at noticing errors. You're not as good at specific high-resolution type cognitive patterns. It might feel like time is flying by, but maybe it feels like only an hour's happened and you finish a task and you realize 2 hours have passed. So that's this comparison. You might have one type of focus that feels really good, that feels really productive, but actually it's not as effective. And you have another type of focus that feels a little harder, that's a little more boring, but it's much more efficient. So these different focus states, we can, we can simplify them in understanding, okay, you've got acetylcholine, you've got dopamine. You can have different relative levels of each. So flow, especially, you know, really, really peak flow state. This is where of course there'll be acetylcholine present, but you will have particularly high levels of dopamine. Then if we go to in the middle deep work, this is sort of the optimal balance between acetylcholine and dopamine. So you're getting just enough dopamine release to feedback to the brain saying, yes, we're engaged in this. Let's keep motivating ourselves to work on this. This is good even though it's hard. And then if we go to this really difficult, high-resistance type focus, you know, when you're learning something new and you're solving a really tricky problem, there isn't going to be much dopamine because you're not getting much feedback that you're winning, that you're going well. It will be a very high amount of acetylcholine and a lower amount of dopamine.

So how does it feel? How do you translate this science into what a founder or an entrepreneur would feel like when they're in one of these three different states?

Okay, that's a good question. And yeah, this is, I guess this is how you initiate an audit of, um, how effectively you are focusing. So if we start with the maximum acetylcholine, minimum dopamine, really high effort resistance focus, this is where it requires a lot of discipline. It requires a lot of top-down control to say, no, this is what we're focusing on. This is the type of work we're doing, we're going to push through despite how difficult it feels. So here you're going to feel more discomfort, you're going to feel more resistant, you will probably be more prone to distractions, you will probably have more of a desire to go and do something else. It just requires more effort to engage in. If we go to the other end of flow, flow, it feels really good. It feels like there's a low amount of resistance, you're just absorbed into the work you're doing. Your emotions are a little more volatile. In terms of creativity, because what you're doing is performing skills that you already have developed, your mind is free to wander a little more. So you might be, for example, brainstorming a bit more. And flow is great, for example, if you want to, at a high level, find connections between different ideas to sort of come up with an initial roadmap. So when I'm writing a paper, for example, the first thing I will do is I will go into a flow state. Where I'm thinking, okay, this is all of what I know. Let's find some interesting connections. And I'll be bouncing back and forth between someone else, maybe ChatGPT, or someone to share ideas with. Then once I have some ideas that I want to refine into something a bit more cohesive, I will come into this deep work state. So what happens here? Okay, let's, let's walk through an example. You sit down and you think, okay, I need to focus on this. So over the, the first 5 or 6 minutes as you try and focus on something, Unless you are already very motivated to engage in it, which is what will typically happen in flow state. You sit down and you immediately have enough dopamine that you're just absorbed into it. In this case, there will be a period of discomfort and you have to sort of push through it. And that makes sense because you have to say to the brain, this is worth focusing on. We can't focus on everything. We choose this. Then once you get to about 5, 6, 7 minutes, your brain starts throughout that time saying, okay, can we signal for some dopamine? Can we get some proof that this is worth focusing on? And what would typically happen is, yes, that will happen. So you'll have a little pulse of dopamine and that sort of pushes you into a state of focus and that will motivate you. So then, okay, you're starting to be in the zone a little bit. And over the course of this battle of focus, what will happen—

So it takes at least 10 minutes based on what you're saying to get into the zone.

I would say, yeah, typically if it's something that you're not really motivated to, to hop into to begin with. But then once that happens, you'll notice you're feeling quite neutral. So you're not particularly excited. It's not particularly uncomfortable either. You're just in this sort of neutral zone. And then throughout that period, acetylcholine will slowly increase. But also what will happen is as you register cues of progress, some dopamine release will happen. Keep pushing along. And then, um, I think one important thing to talk about here is why can't we sustain focus forever? That's the other thing. People who enter a flow state typically, um, are able to go for hours. It feels like they never want to stop. They're completely sucked in. Whereas if you're in more of a typical deep work type of focus that relies more on acetylcholine, what's going to happen is you feel the need for a break. And so as I imagine, you will have experienced this as, you know, you start getting a little agitated, you start experiencing distractions, maybe you feel a little tired. This is because, well, there are a few reasons. So over the course of focus, firstly, acetylcholine, in terms of your ability to release it, it's quite finite. So once you— are you familiar with an ultradian cycle?

No, but also possibly not everybody tuning in. So if you give us a quick primer on it, that could definitely be super useful.

Okay, so biology works in rhythms and cycles. So you've got the circadian rhythm, which most people will have heard of.

Of course. That's the day and night sleep, rest, and activity. Yeah.

Um, well, ultradian cycles are miraculously all these different processes, which are often independent of each other, seem to align such that we have cycles of peaks and troughs and energy and performance. That seem to line up around 90 minutes. And equally, you will have probably heard that during sleep, each sleep cycle on average lasts around 90 minutes. So this is what you would refer to as a Malthusian cycle. And what's happening if you try and focus for longer than this? So during a bout of focus, we'll enter around 45, 50 minutes, you will reach the peak of performance, the peak of focus, and then it starts to decline. And what usually happens is if you notice that decline, You then have some purposeful rest and we can get into what that is later. You are then able to reset and you can enter that again. But if you are not doing that, if you're not giving yourself breaks, if you're relying on flow to carry you through for hours, you miss that. And so performance goes up, it comes down, and then it just, just sort of stays low. And so this is for a few different reasons. You have all sorts of waste products, metabolites that build up in the brain, which slow you down. You have reservoirs of chemicals that you are relying on, which deplete. So acetylcholine, again, it takes not that long, 80, 90 minutes for it to really deplete, and you have to go away and not focus and recharge so that it can come back again.

How long does it take to recharge if you can only channel it in your brain for say 20 minutes?

Okay. I would, I would say around 20, 25 minutes minimum is what you want. To recharge. And so when I say recharge, I don't mean just going away, going on your phone, just sort of doing something that feels enjoyable, so to speak. You want to be purposeful with this. Firstly, what you want is to not be focusing really on anything. You want to relax. You want to allow your task-positive network to turn off, your mind to wander. So you can think of things that allow you to do this. For example, I love playing piano. If I'm learning something, if I'm playing something difficult, that's not a good way to rest. But if I'm just totally relaxing, just really freely improvising, my mind can wander. That really works for me, and I find it very therapeutic. So that's the first thing. Avoid anything that requires cognitive effort, that requires significant focus for at least 20 minutes. Secondly, you want to look at things that are visually far away from you because What you're looking at obviously has a lot to do with what you're focusing on. So it'll be no surprise that visual circuits in the brain are closely associated with circuits to do with focus. And when you're looking at things close to you, your brain is saying, okay, you know, we're really engaged in something. So if you look at something, again, the rule is typically 20 feet, 20 meters away. If you look at something far away for this time, it will recharge you. So going on a walk is great, especially if it's nice outside, if there are nice things to look at, if the air is good, then there are some more purposeful things you can do in terms of ways to relax yourself. So by the way, you know, there's hours of things we can talk about. So feel free to push me in particular directions.

Well, I wanted to mention about the walking part, which you recommended as a good way to recharge, at least 5, 6 other founders I've spoken to on Millennial Masters say they use walking as a way to recharge and gather their ideas. I use walking for the same purposes as well myself. I'm not a big gym or exercise fan, but walking definitely recharges me, and walking in nature as well without distractions also tends to help more. Sometimes I have my headphones on and either listen to music or a podcast or or even catch up on a call. But if I put my phone away in my pocket, I still keep it with me to measure the steps. But nevertheless, no music or podcasts and just the birds, the sun, the wind, I tend to feel more recharged.

So there are all these different processes which are independent of each other, which miraculously line up with this on average 90-minute cycle. And yeah, I, I like that you specified going on walks without listening to music. Without going on your phone. This is one of the things that I often have to push with my clients, just the power of doing nothing. Because founders, I mean, they're very ambitious people and they can be very motivated and they can be very fixated and obsessed with their work. So they're constantly thinking about what they're doing and they feel like they always need to be doing something. And that's the biggest challenge I have with most of the clients I have. I have to prove to them that they're able to achieve more by doing less, by spending more time doing nothing. So I think there are, there are, this is where we can go into some of the deeper psychology and some, some aspects of creativity. So firstly, just to say, one of the reasons that walking instead of just standing outside is good is seeing things move past you, your perception of moving puts your brain in this state of almost a relaxed type of focus. It's quite soothing. One other thing I'll just quickly add as a way to to recharge is to leverage different types of breathing. You can use breathing to consciously on demand move in between states of the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight response, or the parasympathetic nervous system. And this is very useful because often we're sort of a slave to our biology. Our biology dictates how we work. And what I try and do is give people more control so that they choose how their biology functions. So an amazing tool, you know, Andrew Huberman talks about this constantly, is the physiological sigh. Which is just, this is what it is. So it's a full inhale in through your nose and then another sharp inhale just to really max out your lungs. And then a slow exhale through pursed lips. This is, as far as we know, the most effective way to calm down your nervous system, your autonomic nervous system. And you, it's quite easy to do. Often breathing techniques are quite uncomfortable. This feels nice. So back to walking. I think there is a real problem of overstimulation. We spend too much time consuming, thinking about things, focusing on things, and not enough time letting our mind wander freely. I think this is for a few reasons. So firstly, your brain is always doing things, even if it's not consciously accessible. And it is the case that when you aren't focusing on something in particular, more energy can then go to subconscious processes, which are useful. This is often referred to as sometimes as gap effects in neuroscience, where as you allow your brain more space to relax, certain processes will fire faster in the background. For example, let's say I'm practicing piano, particularly difficult piece, or I'm solving a really difficult problem, or I'm training something that's hard. If I randomly stop and take a 10-second rest, if you study this with brain imaging, you see that the neural circuits that I was activating, that I was practicing, fire rapidly, about 10 times as fast, maybe even faster. It's the same with creativity. So one of the things I push is the idea that people really underestimate the utility of creativity. Because if you think as a business owner, how much of your progress comes just from having a few really, really good ideas? Probably quite a lot. It's, you know, it's not— it doesn't happen gradually. It happens in jumps. You have a great idea, you execute on it. Okay, maybe then there's a bit of a plateau, then you have some more great ideas. So one of the highest leverage things you can do is just produce more great ideas, recognize them, and flesh them out better into things that you can actually execute. So one of the things you can do is you can purposefully give markers to your brain to say what's important. You're saying, hey, this information here. I want you to pay attention to that and I want you to process it more in the background. So the way creativity works, yeah, I think this is a good point to come on to. So I think there are a few different stages.

How do you achieve that? What are the tricks? That's what I'm trying to—

Yeah, yeah.

Jump from the science into a practical step that people can apply in their lives. We have walking and we have the breathing, which are the two good ones we already established that can get you in a good state and also a little spot of exercise that you mentioned as well, which can get your blood pumping, which can also help.

Okay, let's walk through a totally practical implementation for creativity then. So the first thing is telling your brain what types of information you want it to process. So I think it's good to tier things, you know, at the very top you can have really specific research papers, really specific articles. Then maybe somewhere in the middle you have maybe review papers, maybe more casual articles. Maybe podcasts going deep into a topic. And then at the bottom you have, you know, for example, YouTube Shorts, Reels, YouTube videos, documentaries. So these, in terms of learning, taking in information that you want to process, there are different tiers of things. So the first thing is to be more mindful. You can look at, okay, when I'm trying to relax, when I'm not necessarily focusing on something particularly difficult, maybe I'll still watch a documentary about a topic that I'm learning about or watch some entertaining but educational videos instead of just mindlessly consuming? And secondly, how often do you schedule learning slots? Or you might say a few times a week, I'm just going to sit down for an hour and just learn more about something that is useful to me. I think people tend to hope that learning comes to them just opportunistically, whereas it's something that you need to seek out. So that's the first thing, scheduling these slots. Secondly, when you are learning, how can you tell your brain to place more importance on it. So what you want to do is you want to spike levels of epinephrine, that's adrenaline, and acetylcholine. Um, 'cause that's how neuroplasticity works. When you spike these two chemicals during the day, before and after you engage in something, that sets a marker to the brain where during deep sleep at night, it then pays more attention. It processes these things more. And one of the things that happens during REM sleep is your brain looks for really distant, non-obvious associations between things. So this is often why after a night of great sleep, skills are much easier, you come up with an amazing idea. So how to practically do this?

Great. We got onto sleep. Let's stick with some tips on that one then. Sleep is also very important. Several other founders told me they swear by 8 hours a day, that it keeps them productive. Again, I've written a piece about this one as well, rounding up what they told me. So, Give us a little bit of the science behind it and how it can unlock some of the productivity in your brain and day-to-day life.

I'll come on to that, but I just want to quickly finish sharing how to practically implement what I was talking about creativity. So essentially there are a few different ways. So short, high-intensity exercise, push-ups, star jumps, pull-ups. I will do this if I'm about to learn something that I want to pay attention to. Particular types of breathing. So what's commonly referred to as Wim Hof breathing, cyclical hyperventilation followed by periods of breath holding. This again massively boosts levels of adrenaline in the body, which says to your brain, pay attention to this. This is important. You also have, what you can do is you can force yourself to visually focus on something close to you. You know, a fingertip at an arm's length, a pen for 60, 120 seconds. Top-down control, it forces more acetylcholine release, which again tells the brain this is important. And you can repeat that before and after. And there've been studies showing that when they have, for example, kids revising for exams, use these different techniques to, um, tell their brain, pay more attention to this when they're learning, they perform much better in tests. Um, so that's important there. So let, let's go on to sleep then. So sleep is something I'm a huge nerd for. Um, and I think there are some misconceptions here. So firstly, It isn't true that our ancestors would naturally rise with the sun, you know, with sunrise and fall asleep with sunset. That's not how it works. When you study the way hunter-gatherer tribes sleep, and again, there have been amazing studies giving them Fitbits or different wearable devices and just telling them, go about your usual day and we're gonna track how you sleep in the Hadza in, in Bolivia and other places. What you, you find is that our hunter-gatherer non-industrial tribal living counterparts, they don't sleep any more than we do. They actually sleep a little less in terms of time, but they show so much, so much less signs of sleep deficiency. They don't have these problems of tiredness, of low performance. They also have a tendency to procrastinate at bedtime just as much as we do. They'll stay up sharing stories around fires, exploring, having fun. Why aren't they showing all these problems that we have? And I think the problem is quality. It's in the quality of sleep. And there are a few different things here. So the first thing is they live outside. What causes them to wake up? It's not actually the sun, it's atmospheric temperature. It's a particular dip and then a rise in atmospheric temperature. And the reason we know this is usually this temperature spot correlates with the sun rising, but in environments where it doesn't, where the sun rises a little earlier, they will stay asleep and then they'll wake up when this temperature shift happens. So that's the first thing we We stay in rooms with constant temperatures and we aren't in tune with the environment in this way. The second thing is sunlight. Sun is a huge thing, and I think this comes back to the circadian rhythm. So this is something that I'm happy that, you know, again, scientists, doctors like Andrew Huberman are constantly preaching the importance of sun. It's really important. It's the most important marker we have for telling us what time of day it is when. So here is my recipe for improving sleep quality. I'll walk through what, what I'll do in a typical day. So I'll wake up, okay? Ideally within 30 minutes of waking up, I'll go straight to my balcony and I'll try and get 10, 15, 20 minutes of sunlight. On days where I'm not going for a run, I'll just stand on my balcony and brush my teeth. On days if I'm doing a bit of cardio, I'll go for a jog. Two birds with one stone. Then I'll come back and often I'll have a, a cold shower or a cold bath. That's something, again, it's a whole different topic, but I love it. It really wakes you up. It really boosts levels of cortisol and adrenaline and dopamine, which are useful. You want to wake up all of these catecholamines early on in the day. And this essentially helps you set a timer for when melatonin release happens at night. It also means you want to do this consistently. You want that to be as little variance as possible. Because what happens is your body starts to learn and suddenly it becomes easier to wake up because it starts to expect it. Let me just grab a drink of water. So then, um, okay, the morning happens, we go through the morning. I think the next thing to think about is the afternoon. So one of the problems is, again, we stay up late, we have all sorts of artificial light, which we're exposed to after sunset. One of the ways that we can reduce the impact of this is by specifically viewing afternoon sunlight about an hour before the sun sets. 'Cause what this does is it sends a signal to the brain that says essentially the sun's setting. This means we are probably getting to the end of the day. And so even if we expose ourselves to bright light, to phones, to TVs, to ceiling lights like this, once the sun sets, the brain essentially is weighing up. It's saying, okay, well, you know, it is bright now, but we did see a sunset earlier, so maybe let's not totally assume that it's still daytime. And you see this in studies, it sort of offsets retinal sensitivity in this way. Then when you get to the evening. I will do a couple things. So I don't know if I have them here. No, I don't. I have a pair of red lens glasses. So these are block blue light and green light. They only really let through red light. And often you'll see these blue locking, blue blocking computer glasses, which are very popular. They don't really work very well. But if you get these ones that are totally red, you put them on and it's like really, it sucks the life out of what you're seeing. So I'll wear these about an hour or two before bed, especially if I'm staying up working, or if I'm doing something that involves the screen, I'll also dim my lights. And then what you need to do is, I think a lot of people see sleep as something that you just go to bed and then it happens. But no, you have to nurture it. You've gotta do some sleep foreplay. You've gotta get yourself in the mood for sleep. And so you can think about the type of things that help that. So one thing that will work for everyone is having a warm bath or a warm shower. This is for two reasons. Firstly, it relaxes you, it'll improve serotonin release. But the main reason is paradoxically warm water cools you down because you get in and your body starts to think, oh, we're really hot. Let's start to sweat a little bit. Let's lower our internal temperature. And we get out.

That's why you have hot showers when it's warm outside, not cold showers.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It all evaporates from your skin and you cool down and your body needs to cool about 1 to 2 degrees Celsius in order to properly enter A good night of sleep. That's the first thing. Then again, you don't want to be doing anything that requires significant cognitive effort. So I know lots of founders, again, this is their reading time where they like reading business books, but this way you're getting your mind all fired up. You start to think about things and then you get to bed and you have your ideas going crazy. Reading those types of books is better earlier in the day. If you're going to read, you want to read something that relaxes you. So stories, things that don't cause you to think lots. One thing that some clients of mine really like, which I've got them onto, is if you like comedy, just listening to a stand-up comedy album is great because you don't have to look at the screen. It really relaxes you. It gets you in the zone. It doesn't require much effort. And also laughing is very relaxing. It really feels good. Again, I love comedy. That's something I'll do often. So just to sort of routine to relax you. So those are some of the surface level things. And again, with sleep, it goes very deep. There are loads of very particular things you can do, but I think that that's a good general recipe. And then just, I'm sure you'll also be wondering, 'cause you mentioned the 8 hours, how long should you be sleeping for?

I was gonna ask you that next.

Yeah. Yes. So this again, there's a problem here. So you hit, you see the 8 hours number constantly. When you look at the studies that this is referring to, what they are measuring is they're asking people, when do you go to bed? And when do you wake up? And that's what they're asking. So this is the sleep period. This is the time before falling asleep and waking up. But sleep isn't the same. Yeah.

The time in bed versus the time asleep can be different.

Yeah. Yeah. And people aren't accounting for this difference. So around, yeah, around 7 or 8 hours in terms of sleep period, the time before falling asleep and waking up, the time in bed, that seems to be optimal on average for middle-aged adults. In terms of mortality, in terms of performance, things like this. But if you then take studies that measure sleep duration, the time you're actually asleep. So there's one based on a whole bunch of Fitbit data, all the different people tracking their sleep with Fitbits. They found that in terms of a, a sort of game they had people play to test cognitive ability, around 5.5, 6 hours was the sweet spot. And this also seems to line up with on average what we see Hunter-Gatherer sleeping. Again, it varies with seasons, it varies with seasonality. So I would say firstly, understand that most people tend to want about an hour extra sleep in the winter as opposed to the summer. That's a good thing. Younger people need more sleep, but once you become, you know, once you become an adult, really you shouldn't just be aiming for something in particular. You should be doing an experiment to see what the optimal amount of sleep is for you. So here, here's how to do it. Absolutely dial in your morning routine. So sun, exercise, cold exposure, wake yourself up. Then follow the steps I mentioned, calm yourself down properly in time. What will hopefully happen is that melatonin release and the buildup of sleep drive will happen at the same time, and your body will naturally tell you when it wants to go to sleep. And then you sleep, and then Ideally you wake up. So this is an ideal scenario. Your body tells you when you should go to sleep, and that's what usually happens for me. But if it doesn't, here's what you can do. So firstly, in terms of tracking your sleep, everyone's obsessed with biohacking, with tracking data, all these things. I think it's important to cover how to do that. So what you shouldn't do is every day after you wake up, look on your phone and think, oh, I got X amount of sleep, you know, REM, deep sleep, that sort of stuff. You don't wanna do that. 'Cause the, you're, you're very susceptible to placebo effects in terms of sleep. So this has been studied, you know, if you take two groups of people and you have them sleep 8 hours, but one of them, when they wake up, you tell 'em they only slept 4 hours, suddenly they start showing all these signs of, you know, dopiness, fatigue, being tired.

You don't want to, and you not do it the other way around, sleep 4 hours and then convince yourself that you've had 8 hours of good sleep when you wake up.

Yeah, I mean, if you can find a way to lie to yourself constantly, great. But what I'd suggest, if you are tracking sleep data, look at it once a week. So maybe on Sunday you look back and you look how you slept over the week. And what you should do, the thing that you should track every day is a subjective feeling, a subjective score for how well you felt you slept. You can choose how you want to do this. It has to be consistent. Maybe it's in the morning, maybe it's midday. So I wake up and within the first hour of the day I'll say, okay, I think I slept 3 or 4 or 5 out of 5. And then what I'll do is I put this in a spreadsheet every day and I will come back and then I will then add in my sleep data and I will over time look for a correlation between on average how long I slept and how well I feel that I slept and how well my sleep data says that I slept. So for me, around 7 hours is a sweet spot. The point here is that you don't need to stress about hitting 8 hours. What's much more important is dialing in everything you can do for quality, and then as a response, your body should tell you when you need to sleep.

Now, you mentioned all these about sleep, but we haven't touched on caffeine. When is the right time to have your coffee according to science?

Um, okay, so coffee does two things, or caffeine. Firstly, so there are two mechanisms driving sleep. One is your circadian rhythm. So this is a, a fluctuation of, um, earlier on in the day you have more cortisol, adrenaline making you feel more awake. That dies down in the afternoon. That's one of the reasons you experience an afternoon energy crash sometimes. And then towards the evening, melatonin goes up. And when melatonin goes up, that pushes you to sleep. The second thing, which is a totally independent mechanism, is that throughout the day, as different chemical reactions are happening in your body, one of the side effects of this is a chemical called adenosine builds up. And in your brain, when adenosine binds to receptors, it causes fatigue. And this is referred to as sleep drive. And this just slowly accumulates throughout the day. And the way caffeine works in terms of energy is it binds to and blocks adenosine receptors. So it reduces the amount of adenosine that can have an effect. So that, that's what it does. So because of this, you don't want to have coffee too early on in the day because early on in the day you haven't really accumulated that much adenosine. So it's not really going to have much of an effect at all. And what this risks, by the way, let's say you're at maybe 5% of your adenosine levels, um, in, in terms of where you're going to get to, then you have a coffee as soon as you wake up, maybe you'll get to 20 and this caffeine will have been blocking all this adenosine and then it wears off and then suddenly you experience this huge crash. All of this adenosine binding to your receptors at once. You don't want that to happen. So I'd say wait at least, you know, 90, 120 minutes before having coffee. Now, a counterargument and caveat some people might say is, well, I'm used to having my coffee first thing and it always wakes me up. There'll be two mechanisms for this. The first is heat. You know, most people have coffee warm. Heat wakes you up. It's one of the mechanisms that drives this increase in adrenaline and cortisol and taking warm liquids does warm you up internally. So that's one of the first things. And the second thing will also just be, again, um, psychological part. If, if you're expecting coffee to wake you up and you drink it, it's probably going to.

So what would be the latest time in the day you'd say, uh, you should have coffee to block your adenosine?

I would say, um, playing it safe, you wanna leave at least 10, 12 hours before you fall asleep. So the half-life of caffeine is around 8 hours, I believe. I think the quarter-life is around 12 hours. So this means, let's say you have the equivalent of 4 espressos at noon. This is basically the same as going to bed at midnight and then saying, hey, before I go to sleep, let me just have a quick espresso. And that's sort of the impact it will have on your sleep.

I did write about the science behind the coffee nap. In the afternoon with, with an espresso and then having a quick nap and then the caffeine hitting the adenosine receptors afterward, which seems to be a proven one. But everybody seems to agree that, yes, no, no later than mid-afternoon you should have your, your coffee in order to be able to have a decent night's rest. We've covered breathing, we've covered exercise, we've covered sleep. But there's another important part, which you mentioned at the beginning of our chat as well, before we started recording. You told me that you haven't had breakfast or lunch yet. So there is some science behind fasting and what you put in your body and what's the link to productivity.

Okay. Yeah. So this is, nutrition is always an absolute rabbit hole. It's something I'm very interested in. So in terms of fasting, there is a, there's an important caveat to this. So there was a study where they took two groups of people who weren't really aware about what fasting is, what the benefits are. One of them, let's say Group A, they gave an hour-long lecture, an explanation about all the benefits of fasting. And Group B, they did not do that. And they had these people intermittent fast and they measured essentially levels of dopamine. I think it was in the blood, but they might have been able to measure some particular brain activity. And what they found is that the groups who were aware and educated of the benefits of intermittent fasting, they experienced more dopamine release, significantly more. So partly, often people talk about fasting as a great way to raise your baseline dopamine levels so that you have more of a currency for drive and energy and focus. But this does require understanding that it's good for you because dopamine release occurs when you receive cue that you understand a particular activity will increase your chances of getting something that you want. So that's the first caveat there in terms of dopamine. And in terms of the effects of fasting, it varies person to person. But the main thing is, is that when you eat, especially if you have a large meal, it diverts blood to your gut, blood away from your brain. It takes energy to digest, especially if you eat carbohydrates. This does a few things. When you eat a significant number of carbs, for example, let's say you have cereal for breakfast, or you have some toast, some toast with some honey on, something like this. This glucose then goes into the blood, and then in response, your blood sugar goes up. And so you might think that's great, you need more energy in the blood. But what happens is there's an overshot response. So the body's response is to release insulin to cause your blood sugar to go down. By sending glucose into tissues. Mm-hmm. And this overshoots, it always releases a bit too much insulin. So it looks like this, you know, your blood sugar goes up, insulin release happens, and then there's an absolute crash and suddenly you're at a lower blood sugar level than before. So this is typically why people feel tired after eating carbs. So often the benefit that people have from fasting is just because they're not eating carbs where they usually would. The reason I fast is I just find there's less brain fog. I'm more productive on an empty stomach for the, the fast part of the day. It works best for me. I've experimented different things. If you don't want to fast, what I would suggest is avoiding carbs until late in the day.

For breakfast, protein, toast or cereal for breakfast, not the best idea.

No, no, no.

And what's the ideal window? We talk about fasting, but you, you need also energy during the day. So when's the best window to eat during the day? I know, again, science does not recommend eating too close to bedtime, but that leads me to this question. What's your proven method and what are the best times for having your caloric intake?

So you're right. Yeah. Trying to avoid eating at least 3 hours before bed is useful for 2 main reasons. The first is again, that this sort of wakes you up. It, um, in a certain extent it requires energy that can interfere with sleep. Um, but also if you eat a bunch of food and then you go lie down, it can cause problems with acid reflux, which is also something you want to avoid. I wouldn't say I have necessarily a proven method. A lot of what I preach is that the problem with productivity gurus and typical advice is that it's not personalized and it overlooks the immense amount of variability between people, especially if you look at things like ADHD and dyslexia, different types of neurodivergence that can really affect the way people approach productivity. What I, what I preach is understanding yourself, the biology that's happening within you, um, in order to make optimal decisions. So what I would say is in terms of an eating window, try different things and, and be self-aware. Study yourself and see what works. But what I, what I do personally is, um, I skip breakfast some days, often the weekdays. I will not eat anything until the evenings, and then I have an absolute feast, which I like doing. I find that makes me quite productive, tends to work well for me. Other days, maybe I'll have quite a high protein, high fat lunch, and then I'll have more carbs in the evening. For other people, it doesn't work so well. Again, especially if you have diabetes, if you have issues in other areas of your health. And then also, again, like much of health productivity advice, it's very biased towards male biology. Um, because male biology is consistent. If you're someone with a menstrual cycle, that can have a huge impact on the way you should eat and whether or not fasting is optimal and the things that you should eat as well.

We've covered loads of bases, Archie, from exercise to breathing, eating, sleeping, making sure you get into your focus. So now with over 20 clients and founders under your guidance and program. I'm wondering, for anybody who is feeling burnt out or stuck, what are the first small steps they should take to reclaim their focus and agency? And how will they know when that starts to work?

Okay. It's a great question. So I think burnout has two root causes. The first is that simply your biology is not dialed in. You're not giving yourself enough rest. You're not doing the right things to give yourself energy. You're not looking after yourself. And the second relates to dopamine. Dopamine, again, you know, we could talk for hours about this. Just to give a quick explanation in terms of how it works for burnout. Dopamine isn't about pleasure. It's about movement. It's about pursuit. When you receive a cue, a signal that doing something is going to increase the chances of getting something that you want. Dopamine release occurs to push you towards that. And then when you get a reward, something that you do want, more dopamine release occurs. And your body essentially has a homeostasis response. There's a fixed budget for the amount of dopamine release that you can experience, for the amount of pleasure and motivation and focus that you can experience in a given period of time. And burnout often refers to spending this budget faster than it can be replenished. So in terms of what someone should do if they're feeling burned out, Okay. First step, maximize your sleep quality. This is, this is a huge thing. And one thing I will mention just quickly, 'cause I think we missed this in terms of how long you should sleep. One of the caveats is, yeah, you could say maybe you sleep 4 hours and you feel great, but most of your deep sleep happens in the first half of the night, and most of your REM sleep happens in the second half of the night. And if you don't sleep long enough, you won't be spending enough time in REM sleep, and you do want to aim to get around 25% of your time asleep in deep sleep and 25% of your REM sleep. And REM sleep, while, you know, less noticeable in terms of its impacts on energy, plays huge roles in emotional management, processing memories, creativity. So often what burnout is, is it's not just an energy issue, but it's also that your emotions are all over the place. Um, you're, you're feeling emotionally exhausted. Sleep is the first thing. Secondly, look at how much time you're spending working and how much rest you're giving yourself. And try and implement more purposeful rest. Spend more time, um, doing less. So to give an example, one of my clients, Annika, she came with this exact problem. She'd been running a business for years, 10 years. She had kids. She was experiencing mom guilt, feeling like she should always be doing something. And although she knew the idea of rest was good, she just didn't feel that she could step away. So I made the argument to her. I showed her how her body works and I said, do this type of rest again. So every 90 minutes or so, stepping back, not doing anything that's difficult that requires focus, certain breathing techniques, certain types of meditation to recharge. And she found that combining this with ways to boost her energy, but also with, again, this knowledge of what type of focus is optimal, she's, she's had time so much more efficiently. So now she stops working around 3:00 PM and just spends the rest of her day with her kids, and she achieves more than before. And she's super relaxed. Burnout typically stems from using your time inefficiently. Yeah, what would you like me to be more specific about? Because this is quite a broad topic.

The first small step which you mentioned, that is looking after your sleep, which starts, starts with that in terms of getting unstuck and getting your creative juices flowing again.

Yeah, yeah, sleep is the foundation of health. It's the best nootropic, it's the best— it was a really good antidepressant, it's really good for performance, for recovery, and this doesn't, you don't have to sleep longer. You just have to take care of your sleep, sleep better. So that's the first thing. Then yeah, in terms of energy, some really quick fixes people can go for, stop eating as many carbs earlier on in the day. Don't eat a lunch that is as big. Try cold shower, exercise in the morning, ensure you're getting morning sunlight. If you experience a real dip of energy in the afternoon, which is often why people's productivity dips off, some ways you can bring that back again, short bouts of high-intensity exercise or Wim Hof breathing is incredible for this. Some active things you can do So have you heard of yoga nidra, a type of meditation?

Do explain.

Okay. So yoga nidra is a very specific type of meditation. And what makes it special is there is, we don't really know what type of state it is. It's also sometimes referred to as a form of non-sleep deep rest. And scientists don't know yet, is it a type of sleep? Is it something different entirely? What we do know is that by studying the levels of all different sorts of chemicals in the body, brain activation, if someone does a 30-minute Yoga Nidra meditation, they see recharges replenishing of certain neuromodulators like dopamine that are almost as effective as an entire night of high-quality sleep. And we don't know anything else that can do this. So by implementing Yoga Nidra at least once a day, you are providing your body a second opportunity to rest and recover. And this is almost like a buffer against burnout. So I don't do this.

How, how do you, how do you get into this Yoga Nidra?

So you open up YouTube, you type in Yoga Nidra script, um, you choose whatever you have time for, 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes. You lie down, you shut your eyes, and all, all it does is it guides your breathing and it asks you to place your attention to different parts of your body. So it might say your feet, think about your ankles, your calves, your shins. And for whatever reason, we don't understand quite why, this puts your nervous system in a state of deep relaxation and it promotes the replenishing of chemicals that otherwise you're burning out. So this is a great buffer to use.

Cool. Well, we've got through quite a few useful tips today and small steps that compound. To wrap things up, Archie, how many of these small steps, how long do you need to give them until they start making a difference in your life? If you do it just once a day or once a week, I'm assuming it's not going to make that big of a difference. How much patience do you need in order for them to kick in and compound?

So when I work one-to-one with founders, they will often see a really huge difference in just 3 or 4 weeks.

Just 3 or 4 weeks.

So just, just, you know, these are, this is the thing, um, in a world where instant gratification is so easy to acquire, you know, where with Amazon Prime, you click a button, it's 1 AM and a parcel arrives the same day. Reality of how long we expect things to take is distorted. If you were burning out and inefficient and lacking confidence, and again, there's so much psychology that we haven't gone into, which is also a huge part of it. You shouldn't expect, you know, to be able to fix all of that in a week. It's difficult. And the fact that you can fix it, you know, in just a few months is, that's wonderful. Okay. In terms of how long things should take. So sleep The whole thing with sleep is consistency. So every day, get your morning sunlight, look after yourself, eat properly, take coffee properly, go to bed at the same time. If you do that for a week or two, you'll already notice a big difference. Again, with diet, diet tweaks are just, you make them and then you stick to them. In terms of what we talked about at the very beginning about different types of focus, when you learn and internalize an understanding of how this works, you can see the difference right away because it is less about a habit that compounds over time, and it's more about just being able to go into the right type of focus that is more efficient. One caveat here, which I should mention, is that you can improve your ability to do this over time through, again, another type of meditation, another type of training. That there are things that you can implement right away, and then there are things that you work on long term. So to give a quick example here, People talk about meditation as if it's one thing, but there are all different types of meditations that serve totally polar opposite functions. You can have meditation that relaxes you, you can have meditation that wakes you up. A very simple type of meditation, which— there was a study that asked people to follow a 13-minute mindfulness practice, and they found that this was incredibly effective at making people more self-aware, improving their concentration, improving their discipline. All it is, is you shut your eyes, you focus on your breathing, and you try and focus on one point. So, you know, your forehead, some imaginary thing in space, just one visual point. And every time that you notice your mind drifting, you correct it. You go, okay, I noticed that, and you come back to reality. And you do that just for 13 minutes. If you do this every day, again, even after just 4 weeks, this is what the study looked at, they saw significant improvements. But this is something where over time you're training your ability to enter high acetylcholine focus on demand. So yeah, yeah, honestly, some things you will see differences right away. Some things will take a few weeks, other things will take longer. Um, but really it's a blessing that you can change yourself that quickly.

Loads of interesting tips there. I'm gonna make sure I mention some of these resources as well in the show notes, as well as where people can find you, Archie. Thank you so much for sharing all your learnings and the science behind them so far. And That's a wrap for today. Thank you so much, Archie.

Pleasure, Dan.

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