All the hormones in your body are made from the same basic stuff, which is called LDL cholesterol.

But what happens when you’re in one of these long-term states of stress is that cortisol steals the other hormones’ LDL cholesterol. Because it thinks you’re under attack, and in a state of crisis, your body prioritizes the generation of cortisol.

Your body can’t tell the difference between emotional stress, physical stress and nutritional stress. It can’t tell the difference between the stress of missing a mortgage payment or the stress you feel when someone’s been rude to you on Facebook. To your system, it’s all just a lion flying at your head and it reacts in the same way in every case.

Normalizing cortisol levels—whether through meditation (see here) or from sectioning off some daily me-time, or even from switching to a whole-food diet

My experience has been that, just like many drugs, the more you use your smartphone, the more addicted you become.

he waited for one hour after waking to begin and stopped two hours before bedtime.

he always asks his daughter before bed. What have you done today to make someone else happy? What has somebody else done today to make you happy? What have you learned?

When your out-breath is longer than your in-breath, you activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which you can think of as your relaxation mode. The opposite of this is our sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight-or-flight mode. Many

you consciously change your habits, you unconsciously change your biology.

Every single muscle contraction we make is an anti-inflammatory signal to the body. We’ve already talked about just how common and how devastating a problem inflammation can be—and that long-term, unresolved inflammation is a key driver of almost every single modern disease we have.

But the strength-training group gained something extra. They were the only ones who experienced improved powers of attention. They were even found to be better at resolving conflicts.

three twenty-second bursts of intense cycling spread out over ten minutes, showed equivalent improvement to forty-five minutes of moderate-intensity cycling.

Gary’s brilliant book What the Foot?

If you did stay up late the night before and are still feeling tired in the morning, it is worth trying to catch up with a microsleep.

Managing your commotion means making it a cast-iron rule that you do not discuss emotive subjects in the evenings, or crack into a new work task, or check your bank balance or do anything that’s going to set your mind working.

do anything that’s going to set your mind working.

sleep deprivation is a major contributor to the epidemic of lifestyle diseases that we’re currently in the grip of. It really is that important.

The most common one, which was reported by an incredible 82 percent of respondents, was the first—thinking about what they had done, and had to do. Sound familiar? We all know this feeling. This is one of the main reasons students struggle to sleep around exam time.

“Genes load the gun, environment pulls the trigger.”