Cheers to the start of a new week! We just had daylight savings this past weekend (in the UK) and I’m loving the longer evening light. On Saturday my husband and I were having a rare lazy morning in bed, drinking coffee, talking, and reading. He came across an article in The Times that featured several bio-hackers sharing their tips. Seeing their photos, there was no doubt they were born with good genes. Or at least the genes that provide glowing skin and good looks.

Their daily routines include very rigid (and early!) waking/sleeping times, showering in filtered water, tying a hairband around each ear to help with lymphatic draining, using an intranasal photobiomodulation red-light device in the nostrils to improve focus, 5 times a week in a personal hyperbaric chamber, and sleeping in a Faraday cage (something I had to Google) which is “threaded with silver to keep out electromagnetic fields . . our home wifi switches off at 8pm but the neighbours’ stays on, so this blocks everything.” Each bio-hacker shared their own kit list, and if you’re happy to spend thousands of dollars, you can have a go at bio-hacking.

What happened to just living?

It got us talking about our own practices for living better and feeling happy. While we support whatever choices a person makes (even if it’s sleeping in a "cage"), our habits differ just a little. My alarm clock doesn’t double as a red-light intranasal device, but it does come on gently with some daylight. I set this daylight alarm for 6:25am 3 days a week to go swimming, but I’m not against turning it off and going back to sleep until my husband’s alarm chimes at 6:45am, in which case I splash unfiltered tap water on my face to wake up and be out the door by 7am. When I get home from swimming I enjoy a big mug of hot mushroom-free/collagen-free coffee, with some whole milk. I spend the bulk of the day working. Late morning we eat a delicious breakfast of Greek yogurt with natural peanut butter, oats, dried fruit, chia seeds, and more whole milk . . none of which has been flown in from a remote farm. We eat dinner promptly at 6pm, unless we’ve had a really busy day in which case we eat promptly at 7pm or 7:30pm, give or take 30 minutes. We’re vegetarian, unless we feel like having steak for dinner. Or chicken. Maybe pork.

It’s not all strict guidelines on our diet, we do mix it up a bit on the weekends by opening a bottle of wine on a Friday or Saturday night. If the weather is particularly nice, we’ve been known to open a bottle of Prosecco on a weekend afternoon. Regardless of what day it is, we have lights out at 10pm. Unless we’re especially tired, it could be 9:30pm. Or if we’ve been out with friends, it might be 11:20pm. Again, keeping to a very rigid schedule is key.

My bedtime routine involves the same gorgeously unfiltered tap water that starts my day. I gently remove my makeup and wash my face, using drugstore brands for both. I then moisturize only with L’Oréal Age Perfect Night Cream. Unless something similar is on sale, then that’s what I use. I’m very strict about this process . . unless I’m overly tired in which case I skip it completely until the morning. I climb into bed with our £500 mattress (which we love!), and curl up on my beloved £9 pillow from TK Maxx, which is so perfectly squishy and flat I could use it as a bracelet in a pinch. I fall to sleep content and relaxed, ready to do it all again the next day.

Benefits at little to no cost

What does any of this have to do with you? It’s all about making changes. And you don’t have to spend thousands to (maybe, hopefully) get benefits down the road.

Get out in the fresh air more. Stop to smell the flowers, literally. Chat with a stranger. But also it's the smallest adjustments in the way you speak to yourself, the way you speak to your partner or friends, the choices you make, your mindset . . the list goes on . . can bring almost immediate benefits.

Are you feeling like you need a change, but you’re not sure where to even start? This is where I come in! As a Certified Life Coach, I help people just like you move from feeling stuck to taking meaningful action. Sometimes, all it takes is one simple step (and no intranasal devices red-light devices).