#484 The Ultimate Health Tierlist - 100 Health Habits Ranked from Worst to Best

Siim Land (0:00)

Everyone's always arguing what's healthy. And there are a lot of things you could do to your health. Some of them are good, some of them are bad. So in this video, I'm gonna give you the ultimate health tier list. I'm gonna rank 100 of health activities from worst to best. We'll start with zone two cardio. And zone two cardio is obviously something that has become quite popular on social media over the last few years. It's one of those types of, I guess, exercise that a lot of athletes are also doing. The reason athletes do a lot of zone two is because it's low injury, low stress. You can recover from it fast, and you can do it for many hours without overtraining. So that's the reason why athletes do especially a lot of zone two training. 80% of the training is for zone two. And I do think that zone two has a lot of its benefits, but as an average person who has, let's say, limit of time, there's only so much zone two that you can do to really fully get the benefits, so to say. So if you have limited time, then high intensity interval training or something like that, this can be, I guess, more mandatory for VO2 max benefits. As an athlete, zone two is more appropriate. If you have a lot more time, you like zone two, then you can definitely do it. I would put it in the good tier. It definitely is a god tier in terms of the health benefits you get. It has a lot of benefits of mitochondrial, biogenesis, mitochondrial function. It's low stress, as I said. You can recover from it fast. It just takes a lot of time. So that's why I wouldn't put it in the god tier, as that everyone should do it. If you have the time, then I definitely recommend that you do do it. I like zone two, but I'm going to put it in the good tier, because it's not an inherently mandatory part if you are doing some other form of high intensity interval training. Moving on with napping. So I do think napping has evidence for health benefits. So people often might think that napping is bad for you, that you might stay up during the night if you take a nap in the afternoon. Yes, some people might end up doing that. But there's a lot of evidence that people who take naps, they have lower heart disease, lower mortality, etc. Now, of course, it could be just people who take naps, they follow some other healthier lifestyles, they take the time to take a nap, etc., rather than just grinding through with caffeine or something like that.

But napping, I think, is a good way to ensure that you're not sleep deprived. So most people are probably missing out on at least an hour of sleep, of optimal sleep for their bodies. So napping is just a way to catch up on some of the lost sleep. So, you know, I think that everyone should nap, and it's not, again, a mandatory part. If you get adequate sleep during the night, you don't feel like you need to nap, then it's not something that you definitely need to do, or everyone needs to do. But again, the same with zone 2, I think it's a very good activity, it's very healthy. If you just feel like taking a nap, 30-minute nap in the afternoons, then that's a very positive thing for your health, especially if you tend to under-sleep a little bit during the nighttime. Next up, we have walking less than 8,000 steps per day. So walking obviously is very healthy for you. Now, how much should you walk then? Well, based on the evidence, walking less than 8,000 steps per day is associated with a higher mortality risk and other adverse health outcomes compared to walking more than that. So it depends, what's the bottom. Of course, walking 7,000 steps is pretty good. It's not as good as 8,000 or 9,000, but it's better than 2,000 or 1,000 steps per day. So let's still categorize as low amount of steps per day, less than 8,000 steps, I would consider that. And I think that it's a bad activity. You definitely want to walk more than that. So let's say walking 8,000 to 12,000 steps per day. I think that's like a god tier. So that's a bare minimum threshold for a significant reduction in low cause and sanity risk based on observational studies. And it's something that most people can pull off. It's about an hour and a half, two hours of walking per day. So it's cumulative. It doesn't mean that you literally just walk two hours. It's over the course of the entire day. Your groceries, you're walking to the car, walking at your office, walking around the house, taking a dog for a walk. You know, all these things add up in terms of steps. So one and a half to two hours of steps accumulated throughout the day. I think that's a low bar effort that everyone can adhere to. And walking over 12,000 steps, I would put it in the good tier in terms of just, I guess, time investment. If you have time to walk over 12,000 steps, then yes, you definitely would benefit from that. But it is beneficial for you if you are able to walk 16,000, 20,000 steps a day, then all the best in terms of that. But if you're otherwise exercising as well, then it's not inherently the most important thing to aim for 12,000, 15,000, 20,000 steps per day. If you're already exercising, you're already eating a healthy diet, et cetera. But walking the eight to 12,000 steps, I think is a huge priority and a low-hanging fruit for a lot of people. Next, we have polyphasic sleep. So napping is a form of polyphasic sleeping, you know, the siesta sleep, et cetera. It is a form of polyphasic sleeping. And a lot of Mediterranean countries, Japanese people, they do a lot of napping. But here, I'm specifically talking about polyphasic sleep, where you specifically segment your sleep into multiple parts. So you have a four-hour sleep segment during the night. Then you have another hour and a half long sleep in the afternoon, another nap somewhere. So kind of this more biohacker type of sleeping, where you deliberately shorten your sleep and have multiple sleeps throughout the 24-hour cycle. I've done it myself in the past. I did 100 days of every man's polyphasic sleeping, where I slept, I think, three hours, three and a half hours in the nighttime. And then I took three, four 20-minute naps throughout the other waking hours. So obviously, it's very difficult. Most people aren't able to do it. If you have some special short sleeper genes, then you might be able to do it. As a regular person, I think it's gonna be a net negative for your overall health. In the short term, for a few weeks, maybe a few months, you'll be able to pull it off. But as a long-term strategy, I think it's definitely going to be, let's say, junk tier for overall health and longevity. No, for productivity or some other type of entrepreneurial goals or something like that. It might be like a gothier activity, if you're able to actually pull it off. But as a regular person in terms of health and longevity, you'll be just sacrificing your health quite a lot by doing that. Mouth breathing. So breathing through your mouth at other times, other than talking or when exercising. So yeah, definitely harmful for you. Especially if you're sleeping and you're breathing through the mouth, then apnea, snoring, those things have been seen to accelerate aging and increase the risk of many conditions like hypertension, heart disease, or cause mortality. Usually people who breathe through the mouth a lot have obesity or a very thick neck, or they have an improper jawline or nasal cavities. So you should definitely try to address that. So try to breathe through the nose as opposed to mouth breathing. So if you are breathing through the mouth, especially children in their developing years, then it's important to fix it as fast as possible. As an adult, if you tend to breathe through the mouth, there are ways to address that as well. But, you know, trying to make sure that you don't breathe through the mouth during the sleep, especially using mouth tape or something, mouth guards or something like that. Next, we have soleus push-ups. So essentially, these are seed-at-calf raises. When you're sitting in a car or at the office, you do these seed-at-calf raises. And based on the research, these little short muscle contractions at the soleus, which are underneath the calves, calf muscles, they improve your glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity. So soleus muscles are called the second heart because they help to pump the blood back up. And if you're sitting a lot, you're sedentary, then the blood can pull down in the legs, which can be harmful and bad for your health. Obviously, this is also the element of the metabolic health. So if you're just sitting, your insulin sensitivity goes down. But if you're doing the soleus push-ups while sitting, then you're able to maintain better metabolic health during long periods of sitting. Now, I personally like the soleus push-ups when I'm sitting at a computer, if I'm on an airplane or something like that, I'll just do these, pump out these push-ups for at least 30 minutes, an hour, depending, you know. If you get into the habit, then you don't even notice, and you just keep doing them. So whenever you are doing long periods of sitting, then use the soleus push-up. Now, arguably, it's a god-tier supplement because it's just a low effort. You can do it for pretty much indefinitely. They don't get exhausted. The soleus muscles, and they have a huge ROI in terms of your metabolic health. Now, the ROI is smaller if you're having someone with decent amount of muscle mass and very good metabolic health, then the ROI isn't going to be that high. But for the person who just spends a lot of time sitting, it's going to be a pretty good ROI. So I'll put it in the good tier. It's not an absolute necessity that everyone should do it. It's a good bonus hack, I think, everyone can do. Next up, stretching. So I'm talking about static stretching. This front splits, pancake split, touching your toes, just the static stretching to increase fluidity and nimbleness. So stretching, I think, is an important part to health. Now, if you are very stiff, then that can just lead to some injuries. You can be accidentally forced or falling into some sort of a situation where you're not flexible enough, and that can lead to some injuries. But static stretching itself hasn't been seen to be very effective at, let's say, counteracting back pain or joint pain, or those kinds of things. You need to address the mobility for those specific pains. And even if you're doing static stretching, for example, before resistance training, then that can also actually increase the risk of injuries, because during resistance training, you want to be a little bit stiff. If you're doing a heavy squat, you want to be a little bit stiff. You don't want to be super flexible in that particular position. So being hyper flexible is definitely not a healthy thing, in my opinion, for long-term mobility risk and injury risk. So I'll put stretching okay. Most people probably need to stretch a little bit more. We're sitting a lot, we're not going through the full range of motion on a daily basis with our different muscle groups. But what I think is that once you've achieved a certain level of flexibility with stretching and mobility, then you can maintain that with just full range of motion of exercise. So that's why I think mobility exercises are much more valuable, and I will put them in the gut here. So doing things like a deep squat, doing things like a deep lunge, hanging, having good shoulder flexibility, good range of motion with all the compound exercises, being able to go down into the deep squat with your heels on the ground. Those are just absolute core essential human movements that you should be able to do. And these movements will also prevent future injuries, much more so than just static stretching. Yes, static stretching is good. You should do it a little bit, but I wouldn't really prioritize it as a sport or as a physical activity. The dynamic mobility, dynamic ranges of motion are much more valuable, in my opinion. Moving on with yoga. A similar story, yoga incorporates both mobility and some static stretching to a certain extent. So arguably, then yoga is the best of both worlds, so to say. And yes, I think yoga is a very healthy thing in terms of physical activity, I think most gym bros or weightlifters or something like that should do some yoga, but at the same time, there's the saying that all the yoga people, they should also do some weightlifting because yoga does make you a little bit more flexible and more soft in terms of the soft tissue. So again, that's not the most suitable for bracing heavier weights and preventing injuries under heavier loads. So I put it in the good tier after zone two, for example. So yeah, definitely, yoga is very good physical activity, and most people will benefit from a lot. But if you just do mobility exercises, you just do like a deep squat. You don't need to go through all the specific yoga poses to have good mobility and good flexibility. You can just do the actual movements themselves, like a deep squat, a deep lunge, hanging from somewhere, et cetera, without going through some yoga sequence or doing some yoga workout specifically. Hit, high intensity interval training. So let's say sprints on a bike, sprints on a hill, burpees, whatever type of hit training you can do, essentially getting your heart rate super elevated for a short period of time, 30 seconds, one minute, two minutes, four minutes, and then resting for an equal amount, repeated for several rounds. There's a ton of different types of hit training you can do, but getting your heart rate quite elevated into the zone four, zone five. So I think that's got here because it provides a stimulus to your body that you don't achieve from other types of exercises like zone two or yoga or walking, so to say, absolutely walking is very healthy for you, but hit provides your body a different stimulus that you're not getting from walking, which is the super high heart rate. And there are these studies as well showing that following a hit protocol helps to reverse the cardiac age, so the heart structure reverses more towards a younger, youthful state, sprinting as well, god tier. So very good for maintaining speed, power, explosiveness. And fast with muscle fibers are these types of muscle fibers that you use during sprinting or lifting something heavy, and these muscle fibers age faster compared to slow twitch muscle fibers that you do in zone two training, for example. So that's why sprinting is, I think, a more essential type of sports activity than jogging. Plyometrics as well, so doing different kinds of jumping, broad jumps, vertical jumps, different, you know, you see on Instagram people doing some crazy different types of plyometric exercises. You know, you don't need to do some special plyometrics exercise, like jump on the floor, do a triple blackflip or a 360 kind of a no scope, whatever you think, you don't need to do something like that. Just jumping up and down as high as possible. If you play like a basketball jump as high as possible, try to do a dunk, or you know, most people aren't able to dunk, but just try to jump as high as possible. It maintains these fast-switch muscle fibers and helps you to maintain this speed, which is a core component to counteracting aging. All the people are slow because they lose a lot of their fast-switch muscle fibers. They're very rigid in their movement. They're not able to grab a hold of things. They're not able to jump off of things. So if you're able to jump as an 80-year-old person, then that's amazing. But to have the ability to jump very high or very far as an 80-year-old person, you need to be doing some form of training for that. And sports specificity is the number one principle of getting the results that you want. If you want to jump high, you need to train jumping high. If you want to run fast, you need to train running fast. Morning sun light, so getting this morning UV rays of light. And I think that's a god tier, absolutely essential because it regulates your circadian rhythms and on my channel, I've just talked endlessly about the importance of circadian rhythms and how they control pretty much every process in the body. So having a well-functioning circadian rhythm is not only important for your mood and energy, but also for just overall biology. Essentially, your entire metabolism runs on the circadian rhythms, and it just sets the right, sends the brain the right signal that it's daytime. Now, if you don't have the morning sunlight, then just use something like a bright face light, or seasonal effective disorder lamp, something like that. You just need to get some of these bright light signal in the morning to tell the brain that it's daytime. Evening sunset, so vice versa, equally as important, maybe not as important as the morning sunset. I would say the morning sun, morning sunlight is a lot more important than the evening sunset. But, you know, if you have access to both, then you should use both of them. And the evening sunset is, you know, different wavelengths of light, more this red amber lights, less bright lights, and helps with melatonin production and kind of this natural red light therapy, although you're getting a lot lower intensity of light from the sunset compared to some sort of a red light panel, because the distance is just so far. It's more for the circadian regulation compared to, you know, the other specific benefits of red light, which we can actually talk about later. Blocking out blue light. So wearing blue blocking glasses, dimming down the lights before bed, using filters on your phone, etc. Now, I personally would suggest that it's a god-tier activity because suppressing your melatonin before bed is definitely not a healthy thing for you. We know that exposure to artificial blue light at night is associated with cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer's, etc. And people who sleep with a night light, you know, you have some sort of a lamp in your bedroom or this kind of small blue light or whatever type of light, night lights on the floor to help you go to the bathroom or something like that during the night. Those things are also actually associated with a higher risk of poor health outcomes. So, you know, I personally do think that it's quite important to block out the blue light in the evening. Now, sometimes you're not able to do it. You know, sometimes you're traveling, you don't have your special sleeping cave. Then, you know, it's going to be more like what you do consistently that matters. The same way with exercise. You're not able to walk 8,000 to 12,000 steps every day. You're not able to do your mobility every day. You're not able to do the morning sunlight every day. It doesn't matter, but as long as you do it the majority of times, then that's good. Red light therapy. So these are specific panels, handheld devices, et cetera. Now, if you're talking specifically about longevity, then there's not almost any evidence that they would make you live longer or reduce the risk of some chronic diseases or something like that. The best evidence for red light therapy is for skin anti-aging. So there's evidence that they help with wrinkles and skin elasticity and collagen synthesis, potentially hair growth, eye health. There's research on that. And there was a recent mouse study as well, where chronic exposure to red light, OLED lights did reduce the plaque accumulation in these mice that had highly aggressive Alzheimer's. So maybe there is some benefits for brain health. For these red light therapy devices, it's too early to say, you can't claim it at the moment. For skin health, I think it's good. Probably not like God here that everyone needs to do it. For skin health, it is a good thing.