PerformanceProtocol

🧬 Human Biology BSc
I turn complex health science into simple daily protocols
Sleep · Energy · Recovery · Performance
🔗 Free sleep guide below

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

You sleep 8 hours, eat clean, exercise but still feel exhausted?

I spent 3 years studying human biology to figure out why

A few of the questions I've answered:

- Why 8 hours of sleep can leave you more tired than 6
- Why does caffeine stop working over time
- Why a 'healthy' lunch can crash you harder than junk
- Why your gut feels stress before your brain does

Every answer is in peer-reviewed research most influencers skip

I post the highlights here every day

The full deep-dives go to my newsletter (free) - link in Bio

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

I'm sure UFPs do contribute to dementia BUT

This is association - people eating the most ultra-processed food also tend to exercise less, sleep worse, smoke more, and have lower income, all independent dementia risk factors

Takeaway: eat a health, balanced diet whilst the causal link is still being established

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

The hidden driver here is insulin, not just fat loss

Excess weight raises breast cancer risk because it drives chronically high insulin and IGF-1, which act as growth signals on breast tissue

GLP-1 drugs lower both - directly and via weight loss

the takeaway:
- lowering chronic insulin (less refined carbs, more muscle, better glucose control) targets the same pathway implicated here

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

@thegarybrecka key takeaway:

whole foods with protein, fat, and fiber blunt the glucose spike that packaged snacks cause

= no energy crash

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs):

- Make you anxious about normal physiology
- Push you toward unnecessary food restriction
- Sell a $200/month subscription

Who should use:
- family history of T2D
- prediabetic HbA1c (5.7–6.4%)
- PCOS - a 2-week CGM trial could be useful

For everyone else:
- fasting glucose + HbA1c twice a year tells you almost everything a CGM does

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

Sleep-deprived but still need to think clearly?

A 2026 study found a single dose of creatine restored cognition by 12%

German researchers tested a single 0.35 g/kg dose of creatine monohydrate against placebo during 21 hours of sleep deprivation

Findings:
1. Cognitive performance 12% higher in the creatine group
2. Strongest effects in logic and language tasks
3. Women showed bigger gains than men (lower baseline stores)
4. Vegetarians responded more strongly (lower dietary intake)

Mechanism in plain English:
- Your brain runs on ATP
- Sleep deprivation crashes neuronal ATP
- Creatine regenerates ATP faster

Protocol:
- 3–5g daily is the evidence-based default
- 6-8 weeks before the effects kick in - stay consistent

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

Most people die from one of four diseases. Peter Attia's book is built around designing your life so you don't

📕 Outlive - Peter Attia

Core idea:
- 80%+ of deaths after 50 come from the Four Horsemen - cardiovascular disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and metabolic dysfunction (T2D, fatty liver)

Attia argues treating once symptoms appear is too late

The biology:
- Each horseman has a 20–40 year silent phase before diagnosis.
- You're not healthy - you're asymptomatic

Interventions work most powerfully during that window, which is exactly the window most people ignore

Optimise NOW for what you want your body to do at 75

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

Yes, medication-first is overused for mild cases where the evidence for lifestyle and behavioral approaches is just as strong

For mild anxiety and depression, exercise, sleep correction, and therapy match or beat first-line drugs in trials, and they address upstream drivers a pill doesn't

Treating the symptom rather than the cause is profitable...

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

What does the science really say about plastic bottles and leaching?

When BPA got bad press, manufacturers swapped in BPS and BPF, which lab studies show have similar endocrine-disrupting activity

Therefor, BPA-free ≠ safe

This said, leaching is heavily dose and heat-dependent

Protocol:
- switch to glass or steel
- If you have no choice but to use plastic, keep it at room temperature

[Gary Brecka @thegarybrecka]

👀 Pick up your water bottle right now.

If it is plastic, this is your sign to replace it.

🚨 Plastic bottles leach hormone-disrupting compounds into your water, especially when exposed to heat, sunlight, or repeated washing.

You drink from your water bottle dozens of times every day.

That daily exposure compounds over months and years.

✅ Switch to glass or stainless steel. One purchase. Years of cleaner hydration.

❌ BPA-free does not mean safe. The replacement compounds have similar issues.

Make the swap this week. 🙏🏻

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

Missing from the post:

Muscle is your biggest glucose sink, so someone who can do 20+ pushups usually has the metabolic health, insulin sensitivity, and low visceral fat that actually protect the heart

The pushups aren't the cause, they're the visible readout of all that

If you can do sub 10, build total-body strength and muscle, dont just train pushups lol

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

I've been posting about fixed sleep/wake times for months...

Consistent sleep timing is genuinely one of the highest-leverage health moves

However

Fixed wake time > fixed sleep time

This anchors your circadian rhythm and has the largest benefits downstream

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

Go to bed.
Same time every night.
Non-negotiable.
If kids, tell them they’re on their own.
You have a schedule to keep.
No kids, no excuses.

Best thing you can do for yourself.
And others.

Better mood.
More willpower.
Clearer mind.
Better human.

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

@Outdoctrination iodine deficiency has quietly crept back up since the move away from iodiSed salt to pink/sea salt

real protocol:
1. trust the S tier as your priority - those five are the highest-yield to actually track
2. Iodine if you've switched off iodised salt

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

You're 40% correct...

Molybdenum is a legit enzyme cofactor, but deficiency is extremely rare, so 'prioritising' it is unnecessary

Lithium at trace/microdose levels has interesting mood data but it's preliminary

And there is 0 science for silica & aluminum detox

Real protocol:
Just eat a balanced diet

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

This is out of context

13.2 vs 6.7 months is a genuinely historic doubling for metastatic pancreatic cancer, a disease that's resisted progress for decades

- life extension, not elimination
- results are in patients who'd already been treated

The KRAS breakthrough is the real story

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

@ScienceFocusonX Nope, wrong

histatin is just one factor

Oral mucosa heals faster mainly because of constant moisture, rich blood supply, a different fibroblast phenotype, and high cell turnover

This study was most likely in-vitro / cell-dish result

Pure hype again, poor science

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

@NoahRyanCo The fix:

Eat it's nose-to-tail:

bone broth, skin, organs, and collagen-rich cuts supply the glycine that muscle meat alone doesn't

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

@thegarybrecka real protocol:

keep the light exposure and protein as the non-negotiables

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

Nope, not correct

Waking repeatedly to urinate has well-known causes that have nothing to do with stress hormones:
- uncontrolled blood sugar pulls water into the urine (a classic early diabetes sign)
- sleep apnea triggers it via a hormone called ANP
- Men with enlarged prostate

if you're up more than once a night to pee regularly, that's worth a glucose check and a GP conversation, not a metabolism reframe

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

Sitting often = higher mortality risk?

People who sit a lot AND exercise (~30–60 min/day moderate intensity) almost completely erase the increased risk

A 2016 Lancet meta-analysis of >1 million people made this clear. Total weekly movement matters more than uninterrupted sitting.

The fix:
- hitting your weekly exercise minimums
- breaking long sedentary stretches with brief movement (a walk, a few pushups, refilling water)

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

10-minute action you can take in the first hour after waking that will measurably change how you sleep that night?

Morning sunlight hits specialised cells in the eye (ipRGCs) that signal your master circadian clock - the suprachiasmatic nucleus that its daytime

That signal does two things:
1. Suppresses morning melatonin (you feel awake faster)
2. Starts a 14–16hr countdown to when melatonin should rise again at night

Protocol:
- 10 mins on cloudy days or 5 mins on bright days
- Get it outside - through glass cuts intensity 50–100x
- No sunglasses (clear vision glasses are fine)
- Before 9am ideally

Stack with delaying coffee 90 mins post-wake, you'll feel sharper by mid-morning and tired earlier at night

[PerformanceProtocol @PerformanceProt]

@ScienceFocusonX Not true

Beta-cell reactivation has worked in rodents repeatedly for years; none has translated to a human cure

This is the most over-promised area in diabetes research