Balancing a demanding 60+ hour workweek with frequent travel doesn’t have to accelerate aging if you follow the right longevity strategies. In my latest video, I share science-backed routines that keep me energized, focused, and healthy while leading a biotech company, exercising daily, and spending nearly a third of the year on the road. You’ll learn how to protect your circadian rhythm with consistent sleep schedules, stay active anywhere with travel-ready workouts, and maintain optimal nutrition through nutrient-dense foods and strategic supplementation even during busy travel days.
These aren’t one-off hacks; they’re adaptable frameworks you can rely on when stress is high and recovery windows are short. I cover everything from travel-friendly nutrition and jet lag protocols to nighttime wind-down rituals that shift your body into repair mode. If you want practical, science-backed tips for staying sharp, energized, and resilient, no matter how busy life gets, check out my latest video for the full breakdown.
Transcript
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How do I balance intense work and travel schedules with my longevity? I live a pretty intense life. As a founder of a rapidly growing biotech company, and apparently now I’m a content creator, too. I’m working 60 plus hour weeks and at least one day each weekend. In fact, this weekend it’s going to be both days. I travel approximately one-third of the year and exercise nearly every day. So, today I’m going to talk about how to balance an intense work and travel schedule while maintaining a lifestyle
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that’s conducive to longevity. Balancing demanding work schedules, frequent travel, and long-term health isn’t about vague self-care advice. It’s about circadian biology, molecular resilience, and habit architecture. When stress is high and recovery windows are short, you don’t need more effort. You need smarter design. This is about compressing evidence-based longevity protocols into a portable, adaptable framework. Let’s start with circadian stability. Sleep timing is non-negotiable. The master
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clock in the superismatic nucleus defines everything from hormone secretion to metabolism. Irregular sleep times fragment circadian coherence. That means disrupted melatonin, impaired glucose tolerance, and systemic inflammation. Keep sleep and wake times consistent even on the weekends. Shift work and social jet lag are biologically chaotic. If you travel, adapt sleep schedules preemptively. Shift bedtime 30 to 60 minutes per day towards the destination zone. In a future episode, I’ll dive into guidance for travel and
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jet lag. Specifically, at night, minimize light exposure. Screens, LEDs, even ambient room lighting delay melatonin onset. Consider melatonin, 300 micrograms to half a milligram, 1 to 2 hours before the local bedtime to reinforce adaptation when traveling to a new times. Good sleep is not just about duration, it’s about timing and quality. Set the temperatures to 67 to 69° F. Consider sleeping with earplugs and an eye mask. I bring them with me everywhere I go. Next, consider routines to be hormonal anchors. Consistency
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isn’t boring. It’s biological alignment. Regular routines for waking, eating, and exercising provide entrainment signal known as zeitge synchronize peripheral clocks in the liver, gut, muscle, and immune cells. Chaos in daily rhythm leads to cortisol dysregulation, impaired executive function, and emotional volatility. Instead, anchor your day. Wake at the same time. Train in the morning or early afternoon and schedule meals and breaks predictably. This preserves cognitive bandwidth and
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reduces decision fatigue. Next is exercise which isn’t only for muscular and metabolic health but also circadian and cognitive synergies. Daily movement isn’t optional for me. Exercise reinforces circadian. It supports mitochondrial biogenesis. It improves sleep efficiency and reduces all cause mortality. Traveling use body weight circuits, resistance bands or hotel gyms. hang from the door pain and do pull-ups. I do. Even 20 to 30 minutes per day of moderate intensity exercise can preserve executive function and
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mood. As a bonus, morning workouts shift melatonin and cortisol curves favor. Multitasking with exercise. Keep intensity low to moderate if you’re pairing it with cognitive work. Research shows cognitive performance remains stable or improves with low intensity exercise, for example, a walking desk, but declines at high intensity because of resource competition. Let’s talk about nutrition and an emphasis on simplicity with nutrient density. Travel often degrades diet quality. The fix. Default to simple nutrient-dense
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patterns and fall back on fasting. Emphasize vegetables, five or more servings per day for fiber, polyphenols, and micronutrients. Consume lean proteins or those rich in omega-3s. Salmon, sardines, lentils, lean meats. They’re anti-inflammatory, protein richch, and travel stable. Need a snack to hold you over? Consider a smart indulgence. one or two squares of dark chocolate. I personally go with 85% or higher chocolates for the flavonols, nitric oxide, and mood benefits. Or consider the Novos bar, which I can
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confidently say is healthier than a healthy meal. Yes, healthier than a healthy meal. And it’s certainly the most healthy bar ever created. We recently launched them, and I now don’t travel anywhere without them. Front low protein at breakfast if combating jet lag or metabolic slowdown. Prioritize hydration and avoid alcohol. Carry high quality snacks, nuts or seeds, high quality and natural protein bars, dried seaweed, fruits. Next is strategic supplementation. Supplement for gaps. Don’t chase some magical solution. For
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travel and intense work periods, I stick with the fundamentals, the basic. Vitamin D3 and K2 for bone and vascular health. Creatine 5 grams a day for muscle, cellular energy, cognitive resilience, and heart health. Melatonin 300 micrograms to 2 milligrams for circadian alignment during travel. A high quality multivitamin like pure encapsulations o for nutritional insurance against inconsistent intake while traveling or now with the Novos bar I don’t even need the multi anymore. Then Novos’s core and boost during
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travel. Now let’s talk about meal timing and overnight recovery. Late night eating impairs glucose control, increases fat storage signals, and fragments sleep. Aim to finish dinner 3 to four hours before bed. If you must eat late, keep it light, low carb, and small. Unless you’ve worked out intensely and expect to wake up in the night, in which case I found a tablespoon of honey to be great at restoring liver glycogen and reducing nighttime cortisol and awakenings. Timerestricted eating with a 6 to 10hour
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eating window aligned to daytime improves insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, and metabolic. Early dinner plus a long fast equals repair mode. What about jet lag protocols? When flying eastward, sleep earlier in the days leading up to your flight. Use morning light at your destination and melatonin at night. Westward, delay sleep in the days leading up to the flight. Use evening light. Delay melatonin if waking too early. On arrival, anchor meals to the local time. Train in the morning. Walk in sunlight.
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Use caffeine in early hours only. Hydrate constantly. Keep hotel rooms cold, dark, and quiet. Make sure you pack those earplugs and the eye mask. Create sensory consistency with familiar rituals to what you do at home. Maybe that means packing the same tea, playing the same music, reading the same book. Maintain even partial elements of your home routine whenever you can. The parasympathetic transition. Now on to windown routines. We’ll talk about this transition to the parasympathetic nervous system. After a high cortisol
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day full of work and travel, you need a transition ritual. Shut down intense tasks 60 minutes before bed. Switch to dim light. Passive entertainment like a show, YouTube, or calm music is fine as long as there’s blue light control and it’s dim. Preferably stop screens at least 15 to 30 minutes before sleep. Use the last 15 minutes for parasympathetic activation. Things like breath work, gentle stretching, gratitude journaling, or what I do, meditate. If you need to process tomorrow’s load, write it down
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earlier in the evening to offload its mental burden. To sum it all up, longevity isn’t paused during high performance seasons or frequent travel. In fact, these are the times your biology needs the most support. Use circadian science, behavioral architecture, and nutrient density to stabilize the system. Sleep at the same time. Eat early. Move daily. Supplement strategically. Wind down with intent. Hack rituals. You don’t need more discipline. You need more systems. Build a scaffolding once and then just let it
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run. That’s how you stay young under pressure. So, what works for you? Let me know in the comments and feel free to post questions or topics you like me to cover in the future. And remember, stay motivated, resilient, and slow your age.