Not rules. Experiments. Each one has a few versions, so you can bend it until it fits your life. Keep what works, drop what does not, and notice what changes.
Most wellness advice arrives as a set of instructions. Follow them exactly, or you have failed. That is not how people actually change.
So everything here is offered as something to try, with room to adjust. Your version will always beat mine, because you are the one who has to live with it.
One
Change anything.
Every experiment has a few versions. Switch between them, or invent your own.
Two
Stop anytime.
Try something for a night or a week. Keeping it and dropping it are both useful answers.
Three
Notice, don't grade.
There is no pass or fail. The only question afterwards is what changed, if anything.
When someone says take a deep breath, almost everyone takes an enormous inhale. That is roughly backwards.
Your inhale is the accelerator and your exhale is the brake. Breathing in nudges your heart rate up a little, breathing out brings it back down. So when you want to settle, the move is a longer exhale, not a bigger breath.
Try it your way
In through your nose for four, out through your nose for six. Small and quiet, quiet enough that nobody across the room would hear. Ten rounds.
Notice
Does your jaw unclench or your shoulders drop at any point? Does anything slow down, even slightly?
Let it go if
You feel light headed or more tense. Make it smaller, or leave it for another day.
02
Sleep · Within an hour of waking
Ten minutes of sky.
Most sleep advice is about the evening. Curtains, screens, temperature. All fine, all downstream of the actual signal.
Your body decides when to get sleepy based largely on when it first saw bright light. Outdoor light is far brighter than anything indoors, even on a grey Portland morning.
Try it your way
Step outside within an hour of waking. Ten minutes, no sunglasses. Cloudy still counts.
Notice
After four or five mornings, when do you start to feel sleepy at night? Any earlier, or any steadier?
Let it go if
You gave it a week and nothing shifted. Some levers are not yours, and now you know.
Client words go here.
First name · what they do
03
Sleep · Already lying in bed
Lights off, breath on.
Every wind down routine fails for the same reason. It asks you to do something extra at the exact moment you have nothing left.
So this one starts after the lights are off. Nothing to prepare, nothing to remember. You are not trying to fall asleep, trying is the problem. You are just letting your system take the hint.
Try it your way
Nose only. In for four, out for six. Light and quiet, until you lose count. Losing count is usually the point.
Dims the screen almost to black, with an optional soft breath sound so you can turn the phone face down.
Notice
Not whether you fell asleep. Just whether those last few minutes felt quieter than usual.
Let it go if
Focusing on your breath makes you more alert. Some people are built that way. A slow body scan might suit you better.
The best version of a habit is the one you actually do.
04
The method · Before a hard session
Check the ground first.
Hard training works. Adaptation comes from stress, and there is no version of getting stronger that skips the hard part.
But stress only produces adaptation if there is capacity to absorb it. Stack a demanding session on a short night and a heavy day, and you are mostly just adding load.
Try it your way
Before a hard session, run through the three questions below. If two come back rough, adjust.
This is not recovery instead of training. It is recovery so that training works.
Notice
How often do your worst sessions follow your worst nights?
Let it go if
It becomes a reason to skip everything. It is a dial, not a veto.
05
The method · On a calm day
Find your floor.
You miss a day. Then the next, because the week is already ruined. Then it is Thursday and the whole week is written off.
One missed day only becomes a missed week if you decide it has. A lighter version, chosen before you need it, makes switching feel like the plan rather than a failure.
Try it your way
Choose two or three things below. That is your floor. Put it somewhere you will actually see it.
Notice
After a rough week, does having a floor get you back sooner than starting over?
Let it go if
Your weeks are steady right now. Keep it in your back pocket.
Client words go here.
First name · what they do
06
Habits · Something you already do daily
Hook it onto something.
The hardest part of anything new is not the doing. It is remembering to do it.
Attach a small action to something you already do every day, and memory drops out of the equation. The old habit becomes the reminder for the new one.
Try it your way
Finish the sentence: after I ___, I will ___. Keep the second half tiny.
Notice
Which hooks actually happen every single day? Those are the reliable ones.
Let it go if
The hook is too irregular. Change the hook, not the habit.
07
Training · Easy sessions
Mouth shut, easy miles.
Keep your mouth shut on an easy run and you will hate it. Slower, more restricted, faintly ridiculous.
That feeling is the point. Nasal breathing caps how hard you can go, which keeps easy sessions genuinely easy. Give it two weeks and it starts to feel like a gear you did not have.
Try it your way
Easy sessions only, nose only. If you need to open your mouth, slow down instead of switching.
Hard sessions are a different conversation. Breathe however you need to.
Notice
Compare week one with week two. Does the same pace feel less restrictive?
Let it go if
Your nose is blocked, or it makes you feel panicky.
08
Measurement · Once a month
The first urge.
Weight is slow, noisy and emotionally loaded. Someone can do everything right for six weeks, see nothing, and quit.
A calm breath hold responds within weeks, costs nothing, and reflects something real about how your system is handling things. It is a signal, not a test, and definitely not a contest.
Try it your way
Sit this one out if you are pregnant, or if you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, epilepsy, or a respiratory condition.
Sit down and breathe normally for a minute. A normal breath in and a normal breath out through your nose, pinch your nose, start the timer. Stop at the first real urge to breathe. Not your limit.
Notice
The trend across a few months. Any single number tells you very little.
Let it go if
Holding your breath feels distressing. Plenty of other experiments here.
09
Training · Any session meant to be easy
The talk test.
Most people who train regularly spend nearly all of it in an unremarkable middle. Tiring, but not hard enough to drive much change, and not easy enough to recover from.
Your easy sessions should feel almost embarrassingly easy. Your hard ones should be genuinely hard, and there should be far fewer of them.
Try it your way
On an easy session, say a full sentence out loud. If you cannot, ease off until you can.
This is the single most common thing I change with people who already train.
Notice
When your easy days get easier, do your hard days start to feel stronger?
Let it go if
You are not training regularly yet. Start with Find your floor.
Client words go here.
First name · what they do
10
Movement · On the floor, while the kettle boils
Down and back up.
As kids we spend hours on the floor. As adults most of us only go there to find something under the sofa, and getting back up starts to take a hand, then two, then a grunt.
Getting down and up is a skill, and skills fade when nobody practices them. A few minutes of floor time keeps hips, knees and ankles used to moving through their full range, which is most of what makes everyday life feel easy.
Try it your way
Go gently if you have a knee, hip or back injury, or any balance concerns. Keep a chair or wall within reach, and skip anything that hurts.
Sit down on the floor, however you like. Stay a minute. Get back up. Repeat three times, trying a different way each time.
This is where a lot of my movement work with clients quietly begins.
Notice
Which positions feel easy, and which ones your body avoids. The avoided ones are usually worth a little more time.
Let it go if
It causes pain rather than mild stiffness. That is worth getting checked before you push on.
11
The starting point · Somewhere quiet
Whose idea is this?
Almost everyone arrives with a goal that belongs to somebody else. A number, a size, a routine they read about.
Nobody has asked them what they actually want. Not the goal, the thing underneath it. Well might be a hard session on a Tuesday. It might be ten quiet minutes after the kids are finally down. Both are real.
Try it your way
Write two or three sentences about a day, a year from now, when you feel the way you want to feel. Present tense. Specific. Your words, not a template.
This is the first thing I do with every client, and most people have never done it.
Notice
Read it back and ask whose idea it is. Keep the parts that are yours.
Let it go if
It feels forced today. Come back when something shifts. It will keep.
Field notes
One experiment a week, for six weeks.
A short email every week with one small thing to try, a few ways to bend it to your life, and a note on what I tend to see when clients try it. Short enough to read before your coffee cools. Unsubscribe whenever you like.
Week oneLonger out than in
Week twoTen minutes of sky
Week threeFind your floor
Week fourCheck the ground first
Week fiveDown and back up
Week sixWhose idea is this?
Start with week one
Sign up for the six weeksThe signup form lives at the very bottom of the page. This takes you straight to it.
Everything here is educational. It is not medical advice, diagnosis, physical therapy, clinical nutrition therapy, or mental health treatment. If you are managing a diagnosed condition or an injury, that care comes first, and I am glad to work alongside it rather than instead of it.
When you want company
Some experiments go better with a second pair of eyes.
If one of these touched something real and you want help building on it, there are a few ways in. Start underneath, then build up.
One conversation
The Vision Session
An unhurried hour on what you actually want, then three short follow ups while you test it.
Small group
Groundwork
Eight weeks, one evening call a week, programming built around the equipment you have.
One to one
The 12 Week Foundation
Sleep, stress recovery, movement and habits, designed to hold when the week gets messy.
