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The High Performance Journal - October 1st, 2024

Everyone thinks getting healthy is about making massive overhauls to their lifestyle.

But most people don't know you can change your life in less than a minute with a few sneaky habits.

Think of these as having a compound effect on your health and body.

10 One-Minute Fitness Habits That Changed My Life

These simple, one-minute fitness habits will turn your life upside down and make everything better—without requiring you to move to a mountain to meditate with monks or go on some extreme juice cleanse.

1. Drinking Water Before Coffee

The quickest path to having energy in the morning is to stay hydrated. This means, if my body has been drinking water for 9-10 hours straight, so the first thing it needs is a big glass of water. Also, when we wake up, our body is already producing a hormone called cortisol, which happens to wake us up in a natural way.

So the next time you wake up, drink 500 ml to 1L of H20 before downing a coffee.

2. Weighing Myself Every Morning 

The most underrated exercise on the planet is the Bar Hang.

But 99% of people don't even do them.

Here are 4 powerful reasons to do bar hangs every day:

1. They improve your posture

Don't want to look like a croissant? Bar hangs help strengthen & mobilize your upper body.… pic.twitter.com/Ed0BHPQqu6

— Dan Go (@FitFounder) August 1, 2023

You're not Tarzan, but hanging from a bar for a minute makes your shoulders, back, and grip stronger than you’d believe. Plus, it decompresses your spine, especially after hours of sitting like a lump at your desk. It’s simple, it’s primal, and it works.

In the vein of #3, I have a bar hanging from a doorway in my office. When I re-enter, I hang from it for some good passive bar hang goodness.

5. Counting Down Reps Instead of Counting Up

This is a is a psychological hack that makes the workout suck less. Why? Because you're invoking the power of the Finish Line Effect, which gives you a clear finish line to work to.

When you’re counting up (ie. 1, 2, 3, etc..), the end feels vague. You’re working towards some arbitrary number in the distance.

But when you’re counting down (ie. 10, 9, 8, etc..), every number is a tangible step closer to “I’m done.” It shifts your mindset from “Oh man, how many more?” to “Almost there!” as if you were marching down the finish line.

6. Brush and Floss Your Teeth After Dinner

This is for those who have a hard time controlling their eating at night.

Brushing and flossing after dinner gives you that mental “I’m done eating for the day” signal. It’s like putting up a ‘Closed’ sign on the snack shop in your brain.

You can amplify this by using peppermint-based toothpaste, as the scent and taste stimulate the parts of your brain associated with satiety (feeling full).

7. Unfollow Any Accounts That Make You Feel Stressed Out

One of the healthiest things you can do is unfollow people both on social media and in real life.

Constantly comparing yourself to others, especially to unrealistic body standards or heavily edited images, messes with your self-esteem by creating a toxic loop of feeling “less than” and sets impossible standards for your progress.

Instead of motivating, these accounts often fuel insecurity by encouraging you to feel like you're not working hard enough or like your progress isn’t good enough.

For this reason, unfollowing accounts that trigger negative emotions allows you to focus on your own journey, at your own pace, and with a healthier mindset. Your fitness routine is about making you feel good, not feeling bad about not being someone else.

8. Lay Out Gym Clothes The Night Before

I needed to use this when my second daughter was born because one of the best ways to keep exercising is to remove as many barriers to success as possible.

If you’ve got your gym clothes staring you in the face when you wake up, you're way more likely to throw them on and get to it. This gives you one less reason to procrastinate and your future self will thank present you for making it stupid-easy to work out.

9. One-Minute Mental Health Breathing Breaks

Workout Tip:

When you finish a workout do a few rounds of Box Breathing.

Here's why...

When you exercise you put yourself in a stressed out state (aka. sympathetic).

To speed recovery and decrease stress we want our bodies to be in a relaxed state (aka. parasympathetic).

The… pic.twitter.com/Q887TfBhI3

— Dan Go (@FitFounder) October 19, 2023

When I'm feeling overwhelmed, lazy, or lacking focus, I take a one-minute breathing break to hack my nervous system.

If I need to chill out, I use box breathing, which helps calm your nervous system:

1. Inhale through nose for five counts
2. Hold for five counts
3. Exhale through the mouth for five counts
4. Hold for five counts
5. Repeat for as many rounds as needed.
   
   

If I need to gain energy, I use fire breathing, which helps increase energy flow to the brain:

1. Inhale through your nose, feeling your belly expand.
2. Without pausing, exhale forcefully through your nose while contracting your abdominal muscles. Keep your inhales and exhales equal in length.
3. Repeat several times to practice.
4. Now, speed up the inhales and exhales. Your exhales should be powerful and loud.
5. Repeat for 30 seconds.

Breath is a key tool that unlocks our nervous system. Try this next time you're feeling stressed.

10. If You Commit To Any Habit, Commit To This.

Show up. That's it. Where most people fail is not through willpower but a lack of the basic step of showing up.

All the planning and prep in the world doesn’t matter if you don’t take that first step. The truth? The hardest part is always starting.

Show up—whether it's at the gym, the park, or just for yourself—and watch how everything else falls into place.

You Are What You Repeatedly Do

Individually, these habits might seem minor, but collectively, they snowball into something far greater: a life where you're actually in control.

Each of them is like a small deposit in the bank of "I don’t suck today." And, if done consistently over time, they can change lives.

What you have now are small, but powerful compounding habits of health that I've used to change my life.

Here's to you using them to your advantage.

Onwards and upwards 🚀

- Dan

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References:

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2. Steinberg, D.M., Bennett, G.G., Askew, S., & Tate, D.F. (2015). Weighing every day matters: Daily weighing improves weight loss and adoption of weight control behaviors. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 115(4), 511-518. 
3. Gao Y, Li QY, Finni T, Pesola AJ. Enhanced muscle activity during interrupted sitting improves glycemic control in overweight and obese men. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2024 Apr;34(4):e14628. doi: 10.1111/sms.14628. PMID: 38629807. 
4. Smith, J. (2018). "Effects of Dead Hang Exercise on Shoulder Mobility." University of Southern California. Martinez, L. (2021). "Improving Posture with Dead Hang Exercises." University of California, San Francisco.
5. Johnson, M. (2020). "Dead Hangs for Shoulder Impingement Syndrome: A Pain Relief Approach." Harvard University.
6. Brown, E. (2019). "Strengthening the Rotator Cuff through Dead Hangs." University of Wisconsin.
7. Edith Shalev, Vicki G. Morwitz,Does time fly when you're counting down? The effect of counting direction on subjective time judgment,Journal of Consumer Psychology,Volume 23, Issue 2,2013,Pages 220-227,ISSN 1057-7408, ​https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2012.08.002.​ 
8. Reed, J. & Almeida, Jude & Wershing, Ben & Raudenbush, Bryan. (2008). Effects of peppermint scent on appetite control and caloric intake. Appetite. 51. 393-393. 10.1016/j.appet.2008.04.196.
9. Gupta M, Jassi A, Krebs G. The association between social media use and body dysmorphic symptoms in young people. Front Psychol. 2023 Aug 17;14:1231801. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1231801. PMID: 37663365; PMCID: PMC10471190. 
10. Zaccaro A, Piarulli A, Laurino M, Garbella E, Menicucci D, Neri B, Gemignani A. How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Front Hum Neurosci. 2018 Sep 7;12:353. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00353. PMID: 30245619; PMCID: PMC6137615.