There is one thing that trumps all else when it comes to getting into great shape and optimizing your health…

Nope it is not your diet.

And no, it is not training.

It is your sleep.

If you your sleep is off, your ability to lose fat, gain muscle and detoxify is off.

Your hormone production, mental clarity, concentration, libido, mood, anxiety, skin health, will be also detrimentally affected.

It doesn’t matter how good your training and nutrition is, if you can’t sleep well, your ability to see health improvement results will diminish.

Over a 2-week period, focusing on improving sleep can have the largest impact on your overall health compared to any other aspect of your wellbeing.

I will never forget when I was at university.

After a night of heavy drinking, I had to get up with very little sleep for a flight.

Without going into too much detail, it took nearly 24 hours (instead of 6 hours) to get to our destination with all sorts of problems (flight delays, aborted landings, diversions, bus problems etc.)

With two nights of virtually no sleep, I developed two huge red patches on my cheeks, it was horrible, and it took days to disappear. I was so embarrassed.

This is an example of how important sleep is on your body’s ability to detoxify.

And your toxic load is directly related to your overall health and body composition.

Before optimizing anything else you should always focus on improving your sleep (if it needs to be improved).

I am sure you are aware of the common advice, mostly revolving around your nightly routine (dim lights, electronic sunset, dark and cold room, etc.), but what is less know is how your morning routine affects your sleep.

Your body runs on an internal clock, the circadian rhythm, which is synchronized with the Earth’s cycle.

Your circadian rhythm controls when different hormones are secreted.

If you have trouble getting to sleep your circadian rhythm is probably off, and your cortisol (stress hormone) is too high at night.

Something that I learned from Eoin Lacey, is that to fix this, you must start with your morning routine.

To kick start your circadian clock in the morning, and your metabolism, there are three things that you need to do:

You need to eat
You need to get some sunlight
You need to exercise

Until recently, I would admit that I always used to think that intermittent fasting was best done by skipping breakfast.

But if you have problems with sleep, make sure you get food in the morning and skip diner.

If you do have diner make sure you finish eating at least 2 hours before going to bed. You do not want to be digesting food whilst you are sleeping.

Now is the perfect time to get this right!

You must fix this one thing to optimize your health