10 Lessons from the World's Most Optimised Human (And the 3 I'm Actually Implementing)

Read time: 6 minutes

Hey welcome back,

Last week, we explored my psychedelic trip that enabled me to uncover incredible insights on my personal life and business.

​You can read that (and all past issues, here).

By the way, if you're finding these insights helpful, I've started collecting all these tools, resources, and one-sheets in the ever-growing 'Science of Success' vault. Check it out here for additional materials on today's topic and more.

Today, I want to share something that completely changed my approach to health and optimisation: a conversation with Bryan Johnson, the entrepreneur who has turned his body into the world's most advanced biohacking experiment.

Meeting Humanity's "Don't Die" Prototype

A few days ago, I sat down with Bryan Johnson – a man who has positioned himself as humanity's first "don't die prototype." He's achieved biomarkers that would make a 25-year-old jealous and quite literally reversed his biological age through obsessive optimisation.

What struck me wasn't just his 44 beats-per-minute resting heart rate or his perfect sleep scores. It was how he's transformed health from guesswork into precise science. Here are the 10 most profound insights he shared with me:

1. Your Resting Heart Rate Is Your Life Dashboard

Bryan measures his resting heart rate before bed every night – it's his ultimate accountability partner. As he explained, this single metric reveals everything: stress levels, diet quality, alcohol consumption, and "late night debauchery." Everything that increases your heart rate before bed is bad; everything that lowers it is good.

2. Perfect Sleep Requires Military Precision

Bryan achieved 8 months of perfect sleep by treating bedtime with religious consistency – going to bed within one minute of 8:29 PM every night. His protocol includes no meals 4+ hours before bed, 60-minute wind-down routines, and addressing different internal "personas" (Ambitious Brian, Anxious Brian) before sleep.

3. Poor Sleep Is Like Traumatic Brain Injury

The costs of bad sleep are devastating: 4 hours or less stops cancer surveillance by 73%, reduces willpower by 90%, and increases S100B proteins to traumatic brain injury levels. One bad night isn't "fine" – it's literal brain damage.

4. Everything Has a Measurable Cost

Bryan has quantified how specific behaviours affect his metrics: stress increases heart rate 5-25 beats per minute, a 5 pm meal costs him exactly 7 beats and 30% sleep quality, and international travel increases ageing speed by 30%.

5. Biological Age Trumps Chronological Age

Different organs age at different rates. Bryan's left ear is biologically 64 (he's 47), his heart is mid-30s, his diaphragm is 18. You can literally reverse ageing in specific organ systems through optimisation.

6. Environmental Toxins Are Everywhere

From heavy metals in chocolate to airplane blue light exposure, hidden toxins accumulate quickly. Bryan has identified serving size deceptions and unexpected caffeine sources (dark chocolate contains 25mg per serving) that sabotage optimisation efforts.

7. International Travel Wrecks Your Health

Even with Bryan's exceptional resilience, international travel effects linger for weeks. He's "very, very picky" about international destinations due to the significant health costs – ageing acceleration and weeks of recovery time.

8. Genetics Aren't Destiny

Despite having "average genetics," Bryan achieves exceptional results through measurement and optimisation. Individual responses vary, making personal data tracking essential rather than following generic advice.

9. Health Is Social

As Bryan puts it, "we do what other people do." Lasting optimisation requires supportive communities. His analogy: pushing someone into water fails, but bringing a friend who can swim works best.

10. Competition Drives Optimisation

Bryan has created an Olympic-style leaderboard for longevity, transforming health into a competitive system that motivates through power, status, and ranking – few things excite humans more than competitive achievement.

The 3 Things I'm Actually Implementing

While Bryan's protocols are fascinating, I've chosen to focus on three practical changes that deliver maximum impact:

1. Phone Goes Downstairs Before Bed

Inspired by Bryan's sleep optimisation, I removed my phone from the bedroom entirely. No more mindless scrolling when I should be winding down. No more blue light disrupting my sleep architecture.

The first week was harder than I expected – I'd reach for my phone automatically and feel panic when it wasn't there. That reaction alone revealed my addiction level.

Using Bryan's metric, my resting heart rate before bed dropped by an average of 8 beats per minute.

2. No Phone for the First Hour of the Day

Instead of starting my morning reactively, I now begin with intention. I meditate for 10 minutes, do light stretching, and set my priorities before engaging with the digital world.

I've adopted a version of Bryan's "persona check-in" for mornings, addressing different aspects of myself before external inputs flood in.

The difference is remarkable. I feel more centred, more proactive, and less scattered throughout the day.

3. Deleting Twitter from My Phone

I kept Twitter accessible on my laptop for business purposes, but removed the ability to scroll mindlessly throughout the day.

The result? I reclaimed hours of mental bandwidth I didn't realise I was losing. Without constant dopamine hits from social media, my attention span for deep work has dramatically improved.

Social media toxicity is as real as Bryan's environmental toxins – creating chronic stress responses we've normalised.

Bonus: Tracking My Resting Heart Rate

Following Bryan's lead, I now track my resting heart rate as a daily accountability metric. When I implemented my three phone rules, my average dropped from 68 to 59 beats per minute.

This isn't just a number – it represents a fundamental shift in my nervous system's baseline state. Lower resting heart rate correlates with better sleep, improved stress resilience, and enhanced cognitive function.

The Compound Effect

Each change seems small in isolation, but together they create "compound optimisation" – small improvements that multiply and reinforce each other.

Better sleep leads to better decision-making. Better decision-making leads to lower stress. Lower stress leads to better sleep. The cycle becomes self-reinforcing.

As Bryan demonstrated, everything you do either moves you toward or away from optimal health. There's no neutral.

A Question to Carry Forward

As you move into your week, I invite you to consider:

Which of Bryan's insights resonates most with you, and what's one small change you could make to start quantifying your optimisation efforts?

Remember, as Bryan proves, genetics aren't destiny – consistent measurement and optimisation can overcome genetic limitations. Your body is constantly giving you feedback. The question is whether you're listening.

Until Thursday,

Dan

P.S. If you experiment with any of these protocols or start tracking your resting heart rate, I'd love to hear what you discover. Sometimes the smallest changes create the most profound shifts.

SOS (Science of Success) Curated:

LinkedIn of the week: Company culture isn’t about pizza Fridays, branded hoodies, or ping pong tables.​

Podcast of the week: Improving Health With Stronger Brain-Body Connection​

My Tweet of the week: Mistakes aren't proof of inadequacy; they are proof of attempt.​

Evening Use of Light-Emitting eReaders Negatively Affects Sleep

A rigorous study from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital provides scientific validation for the phone boundaries I've implemented.

Researchers Anne-Marie Chang and colleagues studied participants who used light-emitting eReaders (smartphones, tablets) before bed versus those who read printed books. The results were striking:

Participants using screens before bed took significantly longer to fall asleep, had reduced evening sleepiness, and showed suppressed melatonin production. Most importantly, their circadian rhythms were delayed, and they experienced reduced next-morning alertness compared to those who read printed books.

This study demonstrates that nighttime screen use doesn't just disrupt sleep onset – it fundamentally alters your biological clock and impairs cognitive function the following day.

The research provides concrete evidence for why removing phones from bedrooms creates such dramatic improvements in sleep quality and daily performance. It's not just about blue light exposure – screens create a cascade of physiological disruptions that persist well beyond the moment you put the device down.

For those implementing Bryan Johnson-style optimization, this study reinforces that evening screen avoidance isn't optional – it's essential for maintaining the circadian consistency that enables peak performance.

The science is clear: if you want to optimize your sleep and next-day alertness, your bedroom needs to be a screen-free zone.

​Source: https://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1232​

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1-1 Coaching with Dan

In my goal to help more entrepreneurs/people who are looking to level up their careers, I've just started taking 1-1 consulting calls (only 1 a week)

Why book a call? Some of my expertise/success:

I've built 5 startups. 1 win, 1 fail, and 3 still going.

E-Commerce: Heights — with revenue over $15M a year.

Community: Foundrs, one of the UK's top founder communities

Podcasting: Leaders Media - bootstrapped media company that makes the UK's top business podcasts, Secret Leaders, with over 50M downloads.

Health/Mental Health: Managed to overcome burnout, insomnia, depression & anxiety in pursuit of success as I talk about in my interview with Steven Bartlett on Diary of a CEO​

Angel Investing: I've invested in over 90 startups

Coached & Mentored: Certified coach & done lots of mentoring

Personal Brand: Have grown to 178k on LinkedIn and X (Twitter) in the past 12 months

So if you're interested in booking a session with me to talk all things business or building a personal brand, book for 30-minutes or 45-minutes. (limited spots).

Science of Success Vault

I'm building a vault of valuable tools, resources, and one sheets that I hope help you succeed.

These will be stored in the ever-growing 'Science of Success' vault — you can always access that here

Want to take your success (even more) seriously? 👇​
🧠 Fuel your brain and feed your gut, try Heights here (use code 'SOSDMS' for 15% off your first month of any subscription

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