Cherry Season, Strength Training after 30, and High-Quality Sleep

Welcome to HyperFocus Health, my weekly newsletter where I reveal the best of health and human performance for people with ADHD.

Here’s what we’ll cover today:

• The health benefits of cherries

• Strength training and building muscle

• Tips on improving your sleep

Eat Cherries:

Improve Sleep, Reduce Inflammation, and More.

A 2018 meta-analysis found that cherries (of all kinds) have a lot of health benefits.

The review looked at 29 studies on cherries - 20 on tart cherries, 7 on sweet cherries, 2 unspecified.

Here are the highlights:

1. Decreased oxidative stress and inflammation

2. Improved exercise recovery and lowered blood pressure

3. Reduce arthritis symptoms

4. Improved sleep quality

What’s also interesting is that cherries were found to decrease hemoglobin A1C (a biomarker for measuring long-term blood sugar levels), and VLDL (very-low-density-lipoprotein - aka “bad” cholesterol).

Since it was a meta-analysis, a specific amount wasn’t directly referenced, but who needs that? All we need to know is that cherries are a whole food packed with polyphenols, vitamins and minerals, fiber, and healthy sugars. Eat em.

Strength Training and Building Muscle

As we stride into our 30’s and beyond, all kinds of things start happening: decline in testosterone production, reduced muscle mass, strength, and power, the body can stiffen up, we don’t recover as quickly, and on and on. Yikes.

One of the greatest predicters of healthspan and lifespan is “functional” muscle and strength, as Dr. Peter Attia puts it. You don’t have to be a strength athlete, but you do need to maintain a basic level of total body strength, so you don’t develop chronic pain or fall and break yourself later in life.

Of course, the decline doesn’t have to be as rapid as many of your out of shape co-workers would have you believe. You just have to switch up your mindset and approach to training.

Basics of building and maintaining muscle after 30:

• Train at least 2x/week - All muscle groups - this is non-negotiable. The body will adapt, for better or worse, to the stimulus placed upon it. No stimulus, no adaption. You will get weaker, and you will lose muscle.

• Use compound lifts - Think barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, bodyweight - basically any movement that targets multiple muscle groups such as deadlifts, squats, and pressing and pulling movements. (Hot take - Due to risk/reward, I actually don’t like barbell deadlifts of back squats for most average people.)

• Progressive Overload - You should always be moving up (as long as it’s safe). Increasing the number of reps, the weight being moved, reducing rest time, etc. Again, the body wants to adapt and grow. Don’t let it stagnate.

• Never Skip Leg Day(s) - It should go without saying that training your legs via squat and hip hinge patterns should be a pillar of your weekly training. Get away from the bar and play with variations like split squats, lunges, single leg deadlifts and squats - there’s so much to choose from. You’ll thank me later.

• Eat your Protein - this one is getting a lot of attention these days and for good reason - sarcopenia (the loss of muscle) - increases naturally with age. Eating protein helps to preserve all that muscle you’ve fought so hard for. So eat up.

• Sleep…

Tips to Reliably Improve Sleep Quality

If you’re a human, you need sleep. Turns out, 7-9 hours of sleep is the magic range basically all people should strive for. As someone who has prioritized high quality sleep for at least the last 5 years and now living with an amazing 10-month-old baby, let me tell you… There’s a huge performance gap (cognitive, physical, emotional, etc.) between good sleep and bad sleep.

Just to drill this home, here are some benefits of good sleep:

1. Improved cognitive function

2. Healthier heart

3. Weight management

4. Reduced inflammation and stress

5. Enhanced immune system function

In holding on tight to a few of my best tactics for great sleep, here are a few that I hope you’ll find helpful:

1. Build and maintain a sleep routine - go to bed and wake up at the same time each day to help regulate the circadian rhythm.

2. Get relaxed in the hour before bed - Reading, gentle stretching, journaling, meditating, talking with your spouse are all great ways to unwind.

3. Optimize the sleep environment - Get the room cool, dark, and quiet. And please, invest in a great mattress and pillow!

4. Get started in the morning - natural light exposure to trigger the wake/sleep cycle, exercise, and a healthy diet.

5. Limit caffeine and stress - Caffeine has a 12 hour half life, so 12 hours after you last sip, you’ll have 50% of that caffeine still in your system. Caffeine can also exacerbate stress, so consume in moderation and with caution. (Quick tip - green tea has an amino acid called theanine that is a natural relaxing agent, which is why green tea has a different stimulant feeling that coffee)

A Quote That I’m Pondering…

Do the hard thing. Keep going.

- Geoff