The Things We’re Bringing With Us From 2025
Every year we collect more health advice.
More hacks. More trackers. More rules.
But 2025 gave us something far more useful than novelty: options to leverage.
No more effort, choose better inputs.
Dedication over discipline for smarter alignment with how the body actually works.
Here are the principles and habits I’m deliberately carrying forward.
1. More “oomph” in daily movement
For years, health advice framed exercise as a time problem:
Hit your minutes. Get your steps. Accumulate enough.
What we now know is that intensity changes the return on investment.
But at the very end of 2025 the guidelines were shaken up!
Large datasets (including UK Biobank) show that one minute of vigorous movement delivers roughly the same health benefit as several minutes of moderate activity - and upwards of an hour of minutes of light movement when it comes to things like cardiovascular risk, metabolic disease, and mortality.
This doesn’t mean you need to live in HIIT classes.
It means:
Walk the hill like it matters
Carry groceries with intention
Take the stairs like it’s training
Add short bursts of power wherever they naturally fit
Your body doesn’t care whether it was “workout time.”
It cares whether the muscle, heart, and mitochondria were challenged.
60 seconds counts.
2. Using movement strategically when sleep is broken
We all have seasons of poor sleep - travel, deadlines, parenting, stress.
What’s fascinating is that exercise can partially protect the body from the metabolic cost of short-term sleep loss.
Studies show that when people perform short blocks of high-intensity exercise in the weeks leading into sleep disruption, they experience:
Smaller spikes in blood glucose
Less insulin resistance
Reduced release of stress-related fatty acids
In real life, that means:
If you know sleep is going to be compromised (late nights, jet lag, shift work), don’t cancel movement = change its role.
Use moderate cardio in the morning after a bad night to re-anchor your circadian rhythm
Or use brief HIIT blocks earlier in the week as metabolic insurance
This isn’t about pushing through exhaustion.
It’s about giving the body a stabilising signal when sleep can’t do its job properly.
3. Coffee - but used with intention
Coffee continues to show up in long-term health data as a positive - but how and when matters.
What we now know:
Timing matters
People who drink coffee earlier in the day show better cardiovascular and mortality outcomes than those who sip all day.
Likely because caffeine late in the day quietly damages sleep - even when you think it doesn’t.
Front-load your caffeine. Protect your night.
Filtration matters
Unfiltered coffee (French press, boiled coffee, some espresso styles) allows certain oils through that can raise LDL cholesterol.
Paper filters remove most of these compounds.
If heart health or cholesterol is part of your world:
filtered coffee is the smarter choice.
Containers matter
Hot drinks in plastic-lined takeaway cups can leach microplastics and chemicals into the beverage.
A ceramic or stainless steel cup is a tiny swap with a real biological upside.
4. Transition Zones.
One of the quieter discoveries of 2025 was how much switching between roles drains us.
Every time you:
Check work messages at home
Half-work while with family
Mentally jump ahead to tomorrow
…your nervous system registers another transition.
Fewer transitions = lower fatigue.
What helps:
Finish work tasks cleanly rather than letting them linger
Physically close the loop - shut the laptop, write tomorrow start point, write your contribution list.
Have a short “shutdown ritual”
Keep a protected no-work window
The nervous system loves clear on / clear off.
5. Breaks that actually work
We don’t need more holidays - we need better daily recovery.
The research is clear:
Short micro-breaks (5–10 minutes) reduce fatigue
Periodic 15-minute breaks restore performance
The activity doesn’t matter as much as stepping away
Walk. Stretch. Breathe. Stare out the window.
Your brain doesn’t recover while still “in task mode.”
6. Cognitive flexibility is the master skill
Every habit above relies on one thing:
The ability to notice what’s happening and choose a response.
That’s cognitive flexibility.
Not forcing.
Not perfect consistency.
Just the capacity to pivot when your body, energy, or context changes.
This is what lets you:
Train when tired
Rest without guilt
Eat for stability instead of mood
Set boundaries without drama
It’s the nervous system skill underneath every good habit.
The real theme of 2025
You don’t need more complexity.
You need higher-leverage inputs:
A minute of harder movement
Coffee earlier in the day
A paper filter
A real break
A clean end to work
A beginner’s mind when things wobble
These are not hacks.
They’re alignment with biology.
And they work not because they’re extreme -
but because they speak to the systems that keep you alive, focused, and resilient.