Blueprint part 1: Not the food

Part of 2024 resolution to adapt better life habits based on Bryan Johnson’s Blueprint protocol.
I spent most of the first week of January doing research and buying stuff. Here’s what I came up with for all the non-food / supplement related items.

Disclaimer on health: As per Bryan himself ( and all of common wisdom ), 95% of longevity/ healthspan gains are to be made by doing regular exercise ( zone 4-5 + zone 2 ), having good sleep and eating clean. Furthermore, you must avoid alcohol, drugs and smoking. All this is mostly free, well established and will do way more to help you than the rest of the Blueprint protocol combined.

1- Hair Care

I’ve been slowly losing hair probably since early 20s. Very gradual by after 15 years it shows. Unfortunately most of the options available only keep / strengthen the current hair. To really get it back you need surgery ( 8-10k ) which still must be coupled with the meds for life. That’s why a lot of men just let it go, especially because they start too late, because nobody talks about this. Hair loss is 100% genetic if you’re healthy, there are no magic cures or foods for it. You just have to take the drugs, they will do 99% of the work.

Minoxidil is non-prescription ( known as Rogaine ) and you apply it to your scalp, Finasteride is prescription and a pill. They both slow/stop hairloss. A lot of men should get on these in their 20s and a majority in their 40s.
As far as shampoo goes, you’re getting almost no benefits here usually but shampoo is cheap and I’ll take the marginal gains.

Microneedling is where you use this pen to poke tiny holes into the scalp to stimulate skin/hair repair. For some reason it works. Bryan gets it done by his team along with injecting a cocktail of drugs/vitamins/hormones into his scalp. He also uses this 3000$ laser helmet which I obviously won’t buy…

2- Skin Health

latest update: Bryan just doesn’t use any creams / serums anymore as data shows they don’t do anything. He gets his age-reversing results from the more expensive devices he uses, not from any creams. Sorry creams.
Skin care starts when you’re young and is pretty simple: DON’T EVER GO INTO THE SUN AND ALWAYS WEAR SUNSCREEN. THE END. But to slow/reverse natural skin damage you can have a simple skincare routine that should work for most people without medical conditions. These are the products I settled on after long boring research into a bottomless industry with thousands of products that all do the same thing.

The lid wipes are because I’m prone to styes. If you have eye crust/boogers in the morning and irritation on your eyelids in general, consider lid wipes I guess.

Simpler at night. Clean your face ( do it in the shower anyway ) and apply some kind of retinol cream. Retinol is basically the magic ingredient in all of these endless creams. It can irritate the skin when you aren’t used to it.

Bryan takes the more potent prescription version, Tretinoin .1%. He’s also moisturizing twice a day and on his whole body, essentially living the life of a slowly roasting rack of ribs that is constantly being topped up with BBQ sauce.

He also uses Red Light Therapy, which does seem to have pretty proven benefits but the full body thing costs >3000$. The cheapest panels are around 500$ and you will need to bake yourself in multiple areas for 20+ minutes a day. There’s also risks of over-exposure with these smaller panels as they are less precise.

But again first and foremost: SUNSCREEN, ALL DAY, ALWAYS. This is important for a lot of athletes who spend 20+ hours outside per week. Sun damage is a big contributor to athletic people looking older than they should.

3- Oral Health

That one is pretty easy and without surprises. The main purpose of an electric toothbrush is that…. it just has a 2 minute timer. But you can brush with a manual one just fine as long as you know how.

Bryan has a CoQ10 toothpaste. I couldn’t find any reason to add CoQ10 to toothpaste. There’s hundreds of different kinds but the one ingredient that matters is just fluoride. It might still not matter given there is fluoride in the water supply but definitely get it if you’re drinking nothing but filtered weirdo hippie water.

He also uses a water flosser which is probably just overkill? But ask your dentist. It’s not even that clear that flossing does anything but it does get bits of gross food at least. Same thing for the tongue scrapper and mouth wash / rinse. Bryan uses a Tea Tree oil rinse which is just gross for something that’s possibly not doing anything.

By far the main thing is BRUSH YOUR TEETH A LOT.

4- Sleep

Bryan is very committed to good sleep and I just am not. I can explain 100% of sleep-related research and problems to you in one sentence: Going to sleep is boring. Here’s what Bryan’s routine entails: Wear blue blocking glasses hours before bed, do nothing 1 hour before bed, always go to bed at the same time and sleep alone.

Sounds fun? No. That’s why most people have trouble sleeping. This is 2+ hours of preparation ( boredom ) daily before bed.
No thanks.

Here’s some simple things you can actually do: Black out your room and / or wear a sleep mask. Sunlight will mess with your sleep.

The other luxury you might have is to just go to sleep when you’re actually tired and then wake up when you’re actually rested. Having done this, I can tell you it results in longer than 24 hour cycles. Most people cannot do this as they eventually have to be up at a certain hour for a life commitment or thing they want to do and then begin your sleep problems as your ( dumbass ) body is now completely confused as to why you don’t feel like spending half your waking hours preparing for sleep.

He also uses a sleep tracker. Again, not interested in these scammy apps. All these trackers cost a lot of money yet have opaque pricing models that try to trick you into a social media platform and lifetime subscription. Fuck. Off.

All I’ll try and do this year is to progressively lower the time at which I wake up to the 5-6am range. Currently waking up at 8. Waking up with an alarm results in less hours of sleep but in your being more tired, meaning you don’t need to bore yourself to sleep.

5- No more video games.

I started playing a big of games again in late 2023. I just can’t do this stuff in moderation, it’s too fun. It messes with sleep and training too much. Again: People lack sleep because sleep is boring and when you do non-boring, non-tiring things, you won’t sleep. Duh.

6- Exercise

Bryan has his very own longevity-oriented exercise routine that I will not follow since I will be training 10-20 hours a week for cycling-specific performance. Copy Bryan if you’re wondering what to do to stay optimally healthy as you age but have no desire to increase performance in any given sport / lift / task.