Activate, Recover, Capacity: The Science-Backed Framework Replacing Biohacking

Everyone has an opinion on longevity. The supplement industry loves it. Influencers jump on it after reading a few books and listening to some podcasts. But here's the truth: most people do not know how it works.

I, too, have an opinion. And I back it up.

Of course, I've read them all. Outlive by Peter Attia. Lifespan by David Sinclair. The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner. Age Later by Nir Barzilai. And dozens more sit on my shelf.

And yes, I listen to podcasts, develop summaries, and collect nuggets from Andrew Huberman, Rhonda Patrick, and others. We have this in common.

What we also share: being overwhelmed by the flood of information and influencers popping up as longevity experts without proper knowledge.

Over the years, I've learned to tame a dangerous mix of severe ADD, insatiable curiosity, and being easily excited about new things into a survival skill: apply systems and mental models to everything. Simply to not go crazy.

We've spent thousands of years obsessed with living longer. From alchemists brewing immortality potions to today's billionaires dumping fortunes into anti-aging research, the quest to cheat death hasn't changed. Only the packaging has.

But we've been asking the wrong question.

The oldest myth about immortality reveals why. In Greek mythology, Tithonus was a handsome Trojan prince loved by Eos, the goddess of dawn. She begged Zeus to grant him immortality, but critically forgot to request eternal youth. The result? Tithonus lived forever but continued aging indefinitely, withering into a helpless, babbling shell until Eos mercifully transformed him into a cicada.

This isn't just mythology. It's the exact mistake we're making right now.

The modern longevity industry obsesses over extending life without equal concern for the quality of those extra years. What good is reaching 100 if you spend the last 30 years in decline? The goal isn't just more years in your life—it's more life in your years.

I've spent my entire professional life in or closely linked to healthcare: facial reconstructive surgeon (doctor, dentist), management consultant, pharmaceutical executive, startup leader, competitive wrestler, and father of three (IYKYK). For too long, I approached health like most professionals with too many degrees and too little time, making it unnecessarily complex.

I've tried the protocols. The stacks. The hacks. I've spent thousands on tests, tools, and tech that promised breakthroughs. Some worked. Most didn't stick. But through years of working with high-performers, I noticed something fundamental: what most people need isn't more information. It's structure.

That's how I imagined the Upward ARC.

When Science Became Noise: The Explosion of Longevity Research

The past 20 years have witnessed an explosion in longevity science. We've mapped the hallmarks of aging, discovered the impact of caloric restriction, identified genes that control lifespan, and developed biological age clocks.

We now know that aging isn't fixed—it's malleable. The frontier keeps expanding from senolytics that clear "zombie" cells to early research on compounds that might mimic aspects of caloric restriction.

The problem? This knowledge explosion has created paralysis.

The average professional faces an impossible choice: spend hours each week staying current on research, outsource your health to "experts" charging thousands, or just give up and hope for the best.

And that's before we talk about the charlatans. For every legitimate breakthrough, there are fifty overpriced supplements with zero evidence, "longevity clinics" selling untested therapies, and influencers pushing protocols they barely understand.

This isn't just frustrating—it's counterproductive. Complexity has become the enemy of action. While researchers debate whether NMN outperforms NR for NAD+ production¹, most high performers can't even get 7 hours of sleep or eat a vegetable other than a potato.

Everyone's looking for the next breakthrough while ignoring the fundamentals that actually work.

The Breaking Point: When Complexity Becomes the Problem

I hit this wall myself. Despite my medical background, I was overwhelmed by contradictory information. One month tracking sleep stages and heart rate variability, the next testing biological age through methylation patterns, and then gut microbiome analysis.

All while working 60-hour weeks, raising three kids, and trying not to lose my mind.

The turning point came during a brutal stretch of travel—14 flights in 21 days across three continents. I was armed with my performance stack: supplements, compression socks, blue light blockers, a time-restricted eating plan, a meditation app, and workout bands.

But somewhere over the Atlantic, exhausted and wired at 2 a.m., the realization struck me: I had created a complex system that was impossible to maintain. I had all the knowledge but none of the consistency.

This was my moment of clarity: consistency beats optimization every time. A simple system you actually follow will always outperform a perfect system that collapses under its own weight.

I started noticing this pattern everywhere. The top performers who maintained energy and mental sharpness into their 60s weren't following cutting-edge protocols – they had simple, sustainable systems they'd followed for decades.

The Upward ARC: Building the Framework

The healthcare system examines disease, public health examines risk factors, and biohackers examine optimization. But almost nobody examines structure—the framework that actually determines whether health habits stick.

So I built one. And it revolves around three simple moves:

A—Activate: Establish your biological baseline. Address the fundamentals: movement, sleep, food, light exposure. Not fancy protocols – just the non-negotiable inputs determining whether your body works.

R—Recover: Learn to reset stress on demand. Most professionals run on caffeine, cortisol, and crisis management. Recovery isn't a spa day once a month—it's your systematic approach to bringing your nervous system back to baseline between intensity bursts.

C—Capacity: Build the ability to sustain and grow. This is where performance lives. Your mental clarity, emotional regulation, energy consistency, and load-bearing strength enable you to show up, lead, and last.

Think of the Upward ARC as scaffolding that makes everything else possible. Without activation, recovery techniques don't matter. Without recovery, your capacity will always be limited. Without building capacity, you'll never handle the demands of an ambitious career and a full life.

Let's break down each component:

Activate: The Biological Baseline

Most health advice starts with optimization. That's backward. If you haven't established your baseline, you're building a house on sand.

Movement

Your body isn't designed for stillness. Research shows that consistent movement is the strongest predictor of longevity. The evidence for daily walking is overwhelming, with 7,000-10,000 steps showing a 50% reduction in mortality risk. Strength training twice weekly maintains muscle mass, the most critical factor in preventing frailty.

But here's what most fitness advice misses: consistency beats intensity for most professionals. Three 30-minute strength sessions you actually complete will transform your health more than the perfect 5-day split you abandon after two weeks.

Tactical move: Schedule walking meetings instead of conference rooms. Stanford research shows that walking increases creative output by 60% compared to sitting discussions.

Sleep

The data is brutal. Sleeping less than 7 hours regularly, and your cognitive performance declines roughly equivalent to being legally drunk. Yet 70% of busy professionals report sleeping 6 hours or less.

The most insidious aspect? Sleep deprivation destroys your ability to recognize that you're sleep-deprived. You think you're fine, but your decision quality, emotional regulation, and memory formation are all severely compromised.

Tactical move: Implement a 30-minute wind-down routine before bed that doesn't involve screens. This isn't about sleep hygiene but creating a neurological transition that triggers your parasympathetic system.

Nutrition

The field of nutrition has become absurdly complex, yet the basics remain shockingly simple. Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants. Ensure adequate protein (aim for 1.6-2.2g per kg of bodyweight). Minimize ultra-processed foods.

A critical but often neglected factor? Fiber. Most adults consume less than half the recommended intake. Yet, it's crucial for everything from gut health to blood sugar stability to inflammation control.

Tactical move: Front-load protein and fiber in the morning. Studies show that this combination stabilizes blood glucose, reduces cravings, and improves cognitive performance throughout the day.

Light exposure

Perhaps the most underrated health input. Morning sunlight exposure directly regulates your circadian rhythm, impacting everything from hormonal cascades to neurotransmitter production.

Tactical move: Get 10 minutes of outdoor light within an hour of waking. For those in northern latitudes like Germany, where winter means dark mornings, invest in a high-quality bright light therapy lamp (10,000+ lux) and use it for 20-30 minutes during breakfast.

Activation isn't sexy. It's not cutting-edge. But without these foundations in place, everything else becomes meaningless. You can't optimize a system that doesn't have its basic inputs covered.

Once you've mastered these basics and built consistency, you can consider more sophisticated approaches. But start with the fundamentals—they deliver 80% of the results with 20% of the complexity.

Recover: The Rhythm of Resilience

The biggest myth in professional performance? That recovery is what happens when you're not working.

Proper recovery is active, intentional, and woven into your day's fabric. It's not about taking vacations; it's about your body's ability to reset its stress response between intensity periods.

Most high performers live in perpetual sympathetic dominance, with their fight-or-flight system constantly engaged. This creates a hormonal environment that accelerates aging, impairs cognitive function, and destroys sleep quality.

The science is clear: chronic elevated cortisol damages the hippocampus, the brain region critical for memory formation. It increases inflammatory markers that contribute to every major chronic disease. Yet most people wear stress as a badge of honor rather than seeing it as the performance killer it is.

Recovery isn't about eliminating stress – it's about becoming more resilient to it:

Stress management

The ability to downregulate your nervous system in real time is arguably the most valuable skill a professional can develop. Studies show that even brief mindfulness practices can significantly reduce cortisol levels and improve executive function.

Tactical move: Practice the physiological sigh—two quick inhales through the nose and a long exhale through the mouth. Research shows that this breathing pattern rapidly activates the parasympathetic nervous system.

Systemic inflammation

The hidden performance killer that most people ignore until it's too late. Chronic inflammation directly impairs cognitive function, saps energy, and accelerates cellular aging.

Tactical move: Incorporate anti-inflammatory foods daily, especially omega-3s (fatty fish), polyphenols (berries, dark chocolate, olive oil), and turmeric with black pepper (the pepper enhances the absorption of curcumin, the active compound in turmeric).

HRV training

Heart rate variability – the variation in time between heartbeats – is the most accessible window into your autonomic nervous system. Low HRV correlates with stress, poor recovery, and increased disease risk.

Tactical move: Use resonance frequency breathing (about 5.5-6 breaths per minute) for 5 minutes daily. This pattern synchronizes your cardiovascular and respiratory systems, immediately improving HRV and stress resilience.

Recovery isn't what happens when you're not working. It's what makes the work sustainable and effective. Most high-performing individuals push until they break, then take time off to "recover." That's like driving a car into the ground, then wondering why a new coat of paint doesn't fix the engine.

Capacity: The Foundation of Sustained Performance

Most health advice gets this wrong: it treats performance as an outcome rather than a capacity that can be developed.

Capacity is your ability to sustain intensity, hold complexity, and navigate adversity. It's not just how you perform today, but how much potential you can express over time. It's the difference between sprinting and running a marathon.

Mental clarity

The ability to think clearly under pressure and focus despite distractions is a cognitive capacity directly influenced by physiological factors. Everything from blood glucose regulation to inflammatory markers directly impacts your brain's processing ability.

Tactical move: Practice deliberate task switching rather than multitasking. Schedule focused work in 90-minute blocks followed by 15-minute recovery periods. This aligns with your brain's natural ultradian rhythm.

Emotional regulation

Your ability to manage emotions rather than being managed by them. Emotional regulation isn't just soft psychology – it's rooted in physiological processes heavily influenced by sleep quality, stress hormone levels, and gut health.

Tactical move: Practice the 5-second pause before responding in high-stakes situations. This tiny buffer allows your prefrontal cortex to engage rather than letting your amygdala drive reactive responses.

Energy consistency

Most professionals experience dramatic energy fluctuations throughout the day, leading to decision fatigue and diminished performance when it matters most. The solution isn't stimulants – it's metabolic flexibility.

Tactical move: Explore periodic fasting. The benefits extend beyond weight management – reduced inflammation, improved mental clarity, enhanced cellular cleanup mechanisms (autophagy), and better metabolic health.

Resilience

The ability to absorb shock and continue functioning. Research reveals that resilience isn't just psychological – it's deeply physiological.

Tactical move: Incorporate hormetic stressors – beneficial short-term challenges that strengthen your system. Cold exposure (30-60 seconds of cold water at the end of showers) has substantial evidence for improving stress resilience pathways.

Capacity isn't just about high performance – it's about sustainable performance. It's the difference between burning bright for a season and maintaining your impact for decades.

The Power of Systems Over Inspiration

The Upward ARC isn't a protocol—it's a framework. It organizes the avalanche of health information into something usable. After testing countless approaches, I believe in its simplicity and effectiveness.

I come back to this framework again and again because it works for me. It provides structure without restrictive rules. It's flexible enough for real life but defined enough to provide clarity. And most importantly, it focuses on the fundamentals first.

The stakes here aren't just living longer – they're about showing up as your best self when it matters most.

Bad health doesn't just eventually kill you; it erodes your capacity to lead, connect, and contribute today. The professional who can't focus in afternoon meetings, the parent who is too exhausted to be present with their kids, and the aspiring marathoner whose inflammation slows recovery are the real costs of neglecting your health framework.

I've been writing this newsletter for 16 weeks now, and I love it. As an MD, DDS, former competitive wrestler, father of three, management consultant, pharma executive, and startup leader, I've experienced what it means to juggle multiple hats, fail many times, and occasionally win.

I'll keep sharing my learnings, experiences, and personal life craziness, partly because you might find it entertaining and partly because it's therapy for me.

In the coming weeks, I'll explore each component of the ARC framework, providing specific protocols, science, and implementation strategies for busy professionals. I do this as a side hustle in "magic time" because I deeply care. Join me on that journey.

Stay healthy.

Andre

¹ NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide) generally appears more effective than NR (nicotinamide riboside) for NAD+ production due to its position in the biosynthesis pathway and demonstrated biological effects. NMN is one step closer to NAD+ in the salvage pathway, while NR must first convert to NMN before becoming NAD+. Research shows NMN has broader tissue penetration, boosting NAD+ in organs like the brain and liver. While both precursors boost NAD+, current evidence suggests that NMN's structural similarity to NAD+ and efficient conversion pathway make it superior for most applications.

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A note for new readers:

I'm a trained reconstructive facial surgeon, medical doctor, and dentist. Before launching this newsletter, I had a varied career: competitive freestyle wrestler, management consultant (McKinsey), entrepreneur (Zocdoc, Thermondo, and docdre ventures), and corporate executive (Sandoz). Today, I'm a Managing Director and Partner at BCG.

Husband of one. Father of three. Split between Berlin's urban pulse and our Baltic Sea retreat. I'd rather be moving than sitting. Not just hobbies. Research. My body is my primary laboratory; I've been conducting experiments for decades.

If this is your first time here, welcome. I'm excited to share what I've learned—and will continue to learn—with you.

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DISCLAIMER:

Let’s get one thing straight: None of this—whether text, graphics, images, or anything else—is medical or health advice. This newsletter is here to inform, educate, and (hopefully) entertain you, not to diagnose or treat you.

Yes, I’m a trained medical doctor and dentist. No, I’m not your doctor. The content here isn’t a replacement for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

If you have questions about your health, talk to your physician or a qualified health professional. Don’t ignore their advice or delay getting care because of something you read in Health, Redefined. Be smart. Do your research. And, as always, take care of yourself.