Tip #41: Learn from Bryan Johnson and Treat Sleep as Priority Number One

Here is what a millionaire longevity enthusiast can teach you about waking up at 5 AM.

You may have heard of Bryan Johnson – the biotech entrepreneur who is spending a fortune trying to slow down his own aging. People love to argue about his more extreme experiments, but there is one part of his routine that I think every single one of us can learn from, and it doesn’t cost a thing: he treats sleep as his number one priority. Not his work, not his social life – sleep comes first. And the results are exactly what most of us are chasing. He wakes up naturally around 5:00 AM every morning, without an alarm dragging him out of a deep sleep.

How does he manage that? Well, it turns out it’s not magic, it’s just a very consistent and very boring routine. Let me break down what he actually does, because the principles behind it are things I’ve been writing about on this site for years.

The routine, broken down

First, he gets into bed at 8:30 PM and is usually asleep within 3 minutes, getting well over 8 hours of sleep a night. If you can fall asleep that fast, it means your body is genuinely tired and your schedule is dialed in.

Second, and this one surprises people, he eats his final meal of the day very early – around 11:00 AM. The idea is that his body is completely done digesting long before he lies down, so his sleep isn’t disrupted by a working stomach. You don’t have to eat your last meal at 11 in the morning, but the lesson stands: don’t eat right before bed.

Third, he avoids all alcohol and cuts off caffeine early in the day – no surprise to anyone who has read my tips before.

Fourth, in the hour before bed he winds down properly. No screens, no cognitively demanding problems, no stimulating content. Instead he reads, writes, meditates, or simply spends peaceful time with the people he loves.

Fifth, he keeps his bedroom cool, and he tracks his sleep score and resting heart rate every day with a wearable, aiming for a resting heart rate of around 47–49 bpm. (If that last part sounds familiar, it’s the more sensible end of the sleepmaxxing trend.)

The bottom line

Here’s the thing – you don’t need millions of dollars or a team of doctors to copy the part that matters. Make sleep your priority, keep a consistent early bedtime, stop eating and drinking stimulants well before bed, wind down without screens, and keep your room cool. Bryan Johnson just proves, in a very expensive and very public way, what we already knew: protect your sleep, and waking up early stops being a battle. Sweet dreams and happy early wake ups!