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Performance Stack Evidence-based performance frameworks for ambitious professionals. Biology, psychology and strategy.

Your focus runs on a 90-minute clock. Not a metaphor, actual biology.The wild part: people who’d never heard this theory...
07/09/2026

Your focus runs on a 90-minute clock. Not a metaphor, actual biology.

The wild part: people who’d never heard this theory still dipped every 90 minutes anyway. Their bodies knew something their brains had no idea about.

Elite performers don’t grind longer. They work in shorter, protected bursts and stop before the crash, not at it.

Full breakdown in this week’s newsletter. Link in bio.

Cambridge and a German university put 90 people through two hangovers to test a 200-year-old rhyme.Carlsberg funded the ...
03/09/2026

Cambridge and a German university put 90 people through two hangovers to test a 200-year-old rhyme.
Carlsberg funded the beer. 🍻
Science funded the suffering. 🫩
Verdict: the order never mattered, only how much you drank and whether you threw up.

Carlsberg Picture Credits: Elin Tabitha

Quick test: are you a Suppressor, a Reactor, or a Channeller?Same stress response. Three completely different outcomes.S...
10/08/2026

Quick test: are you a Suppressor, a Reactor, or a Channeller?

Same stress response. Three completely different outcomes.

Swipe through the quiz and find out. Then try the one-line fix that actually works, backed by research on public speakers, singers, and people solving math under pressure.

Spoiler: it’s not “calm down.”

Full breakdown in this week’s newsletter. Link in bio.

The cold plunge dopamine stat everyone quotes?It comes from 6 men sitting in cold water for an hour in 1977.The studies ...
06/07/2026

The cold plunge dopamine stat everyone quotes?

It comes from 6 men sitting in cold water for an hour in 1977.

The studies measured chemicals in blood, not in the brain. Every study was done on men. The cardiovascular risk is real and almost never mentioned by anyone selling cold plunge tubs.

None of this means cold exposure does nothing. It means the claims are doing considerably more work than the evidence supports.

Full breakdown in this week’s newsletter. Link in bio.

An 80-year Harvard study tracked hundreds of people from 1938 onward. The single strongest predictor of long-term health...
29/06/2026

An 80-year Harvard study tracked hundreds of people from 1938 onward. The single strongest predictor of long-term health and happiness was not career success, IQ, or genetics.

It was relationship quality.

High performers track sleep, deep work, Zone 2 minutes. Almost nobody tracks this, because the feedback is too slow to compete with everything else.

Full breakdown in this week’s newsletter. Link in bio.

Before you go: message one person you have not talked to in months. That is the whole action.

Same meal. Same portions. Two different times.Your body does not process them the same way.Insulin sensitivity peaks in ...
23/06/2026

Same meal. Same portions. Two different times.

Your body does not process them the same way.

Insulin sensitivity peaks in the morning and declines through the day. A meal at 8am produces a smaller glucose spike than the same meal at 8pm. The food never changed. The biology did.

This is not about willpower or what you eat. It is about when.

Three rules that change the outcome without changing a single ingredient.

Full protocol in this week’s newsletter. Link in bio.

Save this. Try Rule 2 at your next lunch.

You are not sleeping badly because you sleep too few hours.You are sleeping badly because the hours you do sleep are not...
15/06/2026

You are not sleeping badly because you sleep too few hours.

You are sleeping badly because the hours you do sleep are not doing what they are supposed to.

Your brain cycles through two distinct stages overnight. The first half consolidates memory. The second half handles creative thinking, working memory, and cognitive repair. Cut your sleep short and you lose the second half first.

That is the expensive part.

Full sleep architecture protocol in this week’s newsletter. Link in bio.

Save this. Your next morning depends on what you do tonight.

The 21-day habit rule came from a plastic surgeon writing about phantom limbs.Not a study. Not a researcher. A casual ob...
01/06/2026

The 21-day habit rule came from a plastic surgeon writing about phantom limbs.

Not a study. Not a researcher. A casual observation about patients adjusting to a new face after surgery.

It sold 30 million copies and became the most repeated number in productivity culture.

The actual research: 66 days on average. Range of 18 to 254 days.

Most people quit habits at exactly the wrong moment because they expect automaticity by week 3. The difficulty is structural. Not personal.

Full breakdown in this week’s newsletter. Link in bio.

Save this. Send it to someone who gave up on a habit recently.

Most performance questions have a number for an answer.How many hours of deep work. How many minutes of Zone 2. What tim...
26/05/2026

Most performance questions have a number for an answer.

How many hours of deep work. How many minutes of Zone 2. What time did you actually get into bed.

This one does not.

Question 6 from this week’s quarterly review is the only one that requires you to stop, think, and sit with the answer for longer than 30 seconds.

It is also the one that determines whether the energy you are putting into all the other questions is pointed in the right direction.

Full review in this week’s Performance Stack newsletter. Link in bio.

Save this. Send it to someone who needs it.

Most people think meditation is about clearing your mind. It is not.Your brain has a default mode that generates mind-wa...
21/05/2026

Most people think meditation is about clearing your mind. It is not.

Your brain has a default mode that generates mind-wandering and rumination the moment you stop focusing. Overactivity here is linked to anxiety and depression.

Meditation trains you to notice when it switches on. That noticing rewires the brain. 8 weeks. Measurable change.

Link in bio.

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