The everyday eight

Eight things, done most days, for a long time.

Everything competes for your attention in this field, and most of it is louder than it deserves to be. These are eight ordinary practices, none of them dramatic, all of them repeated. They are not a protocol and they are not a promise. They are a reasonable answer to the question of where to put your attention first, and each one links to a page explaining the evidence behind it, including where that evidence is thin.

Written for anyone who wants to know where to start, and would rather have eight ordinary things than one expensive one.

Where the list came from

A list, not a discovery.

After a serious brain injury, our founder went looking for answers beyond conventional thinking. That search took him to Japan many times, and back to Okinawa again and again across years. What he brought home was not a single solution. It was a belief that health is wider than a diagnosis, and a short list of ordinary things that kept appearing wherever he looked.

That is worth stating carefully. One person's experience does not prove a medical claim. Nothing on this list cured anything, and we are not going to imply otherwise. What his experience produced was a philosophy, and this list is the practical shape of it. The reason we can put it on the website is that when we went back and checked the eight against the research afterwards, most of it held up, and where it did not we have said so on the page.

The list

Four that cost nothing, and four you are already choosing.

The first four require no purchase of any kind and are, on the evidence, among the strongest things on the list. The second four are decisions you are making every day anyway, about what you drink, what you wash in, what you eat and what you live among. Each links to a full page.

Before you start

What this list is not.

It is not a protocol. The order is how the list is remembered, not a ranking, and nobody we know does all eight well at the same time. Two of them done consistently will do more for you than eight of them attempted for a fortnight.

It is not a treatment. None of these prevents, treats or cures any condition, and none of them replaces a conversation with your doctor. If something on this list appeals to you because you are unwell, please start with a doctor rather than with us.

And it is not complete. It is eight things one person kept noticing, checked afterwards against the research. A different eight would also be defensible. We would rather tell you that than present a list as though it came down off a mountain.

What is at stake

Two done properly beat eight attempted.

Keep reading

There is no rush, and nothing to sign up for.

Pick whichever of the eight you are most curious about. Everything is free and nothing asks for your name.