I like being up before everyone else. I put the kettle on, go in the plunge pool, and by the time the kettle’s boiled, I’m out. I have a cup of tea before anyone disturbs my peace. And by that, I mean my kids.
I try and keep my diet to an 80/20 thing. As long as 80 per cent of the time I’m eating well and looking after myself, then the other 20 per cent I allow myself to do as I please. I’m very healthy during the week, always three meals a day, always a good breakfast — eggs, avocado or protein.
I take a lot of supplements in the morning, probably about 20 a day. I take a mixture of functional mushrooms and food-state supplements because their bioavailability is very strong. I eat well, but I kind of feel like it’s my job to be healthy and well, and I can’t afford to get ill.
I do Pilates twice a week. It doesn’t feel like exercise, it’s more like a treatment. In my forties, it’s become more about posture, alignment and muscle strength.
I don’t wear any health tech throughout the day. I love an old-fashioned watch. I try to keep as much tech out of the room as possible. The more tech people have, the more analysis it promotes, which can rid patients of peace. We take Whoops off, “iWatches” off — anything like that. Diagnostics have their place, but they can cause more analysis and anxiety. People can develop analysis paralysis from them.
During the week, the basics go a long way. I don’t drink coffee, I don’t drink alcohol and I get to bed early. Doing my job has made me value sleep too much to stay up late now. The mild look of terror on my wife’s face when she realises we’ve stayed up past 11pm on a school night is pure comedy.
Meditation is the first thing that goes out the window when life gets busy. My ways of finding peace are more 1990s coded — watching a film with no distractions, reading fiction, putting records on, going for media that’s tangible. I’m a huge Stevie Wonder fan and was brought up in the golden age of hip-hop.
Fiction is really necessary in modern life. Self-help books can cause further analysis and comparison. Fiction whisks you off somewhere else and calms your endocrine system down. The more analysis we have, the more adrenaline we produce. Fiction helps with that. I like post-apocalyptic books — The Road by Cormac McCarthy — books that are about hope and beauty.
When I get home in the evening, I leave my phone in my briefcase for an hour. That’s really helped because when my kids are talking to me, I’m fully there.
I like a good non-alcoholic beer. There’s one called Impossibrew that has ashwagandha and L-theanine in it.
I get into bed about half an hour before I want to sleep. I put our clinic’s sleep patches on my temples. There’s an acupuncture point there that’s really good for calming and helping the cognitive side of things shut down. I recently bought an old-fashioned alarm clock and now my wife and I charge our phones downstairs. I think that helps.
I love podcasts. My friend Elizabeth Day has a lovely one called How to Fail. I’ve recently been listening to The Telepathy Tapes — it’s fascinating, mind-bending.
The thing we usually leave until last in our health routine — the thing we find hardest to do — is often the thing we most need to do. Whether it’s giving up coffee, going to bed early, or letting go of addictive habits, that’s usually where the real change happens.
Ross J Barr has partnered with Sea Containers London to enhance guest wellbeing through his award-winning herbal wellness patches, now available at the hotel’s Agua spa and in-room minibars
