Wade Warren works as a product manager for a financial technology company. He is 28 years old, bearded, bespectacled and lives in a small apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Every evening he puts on a special pair of goggles designed to block the short-wavelength, high-energy blue light that is emitted by his smartphone and laptop screens and, in so doing, he enhances his ability to fall asleep later. He sleeps on a £2,300 temperature-controlled mattress, which helps keep his core cool, which in turn stimulates melatonin and thus ensures a better night’s rest. When he wakes, he will flick on the large 800W floodlight he keeps in a corner. By doing this, Warren suppresses his melatonin production and signals to his body that it is time to be awake. It also, he believes, improves his gut microbiome.
He waits until 11am before his first coffee. While caffeine blocks the adenosine receptors in the brain—adenosine being an inhibitory neurotransmitter that promotes sleep—it does not eliminate the adenosine itself. But by allowing enough time for the adenosine to clear itself naturally, it means that when Warren does drink caffeine, it will be more effective and prevent a mid-afternoon caffeine crash. He adheres to a diet that is high in protein, low in carbohydrates. He also does a lot of other specific things to improve his “efficiency and effectiveness”. But you get the gist.
Warren had not thought to do any of this until one evening when he stumbled across a podcast hosted by
