The 8 Habits Andrew Huberman, David Sinclair, Mark Hyman and Other Longevity Doctors Always Follow (and 4 They Avoid)

Researched and reviewed May 17, 2026 by Joseph Misulonas

It’s a longevity-dog-eat-longevity-dog world out there. You can’t shake a stick at a podcast without hearing one longevity doctor push a new polyphenol, while another says it’s overrated. The longevity medicine field gets press for its disagreements. Rapamycin yes or no, resveratrol useful or wasted, the right protein target, the optimal fasting window. But where are the areas that they agree?

When five practicing longevity physicians publish their daily routines, the disagreements are what draw the headlines. The agreements, on the other hand, get less attention. But that’s what we should be focusing on!

Over the last several months I have reviewed the public daily protocols, podcast transcripts, lab panels, and gym splits of Andrew Huberman, David Sinclair, Mark Hyman, Rhonda Patrick and others. Below is the overlap. Eight habits all of them share, with the research behind each, plus four common longevity-influencer practices the same physicians quietly avoid.

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The overlap, in one paragraph

Strip away the supplement shelves, the branded gear, and the podcast tour, and longevity physicians do the same things: lift heavy 3 to 5 days a week, protect 7 to 9 hours of sleep, track VO2 max, eat protein at 1 g per pound, run advanced labs annually (ApoB, fasting insulin, HbA1c), keep alcohol at or near zero, and skip the trendy supplements that are not yet proven. The boring stuff. Done for decades.

Habit 1: Strength training is the foundation, not the supplement

Every serious longevity physician lifts heavy. And they are explicit about why: skeletal muscle mass is one of the strongest predictors of late-life function and mortality. Sarcopenia — age-related muscle loss — begins in the 30s and accelerates from there. The antidote is progressive overload, 3 to 5 days per week, for the rest of your life.

This is different from “stay active.” Specifically, it is training with resistance at sufficient intensity to cause adaptation, consistently over decades. Peter Attia’s “Centenarian Decathlon” framework is the most-cited articulation: train now for the physical capacity you want at 90.

Practical floor: two compound lifts per session (a push, a pull, or a squat-pattern + a hinge-pattern), 3 to 5 sets each, with progressive load week over week. Twenty to thirty minutes is enough if the intensity is real.

Habit 2: VO2 max is the metric they all measure

VO2 max (maximal oxygen uptake) is the strongest longevity predictor most people have never measured. Moving from the bottom 25 percent to the top 25 percent of VO2 max for your age group is associated with a five-fold reduction in all-cause mortality, per a 2018 JAMA Network Open analysis of 122,000 patients. So this is not a small effect. It is on par with quitting smoking.

And it is trainable at any age. The target the longevity-medicine field uses: be in the top quartile of VO2 max for your decade. For a 50-year-old man, that means roughly 42 ml/kg/min or higher. For a 50-year-old woman, roughly 36.

Zone 2 cardio (the pace where you can still hold a conversation but it’s getting harder) is the main input. Two to four hours per week builds VO2 max without excess fatigue or interfering with strength gains. Most longevity physicians stack it: 30 to 45 minutes on a stationary bike, treadmill, or rower, 4 to 5 days a week, while listening to podcasts or taking calls.

Habit 3: Sleep is the foundation, not a supplement

Every longevity physician treats sleep as a core metabolic intervention rather than an optional optimization. Seven to nine hours. Consistent timing. Cool room. They will cancel morning workouts before they will compromise sleep. Specifically, the framing the field uses is that sleep is the non-negotiable base everything else sits on, not the cherry on top.

The mechanism is well-mapped: short sleep drives insulin resistance, suppresses recovery hormones, accelerates cognitive decline, and degrades immune function. So no amount of strength training or supplementation compensates for chronic 5 to 6 hour nights.

Habit 4: Protein at ~1 g per pound of body weight

The protein target is the most-debated specific number in nutrition science, but the longevity-medicine field has converged on roughly 1 gram per pound of target body weight per day. So for a 160-pound adult, that is about 160 grams of protein daily — significantly higher than the 0.36 g/lb RDA, which is set as a deficiency floor, not an optimum.

The rationale is anti-sarcopenia. Above-RDA protein intake combined with resistance training is the only intervention shown to consistently preserve and build muscle mass into the 60s, 70s, and 80s. So Attia, in particular, calls this the “single most actionable” longevity habit a midlife adult can install.

Practical floor: 30 to 40 grams of protein at each of three meals. Whey protein after lifting, eggs and Greek yogurt at breakfast, a meaningful animal-protein or legume-rich entree at lunch and dinner.

Habit 5: They actually run advanced labs every year

Standard annual labs miss most of what longevity physicians care about. So the panels they run typically include ApoB (a better cardiovascular risk marker than LDL), fasting insulin (catches metabolic dysfunction years before glucose does), HbA1c (3-month glucose average), high-sensitivity CRP (inflammation), and a hormonal panel (testosterone, free testosterone, SHBG, DHEA-S for both sexes; estradiol for women).

Most of these are not ordered by primary care doctors by default. So you often have to ask explicitly, or use direct-to-consumer lab services like Quest’s QuestDirect, LabCorp’s OnDemand, or Function Health. Specifically, ApoB is the highest-leverage single ask — it captures particle-count cardiovascular risk that a standard lipid panel can miss entirely.

Habit 6: Alcohol is zero or near-zero

This is one of the more contested public-facing positions in longevity medicine, but the practical consensus among the practicing physicians is consistent: keep alcohol at zero, or under 3 drinks per week. Specifically, the cardiovascular benefits of moderate drinking that were claimed in earlier observational studies have largely failed to replicate in Mendelian-randomization studies, which control for genetic confounding.

So the framing has shifted. Alcohol is now treated as a known sleep disruptor, a deep-sleep suppressor, a calorie load with no nutritional offset, and a Group 1 carcinogen (per the WHO/IARC classification). The longevity-medicine field’s position has hardened toward “as little as possible” over the past five years.

Habit 7: Morning sunlight and tight caffeine timing

Andrew Huberman is the most associated with this protocol but all five physicians follow some version of it: 10+ minutes of outdoor light within the first hour of waking, no caffeine for the first 90 minutes after waking, and a strict caffeine cutoff by early afternoon. So the rationale is circadian: anchor cortisol to morning, allow adenosine to build naturally early, and prevent caffeine’s 5 to 6 hour half-life from undercutting sleep that night.

This is the cheapest, easiest-to-install longevity habit on the list. Costs nothing. Takes 10 minutes. Effects on sleep, mood, and afternoon energy show up within a week.

Habit 8: They stack omega-3 and creatine consistently

Two supplements show up in nearly every published longevity physician’s stack: omega-3 EPA/DHA (2 to 4 g per day) and creatine monohydrate (5 g per day). Specifically, both are extraordinarily well-researched, cheap, and have favorable safety profiles. The creatine evidence after age 50 is particularly strong for muscle preservation, cognitive function, and bone density.

Most other supplements get less consistent treatment. So if a supplement does NOT show up across all five published protocols, treat it as optional rather than foundational.

What they all quietly skip

The omissions tell you almost as much as the inclusions. None of these physicians practice chronic calorie restriction (the muscle-loss math does not work for adults over 40). And none of them do cardio-only training. and they don’t listen to their “vibes” without data. And none treat the latest unproven supplement as foundational.

Common questions

Do I need a longevity-medicine practice to get these labs?
No. Specifically, ApoB, fasting insulin, HbA1c, and high-sensitivity CRP are all orderable through Quest’s QuestDirect or LabCorp’s OnDemand without a doctor for $100 to $200 total. So most of the lab panel can be self-administered. The hormone panel is the one where a doctor’s interpretation matters more.

What’s the minimum effective dose of strength training?
The longevity-medicine consensus is 2 to 3 sessions per week, 30 to 45 minutes each, focusing on compound movements (squat, deadlift, press, row, hinge). So you don’t need 6-day splits or two hours per session. Consistency over decades beats intensity for any single year.

I’m in my 30s — can I wait to start this stuff?
The longevity-medicine field would say no. The reason is that sarcopenia and bone density loss compound. Specifically, the muscle and bone you build in your 30s and 40s is the bank you draw down in your 70s and 80s. So starting at 50 is harder than starting at 35, both physiologically and habit-wise.

What about rapamycin, NMN, and the other trendy compounds?
The practicing longevity physicians I researched treat these as experimental, not foundational. Specifically, none of them recommend stopping any of the 8 habits above to make room for an unproven supplement. So if you are doing the 8 habits AND want to try rapamycin under a doctor’s supervision, that is the order of operations.

Is Zone 2 cardio actually better than HIIT for longevity?
Not strictly. Both build VO2 max. So the consensus is Zone 2 for the bulk of the work (because it stacks volume without injury risk) plus one short HIIT session per week (because it builds the upper end of VO2 max more efficiently). The 80/20 split is what most longevity physicians use.

What to actually steal from this

A $10,000 longevity medicine practice is not a prerequisite for applying the core principles. So the practical takeaways:

• Strength train 3 to 5 days a week. Progressive overload. For years.
• Do Zone 2 cardio 2 to 4 hours a week. Slow enough to hold a conversation.
• Protect 7 to 9 hours of sleep aggressively. Cancel morning workouts before you cancel sleep.
• Hit 1 g of protein per pound of target body weight daily. Whey post-lift, real food at meals.
• Ask your doctor for ApoB, fasting insulin, HbA1c, and high-sensitivity CRP at your next physical.
• Keep alcohol under 3 drinks per week, ideally zero.
• Take omega-3 (2–4 g/day) and creatine (5 g/day). Skip the trendy stuff.
• 10 minutes of morning sunlight, no caffeine for 90 minutes after waking, no caffeine after 2 p.m.

That is the actual longevity protocol. Boring, free or cheap, well-supported. The supplement shelves and branded merchandise are downstream of the basics, not substitutes for them.

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The Greenest Editors

The Greenest is a collective of doctors, pharmacists, dietitians, veterinarians, ex-and-current budtenders, medicinal mushroom and adaptogen experts — as well as CBD and hemp experts. The Greenest was launched to help those curious about the intersection of health, wellness and how we can all live better. We want to answer (in laymen’s terms) all the questions you have around living a better life.