How to Restore Your Health: 10 Signs You’re Living As a Zombie

Element 1 (Chapter 2 of 3): The Entrepreneur's Guide to Living Healthily Without Obsessing Over Your Health.

Disclaimer 1:
The content provided in this post is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet, exercise, or sleep routines. Individual results may vary.

Disclaimer 2:
The references to religious practices and philosophies reflect the author’s personal beliefs and are shared for illustrative purposes.

Chapter 2:

This chapter is not your typical chapter on physical health and well-being. It’s a guide on how to live strategically for optimal health. I won’t delve into tactics, but strategies that will help you automate your habits to maintain a healthy body.

Wellness is only attained when you balance physical, mental, and spiritual health. Chapter 1 summarizes how to be mentally healthy. I urge you to read it, as it will help you internalize and live by the philosophy of these teachings.

You will be astonished to know that you have been sleeping, exercising, and eating all wrong. Even when you follow experts on these wellness topics, most of them don’t make your life easier; they add problems and complicate your life. Living healthy is your right; it’s accessible and easy to achieve. And that’s what I hope you learn from this post.

10 Signs You’re Living Out of Stress and Fear

1. Sleeping after midnight because you’re busy getting busy.

2. Waking up feeling exhausted and brain-fogged.

3. Thinking that sleep is a waste of time.

4. Eating your food too quickly

5. Eating while binge-watching or listening to a podcast.

6. Feeling guilty after you eat something “unhealthy”

7. Adding too many condiments to enjoy your bite

8. Losing motivation to work out

9. Spending too much time at the gym and seeing few results

10. Devouring supplements more than eating food

If you answer yes to even one of the questions above, you risk falling into habits that will be detrimental to your health in the long run. Even if all your blood tests show otherwise, you’ll start seeing your body fail you in the long run. That can be traced back to stress and fear.

It’s the stress you’ve been forcing your body to cope with that’s making you age faster and stopping you from being successful.

It’s also a sign that you’re living your life out of fear. You’re on autopilot and rushing to accomplish things. You fear not accomplishing enough. You’re always in a rush. Life can seem so dull. So you start listening to music while working out or watching a YouTube video to learn. By doing so, you miss learning from living in the present moment. You risk missing human interactions and networking. You miss focusing on your workout and learning when your body can go more, and when it tells you now it’s enough. You do all this because you fear wasting your time and not being productive. Redirect your energy to where it belongs. The present moment is all you have to experience.

Fear keeps you rushing through life, hectic on autopilot. You don’t take time to pause, to think.

You’ve been lied to.

We’ve been taught all our lives: to live healthily, you need endless protocols and a cabinet's worth of supplements. Being healthy is now only for “scientists” who know what we need to do. We lost touch with ourselves.

Just use any search engine and ask about the best healthy diets, and you will find a flood of information that will leave you confused. One day you might be following a low-fat diet, and the next you’ll switch to a high-fat, low-carb diet. The amount of information you’ll find in the health industry is simply too much to choose from. It’s like scrolling through Netflix for an hour, trying to find a movie to watch, but not picking any because the options are overwhelming.

Since when was “eating” so complicated? Humans and animals have been eating for millennia without learning how many calories to consume or how many repetitions to do the bench press. Where did the common ancient wisdom go, a wisdom that helped people survive since Adam was created? When did we lose touch with ourselves and our design?

Being healthy is easier than it looks. Once you learn how to think for yourself and follow what seems natural to your design, you’ll break free from all your instilled beliefs on how to live a healthier life.

Before you learn to think for yourself, you’re a victim. Once you start thinking for yourself, you’re responsible.

Living healthily isn’t rocket science; it’s common sense

The missing truth, which is difficult to find in mainstream institutions, is that the basic principle of all the science of living healthy is to follow your design.

Once you grasp what matters and how to follow your design, you’ll see how simple it is to live healthily without sticking to any specific routine and getting yourself free from depending on “experts” to tell you what to do. This is not to discard the role of professional intervention. If you’re sick, go get professional help.

The principles here are general laws at the core of healthy living. They will click with you, feel natural to follow, and eliminate guilt from your lifestyle habits. The key is to focus on what works best for you.

Importantly, I will not discuss fasting, nighttime spiritual reflections, or prayers in this chapter. Those practices require special attention, and I’ll dedicate separate articles to them. The information you will read below serves as general guidance. Exceptions can be made to the rules, offering even greater benefits, but this topic goes beyond the scope of this chapter. I’m aware of this aspect and have intentionally chosen to skip it for the sake of focus and brevity. Once you master the guidelines presented in this chapter, you will be prepared to bend those rules.

Nothing seems more natural, sustainable, and natural to follow than what you will find in this chapter, which I can sum up in 3 words. Follow your design

Sleep, Exercise, Food: Who wins?

It all comes down to three things: sleep, exercise, and food.

Aligning sleep, exercise, and nutrition with your personal design shows respect for your body by providing what it needs and avoiding what it doesn't. Getting these practices right is at the core of embracing your vulnerability. You can’t function without an adequate amount of each. This is at the core of becoming a successful person and leaving a legacy; you’re killing your creative energies without it.

I’ve always valued healthy living. I became a self-taught expert in nutrition and exercise, working out at 6 AM daily before donning my teaching suit at 7:40 AM. After 10 years of exercising in my 20s and early 30s, I found myself fit but tired. My recovery stalled, and exercising lost its joy. Despite my diet and supplements, I was losing strength over time. This led me to learn about sleep.

Health books often highlight food and exercise but neglect sleep. Despite being essential, sleep receives little attention and usually requires a separate book for in-depth knowledge. Relying solely on “popular” health books, like I did, means missing this critical aspect. I had to dig deeper.

That’s why I’ll focus on sleep as the basis of living a healthy life. I dedicated the biggest chunk of this article to sleep, then strategies for exercising and eating.

1- Sleep according to your design: 3 Laws to Sleep like Tarzan.

Embracing design-friendly sleep is a testament to your desire to be gentle with yourself and to prioritize recovery.

I don’t know how Tarzan slept, but that’s how I imagine it. But first, let’s set one thing straight.

Sleep is crucial for survival; no matter how much you try to convince yourself that those extra hours of late-night work or staying awake are okay, you are fooling yourself. While you sleep, your brain cleanses itself, and its connections grow and reorganize. Your digestive system refreshes, getting ready to remove waste when you wake up.

1. The first law to sleep like Tarzan: Night is for sleep, and day is for waking up. Play with this law, and you’re doomed. As the sun rises and sets, it dictates the day and night. Most animals sleep following this cycle. When the sun sets, your brain secretes a special hormone (Melatonin), which induces sleep.

   According to the legend, animals raised Tarzan in the jungle, so he followed the natural way of sleeping and waking up. Sleep at night and rise with dawn.

2. The second law to sleep like Tarzan: always ensure there is sufficient ventilation of fresh air. 

   It's important to understand that your body performs essential functions while you sleep, which requires good air quality and enough oxygen. Sleep with your windows open at night, even if it’s cold. Poor airflow implies that no sleep will help, and you’ll likely wake up tired.

   Tarzan slept between trees, oxygen is abundant, and pollution is minimal. He slept with a constant supply of fresh air.

3. The third law to sleep like Tarzan: sleep in a dark room. 

   Keep your room dark and free from electromagnetic radiation, including phones and Wi-Fi routers. This helps maintain your body’s sleep-wake cycle and melatonin levels, which are vital for sleep and cell repair. The only acceptable light at night is moonlight.

   Apart from the moonlight and twinkling stars, Tarzan slept in complete darkness, as there were no artificial lights in his jungle, no smartphones or laptops, and certainly no Wi-Fi.

At the heart of your design is the fact that your body needs sleep to function well.

If you live in a city, consider getting an air filter. I made that purchase when I lived in Beirut for a few months, as the pollution was intense. Now that I’ve moved to a rural area in France, I enjoy being able to keep the windows open for fresh air while I sleep. (I’m dreading summer because of mosquitoes)

If you sleep like Tarzan, you should start feeling a boost of energy and clarity on day 1. However, there are two myths that I need to debunk before you can have a restful sleep.

• You Don’t Have Insomnia; You’re Distracted

  • Unnatural thoughts: “I’m wasting time sleeping” or “I can make up for lost sleep by sleeping in the morning”; these are misguided thoughts that hinder your ability to rest well. You think out of fear. You convince yourself that success is the product of sleepless nights, and you are afraid to stop.

  • Unnatural actions are a consequence of unnatural thoughts. Nothing is more important than sleep. Not even your favorite Netflix series, the breaking news, your favorite book, or your work are more important. They are distractions keeping you from giving your body what it needs.

• The Myth: You Need 8 Hours of Sleep

  The amount of sleep you get isn’t important. In winter, the night is longer than the day, so you will sleep longer automatically. In summer, the night is shorter, so you will sleep less. It’s okay. That’s what no one tells you. It is a myth that you need 8 hours for best health. As long as you follow the day and night cycle, you will function well. If you live high north, the sun won’t rise in winter, and in summer it won’t set. In this case, go to bed when you feel sleepy, ensure a dark room, and you’ll naturally wake up when you feel like.

Compete with the Sun: The Sacred Time Behind Your Success.

Waking up early shouldn’t feel like you’re waking up to school. On the contrary, it will help you start and live a relaxed, peaceful day. Historically, early rising is tied to resilience. This is very easy to accomplish.

A 2021 study of 840,000 people linked dawn waking to a 23% lower depression risk. It’s the best time of day to set a new intention and enjoy quality solitude.

When to go to sleep?

You go to sleep when the sun doesn’t have a trace on the horizon. That’s when darkness sets in fully, and your sleeping hormone spikes. In other words, set your alarm to go to sleep shortly after nighttime begins.

When to rise?

Ideally, you should wake up at dawn, before the sun rises.

Dawn marks the moment to get ready to seize your day. Prophet Muhammad noted that God favors a nation that starts its day early. I suggest you dedicate this time at dawn, immediately after rising, to your spiritual health and setting your intention for the day.

Two resources I use to help me sleep consistently with the night-day cycle.

1. I recommend using Time&Date to determine the best time to sleep. For example, if you live in Paris on April 03, you'll see that nighttime starts at 10:16 PM and astronomical twilight begins at 5:32 AM. You should aim to go to sleep no later than 11:16 PM and wake up by 5:30 AM.

   

2. To automate this, I use the Android app “Sun Alarm.” Its free version allows you to set up two alarms. I set mine one hour before dawn and one hour after night.

Whenever I go to bed early, I wake up automatically around dawn without setting an alarm. I feel energetic and refreshed. Upon rising, I pray, read the Quran, and write my morning thoughts to set my intentions for the day. This practice helps me have a peaceful and more grounded day. It prevents me from rushing to accomplish tasks and being productive. Instead, I navigate my day knowing exactly what I need to do. By sunrise, I will start writing those blog posts for you.

There is nothing you can do right now to put you on the right track better than a good night's sleep and a consistent sleeping schedule.

Get this one thing right, and your life will transform soon after. That’s my promise.

2- Sprint Like a Peaceful Warrior and Don’t Run Like a Hamster on a Wheel

“Use it or lose it” is popular among gym enthusiasts. It’s true, and it doesn’t only apply to your muscles but also to your brain, skills, habits, and hobbies. If you choose to ignore using your body, you will lose your muscles and energy.

So now, what type of physical activity should you choose? Up to you, really. However, don’t forget to follow your design.

Don’t do physical exercises that are not suitable for your design. As an example, you should steer clear of chronically stressful endurance training, especially a marathon or triathlon, whether on foot or on a wheel. You’re not designed to train like that. This is the most stressful thing you can do to your system. You’re not a hamster on a wheel.

I started this section with the famous saying, "Use it or lose it." Check the image below and notice how a sprinter makes much more muscle mass than a marathon runner. Although the marathon runner was using his muscles, he was actually losing them. Why? because a marathon is not a sport suitable for our design.

Chronic Stress isn’t Strength

When does nature require you to run continuously for an hour or 20 kilometers? Only if a lion is pursuing you—and even then, good luck. Efforts similar to a marathon send a flood of stress hormones into your body, indicating a state of chronic danger. You find yourself in fight or flight mode.

Now, picture sprinting 100 meters to escape that lioness. It's an all-out effort followed by a period of rest. This is your natural design: short, intense bursts (for hunting or evasion) followed by recovery. Your body rewards this pattern—testosterone increases (that’s a good response for both men and women), strength is enhanced, and stress dissipates. There's no need for marathons; you're inherently built for sprints.

If you’ve ever run a marathon or worked out for hours straight, I salute you. You’ve pushed yourself out of your comfort zone. I’ve done that too, but it didn’t end up well. I’m not here to make you feel bad or disregard your pain and training efforts. I’ve lived that struggle too. But please be mindful of what you’re doing to your body. Respect the effort, but know this: chronic stress isn’t strength.

Whether you want to play soccer, basketball, swim, tennis, ping pong, or walk, reflect on your training behavior and ask yourself, "Am I pushing myself over the limit?" “Am I running a marathon on a wheel or sprinting like a warrior?”

Engage in exercise as leisure, not as a health obligation. Whether riding, cycling, playing badminton, or bowling, find joy in movement. There are countless ways to stay active, ensuring your body remains flexible and your blood circulation healthy, without getting trapped in the mindset of “exercising solely for health.” Move for enjoyment and vitality, not just to stay healthy.

Shed a sweat and not a tear.

3- The Food Paradox: You’re Not Hungry, You’re Stressed.

Health isn’t complicated—we’ve complicated it. Return to the rhythms your body knows:

• Eat when hungry, stop when full.

• Choose foods your ancestors would recognize.

• Infuse meals with purpose, not guilt.

Before I delve into what you can eat, let me define the difference between Hunger and Appetite. Unlike hunger, which dissipates with nourishment, appetite is insatiable—it demands more, even when the body needs nothing. Appetite thrives on emotional chaos, not biological needs.

1. Hunger:

   • A physiological signal that sharpens focus and primes digestion. It’s your body’s “green light” for nutrient replenishment.

   • How it feels: A gentle, energizing pull toward wholesome foods—think craving grilled fish after a fast, not midnight ice cream.

2. Appetite:

   • A dopamine-driven craving induced by stress or boredom, often for hyperpalatable foods (sugary, salty, processed).

   • According to studies, 78% of overeating stems from stress and anxiety, not hunger. Appetite hijacks your instincts, leaving you sluggish and unsatisfied.

Hunger is nature’s GPS; it guides you to what your body can actually use. Appetite, however, is a cultural hijacker—shaped by marketing, habits, and emotional coping mechanisms.

Hunger is minimalism, appetite is excess.

Eating past hunger to satisfy appetite is like a goose being forcefully fed for foie gras. Similarly, shoveling in that slice of cake (thanks, appetite!) might feel like a “treat,” but you’re just force-feeding your future self a side of regret.

I refer to this formula anytime I want to simplify and rectify my eating habits:

Divide your consumption into three parts: one-third for your food, one-third for your drink, and one-third for your breath.

Having said that, it’s important to be aware of the following:

1. The 1/3 Rule:

   • Food (1/3): Prioritize seasonal, whole foods.

   • Drink (1/3): Hydrate with water or herbal infusions—not liquid calories.

   • Breath (1/3): Allow enough space for breathing. Oxygen aids digestion and signals fullness.

2. Chew Like Your Life Depends on It (Because It Does):

   • Chew your food into a liquid. Your teeth are there for a reason; they are part of your design and your digestive process, so use them.

   • Chewing thoroughly reduces gut strain and boosts nutrient absorption

3. Eat Intentionally:

   • A study shows that believing food is nourishing enhances its nutrient bioavailability. I recommend reading it for more in-depth knowledge on this topic.

   • Feel grateful for your food and offer thanks to God with every bite. Gratitude isn’t just spiritual—it’s physiological.

     • Try: “I eat to become stronger and efficient. That’s my way of thanking God.”

Bless your meal, and your body listens. When you eat this way, you will have a better attitude toward your food. You won’t think of your food as healthy or unhealthy; you will feel about it as wholesome material that you use to be a better human being.

By doing this, intentionally eating, your food will have healing effects, and that’s what science shows. If this thought is too much to swallow, why do you think the placebo effect happens in the first place? It’s the power of belief that influences our biology.

• The Sins:

  • Alcohol and non-halal meat.

• The Processed Food Trap:

  • Ultra-processed foods disrupt hunger cues. For every 10% increase in processed food intake, mortality risk jumps 14% (BMJ, 2024).

• Eat What Grows in Your Environment:

  • Your genes and microbiome evolved to thrive on local, ancestral foods. Example: Inuit populations (Eskimos) metabolize omega-3s from fish and seal 40% more efficiently than plant-based sources (American Journal of Human Genetics, 2018). Rice, on the other hand, sustains Asians but fails Arctic dwellers.

I’m Lebanese, so I love to eat seasonally. In autumn, I eat a lot of pumpkin and butternut squash soups. I enjoy citrus fruits, root vegetables like carrots and beets, and the iconic lentil soup in winter. Spring brings fresh greens, such as peas, spinach, artichokes, and radishes to my plate. I savor juicy tomatoes and cucumbers in summer, often in refreshing salads or grilled dishes.

I also almost exclusively eat organic, not buying into the hype, but because none of those chemicals sprayed on your food are safe. Ideally, you can buy local produce or grow it yourself.

The Bottom Line:

The informational noise around us distorted our inner compass and affected the way we think of health. Mainstream media and health gurus made us believe that living healthily is complicated. We have been fed lies like you need to sleep 8 hours a day, without focusing on how and when to sleep. Our days have been stolen from us, so we seek the night to “live”. When this cycle repeats, we are dead during the day and alive at night. Do you know that sounds like who? A Zombie. And that breaks my heart. Many people are forced to work night shifts or even 24 hours a day, like a friend of mine often does as a resident doctor. The system is broken, not you; you need to know you need a change.

Here are the health benefits you will experience within 48 hours of applying these practices.

• Sleeping according to your design will lead to waking up refreshed, maintaining positive thoughts throughout the day, boosting your mood, and enhancing your relationships. All your life.

• Exercising according to your design will be effortless. You’ll have fun working out, have a naturally fit body, your strength will skyrocket, and you'll never find an excuse not to work out. All your life.

• Eating according to your design will provide you with all the variety of foods you seek. You will be able to prepare your favorite pizzas, burgers, salads, or even your favorite dessert. All this while still feeling light, energetic, focused, and less prone to disease. All your life.

You have to free yourself from all that is cuffing your hands and preventing you from improving and moving forward. The control the establishment has over our bodies is significant. We drink skimmed milk and yolkless eggs, thinking saturated fats are unhealthy. Vegetable oils that are extracted with the chemical solvent hexane and genetically modified oils like canola oils are marketed as the “healthy” oils. We get bombarded with endless supplements promising us the best bodies. We are taught that doing more and consuming more is success. They don’t tell you that you need to tune back to your design and how God intended you to live, how nature is at your service and not for your exploitation. These teachings are grounded in ancient wisdom and religious morals. If you think otherwise, think again.

Finally, thank you for reading this far. Only determined and focused people can do that. If you found what you learned here useful and might help a friend or a family member, please share it with them.

If you have any questions, please send me a message or comment below.