Don’t check your phone first thing in the morning. Start your meal with protein, not bread. And take the stairs.

These were among the surprisingly simple prescriptions from Teemu Arina, Finnish biohacker, bestselling author and one of the world’s most prominent voices in longevity science, speaking at the Hololife Longevity Côte d’Azur Summit in Nice on March 12th.

“You can’t outsource your health and say something is going to fix me when I’m broken,” he told an audience of more than 300 at Le Méridien Nice. “No one else is going to be as interested in your health as you are.”

Arina, co-author of The Biohacker’s Handbook, has spent over 15 years optimising his own biology. At 43, he says his hormone profile looks more like that of a man in his thirties, or even 20s, than when he first started tracking his health at 30.

His message, however, is less about elite self-optimisation and more about a simple shift in mindset: prevention over cure.

“We have a system focused on immediate medical care,” he said. “But it has absolutely, utterly failed with treating things that might happen in ten, twenty, thirty years.” Only 0.57 per cent of GDP in Europe, he noted, is currently spent on preventive healthcare.

Start small: the three habits with adopting now

After his presentation, Monaco Life sat down with Teemu Arina to figure out what someone could start doing today. Arina kept it quite simple:

First: align with your circadian rhythm. “Wake up with the sun, reduce blue light in the evening (devices). That supports your hormones, your blood sugar regulation, all of it.”

Second: change the order in which you eat. “When you go to a restaurant and they give you bread, start with the protein and salad first. The bread will have much less of an effect afterwards. It’s not about eating less, it’s about timing.”

Third: move more, in the most ordinary ways possible. “Take the stairs. Walk. That’s the Mediterranean lifestyle our ancestors were having.”

On his own morning routine, he was equally strict. “I don’t take my phone out of airplane mode until I’ve done my exercise, sauna, ice bath, some supplements. And yeah, I can have a croissant occasionally,  but it’s not my common thing.”

He also highlighted contrast therapy, alternating between heat and cold, as one of the most underused tools available. “We don’t get that temperature variation naturally anymore. Do it every day if you can. Learn to deal with uncomfortable things like cold.”

The broader argument running through his talk was one of personal accountability. “If your body was a company and your energy levels were a stock price – would you invest in yourself right now?”

Arina was speaking at the first major longevity summit to take place on the French Riviera, bringing together researches and practitioners across fields from regenerative medicine to metabolic health and neuroscience.

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Main photo credit: Monaco Life