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The Healf Source
What Top Men's Health Experts Want Every Man To Know
From fitness levels to fibre intake, deftly navigating the world of modern wellness can be a daunting task as we age.
Written by: Ed Cooper
Written on: July 23, 2026
Men will try to optimise almost anything — their plan to progressively improve bench press, to move the needle on their sleep score, and their morning routine down to the minute — before they'll book a GP appointment.
It's a well-worn cliché, but it hints at something real: a lot of men are tracking the wrong things, or nothing at all, while the conversations that actually matter for their health — testosterone levels, fertility, muscle mass, chances at increasing their longevity — happen everywhere except in the room with a doctor.
So we asked the people who spend their careers thinking about male physiology a deliberately narrow question: if there were five things a man should be paying attention to that he's probably not, what would they be? Speaking across Healf's Four Pillars of wellbeing — Eat, Move, Mind and Sleep — the experts’ answers weren't about next-gen biohacks or 12-step supplement plans, but instead landed on the basics. It was wellbeing done properly, at the right time, for the right reasons. Here’s what the top men's health experts said every man should be focusing on.
Eat: Quality, not just quantity
Over the past decade, protein and creatine have dominated the wellness conversation. Both have been linked to a host of physical benefits, from increases in muscle mass and power to faster recovery, alongside cognitive perks such as improved memory and enhanced adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production. But this fixation on only the headline macros and supplements has come at a cost, causing many men to overlook the bigger nutritional picture. “Most men focus on protein, but overlook the quality of their overall diet,” says sports nutritionist Paul Garrod, IOPN Dip. SENr, who has worked in sports nutrition for over a decade. “Eating enough fibre, fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and oily fish has a much bigger impact on long-term health, reducing the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers while supporting gut health and healthy aging.”
And though its risks are now widely discussed, you should remember to remain vigilant when it comes to toxic diet culture. “Under-eating or constantly dieting can reduce muscle growth, impair recovery and negatively affect hormones such as testosterone if energy intake is too low,” says Garrod, who recommends five key areas to focus on when it comes to nutrition.
“Eat more fibre, as it supports gut health, heart health, and helps reduce disease risk; prioritise protein at every meal, as it helps preserve muscle, especially from your 30s onwards and choose mostly whole foods, as they contain more nutrients and are generally more filling than ultra-processed alternatives,” he says. “Healthy fats, including nuts, seeds, olive oil and oily fish, support heart health and overall wellbeing. And don't ignore body weight or waist size, as excess abdominal fat is strongly linked with poorer metabolic health, regardless of fitness.”
Move: Build and protect your muscles
“From an exercise and fitness perspective, the one thing I think most men are overlooking is that long-term health is not built in the gym alone. It is built in the way you move, recover, eat, sleep and manage stress every day,” explains exercise scientist and functional medicine practitioner Pete Williams. “A lot of men still think of fitness as something quite narrow: how hard they can train, how much they can lift, how lean they look, or whether they can still do what they did in their twenties; but the bigger question is: are you building a body that will still serve you well in ten, twenty or thirty years?”
Thankfully, Williams’ methodology to get yourself moving in the right direction is simple. Firstly, “build and protect muscle,” he says. “Muscle is one of the strongest predictors of how well we function as we age and it supports metabolism, strength, balance, and independence.” Secondly, regular aerobic work, such as brisk walking, cycling, and swimming, “supports heart health, mitochondrial function and metabolic health.”
His third piece of advice is to “stop sitting for long uninterrupted periods, as you can train for an hour and still spend the rest of the day essentially inactive.” Instead, aim for regular movement throughout the day, as “prolonged sitting is a disease-promoting process.”
Recovery is Williams’ next pillar, an umbrella term he sees as covering sleep, nutrition, hydration, mobility and stress management. These “are not optional extras,” he says, “but allow adaptation to happen.”
On the flipside, men shouldn’t feel the need to train themselves into the ground to get results, says Williams. “More is not always better, but better is better. The body responds to the right dose of stress followed by adequate recovery,” he says. “If you are exhausted, inflamed, sleeping badly, and constantly sore, that is not a badge of honour. It may be a sign that your programme is poorly matched to your physiology and lifestyle.” For many men, he explains, “the biggest wins will come from sleeping properly, reducing alcohol, lifting weights, improving cardiovascular fitness, eating enough protein and fibre, and getting daily movement back into their life.”
Mind: Ditch the smartphone once in a while.
Neuroscience, neurobiology, and neurophysiology are hot topics in wellbeing right now, and as more studies emerge, we’re starting to find out exactly how digital culture affects the way we move, sleep and think. Neuroscientist TJ Power, known for his insights and his signature DOSE methodology, has spent years monitoring exactly how smartphones, artificial intelligence and short-form content affect us at a cognitive level, especially when it comes to concentration. “Short-form video addiction is right at the centre of why brains are less determined to stay unfocused on a goal,” he says. “If you train yourself to not even be able to watch to the end of a short-form video, how are you going to have the capacity to pursue any goal that requires a certain level of tenacity?”
Here, Power is talking about the insatiable pull of doomscrolling (see also: brain rot, scroll holes), and how it’s subtly rewiring our brains the more we swipe. “When you look into the science, it's just the rapid overstimulation of dopamine, the immense novelty-seeking, the breakdown of the prefrontal cortex and the striatum in your brain, which surrounds your dopamine centre, all becoming ineffective,” he says. “Your anterior cingulate cortex, where you have your capacity to be persistent, that’s also weakening over time.” Fundamentally, Power continues, this “translates to all aspects of your health, making you less persistent with your food, less persistent with your movement.”
There is, however, a fix. “One of the central solutions to digital addiction is time spent outdoors,” he says, recommending headphone-free walks as a “tremendous” tool to build motivation and clarity. “You get restorative benefits to your serotonin through sunlight and nature, which is deeply calming for humans and good for restoring your energy levels…nature has the capacity to expand our awareness to a greater amount of things, and therefore our narrow state of attention can begin to recover.”
Next time, leave your AirPods at home.
Sleep:
Most men who say they have a sleep problem actually have a bedtime problem. “The most common reason for sleep deprivation is inadequate time in bed,” says Dr. David Garley, Director at The Better Sleep Clinic, whose fix for men struggling with shut-eye starts nowhere near a pillow. Instead, taking a closer look at your evening and retroactively “restructuring your day to allow more time for sleep at night,” is an ideal place to start, he says, as it’s a lever that actually moves things, rather than investing in a new mattress or supplement and crossing your fingers.
From there, Garley turns to adjust your sleep environment where possible, insisting “a bedroom should be cooled, dark and quiet,” though he does concede that “it is actually quite difficult to make a modern bedroom these three things.”
Light exposure is the next step, on which Garley recommends “getting out into daylight in the first hour after waking” to reinforce “the wake phase of your circadian rhythm, so the sleep phase arrives more naturally at night,” with a bright window offering a decent substitute when getting outside isn't possible.
His final piece of advice is the most counterintuitive: don't force sleep. As Garley puts it, trying too hard to sleep “can push sleep even further away,” and if it hasn't arrived within twenty minutes, you’re much better off getting out of bed” and finding something relaxing to do until the urge returns.
This article is for informational purposes only, even if and regardless of whether it features the advice of physicians and medical practitioners. This article is not, nor is it intended to be, a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment and should never be relied upon for specific medical advice. The views expressed in this article are the views of the expert and do not necessarily represent the views of Healf
Ed is a freelance journalist and former Men’s Health digital editor, with bylines in Red Bull, BBC StoryWorks, Guardian Labs, Third Space, Natural Fitness Food and Form Nutrition, among others. Having run marathons, conducted sleep experiments on himself and worked with some of the world’s most in-demand experts — from sleep scientists and strength athletes to high-performance trainers and elite-level nutritionists — one thing remains clear for The Healf Source contributor: fitness trends come and go, but as long as you keep turning up for yourself, consistency will win every time.
