Month: August 2025

• A veteran Navy SEAL turned CEO said his morning routine for longevity helps him stay fit and focused.
• The routine includes intermittent fasting, journaling, morning sunlight, and swimming workouts.
• His exercise habits include a mix of low-intensity cardio like Zone 2 and walking with VO2 max training.

Not so long ago, Brian Valenza woke up at 4:30 a.m. every morning to tackle the day head-on, a habit he inherited from his years of service with the Navy SEALs.

At 48, he’s sleeping in.

Valenza, the CEO of a security firm and co-host of a network of longevity retreats said he still keeps a disciplined routine, but he has changed up his lifestyle with a goal of extending his lifespan. Now, he prioritizes recovery, a healthy social life, and stress management more than ever.

“As I get older, I realize the importance of sleep for me. Our kids stay up a little late, we want to spend time with them before they go to college, so we find ourselves sleeping in a little bit later,” he told Business Insider.

For a veteran SEAL, sleeping in means waking up between 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., usually to swim for a few miles before starting his day.

Exercise is a core part of his day. He trains every year for the Navy SEAL Foundation NYC SEAL Swim, a test of endurance involving open-water swimming in the Hudson River with rounds of push-ups and pull-ups to honor veterans. To keep his heart in shape year-round, he logs hours of low-intensity cardio, too.

Valenza shared his morning routine with Business Insider — stacked with healthy habits like fasting, hydrating, and meditation to help him maintain peak performance and focus as he gets older.

Morning routine: Fasting, exercise, and sunlight

Morning is a crucial time to set the tone for a successful day, Valenza said.

His typical day includes:

• Wake up between 5 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. — depending on how late Valenza stayed up to spend time with his family, he aims to get a full night’s sleep even if it means a later start to the day by SEAL standards.
• Journaling and meditation — Valenza starts each day with a gratitude practice, writing down or mentally reviewing what he’s grateful for, and often meditating.
• Get some sun and time in nature — he swears by seeing sunlight early in the morning to enhance energy and focus.
• Hydrate with water and a pinch of sea salt — drinking enough water improves physical and mental performance, and salt helps to replenish electrolytes lost to sweat during exercise.
• Swim — Valenza swims several miles or about 45 minutes several days a week. Swimming is a great exercise for cardiovascular health and is also a low-impact way to strengthen multiple muscle groups, such as the back, core, and legs.
• Start the workday around 8 a.m. — after a cup of coffee, Valenza said he’s ready to start work, but takes periodic breaks to stretch and move around to avoid sitting for too long.
• Eat the first meal of the day around noon — Valenza practices intermittent fasting, abstaining from food for 14-18 hours a day to give his digestive system a rest. Research suggests some types of fasting may have some benefits for longevity by reducing inflammation and supporting metabolic health.

Later in the day, Valenza makes time for relaxation and social connection. Every day after dinner, he takes a long walk with his wife. Low-intensity cardio like walking is a great way to maintain health and fitness and reduce stress.

These days, he said, lower-intensity exercise and time for recovery are more important than ever.

“If you asked me 10 years ago, I was still trying to beat the 18-year-old,” he said. “As you get older, you really have to calculate the long game.”

• The US military is taking lessons from the Ukraine war to inform its training for future wars.
• An American veteran serving in Ukraine said the US needs to prepare in a few broad ways.
• He told BI the US needs to forget about the Middle East wars and focus efforts on air superiority.

To prepare for the next major conflict, the US military needs to forget nearly everything it has learned from two decades of fighting wars in the Middle East, an American veteran in Ukraine told Business Insider.

Scooter, who serves as an instructor with the 4th Ranger Regiment of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, said Russia’s invasion offers lessons for the West about how it can prepare for future combat. The American could only be identified by his call sign for security reasons.

“The first lesson I would recommend to NATO and the United States is to forget the last lesson they learned,” the American said during a video chat from an undisclosed location in central Ukraine. A counterinsurgency, like the ones American forces fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, is “nothing like a conventional war” in terms of the intensity of combat and the types of threats.

Scooter, a former US Navy sailor who fought Russia for two years alongside other foreign volunteers in Ukraine’s International Legion before eventually joining the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, said threats that soldiers face in this war — rocket fire from helicopters, fighter jet strikes, accurate artillery shelling — are vastly different from the scenes in the Middle East.

“Commanders need to be training their people to deal with a threat, very similar to what we were expecting during the Cold War, with whoever we end up in a war with next,” he explained. “They need to be training them for much of the same threat that we would’ve faced in the 1980s.”

‘Airpower wins wars’

In a modern war, achieving air superiority through the suppression or destruction of enemy surface-to-air missile systems is critical. In the Middle East campaigns of the past couple of decades, this mission was much less of an issue for US forces, which could operate relatively uncontested in the skies.

Russia failed to achieve air superiority during the early stages of its invasion despite fielding a force of fighter jets and bombers vastly superior to that of Ukraine. This would come back to haunt Moscow, which is locked in a grinding, attritional fight, unable to make significant battlefield gains.

Advanced air defenses on both sides prevent Russia and Ukraine from operating their aircraft too close to the front line, providing the kind of close-air support needed to facilitate maneuvering. Most strikes are carried out from standoff ranges.

For US and NATO military planners, the ability to suppress enemy air defenses and establish air superiority — the ability to control the airspace without restrictive interference — will be key in a conventional war against a peer adversary like Russia.

And they know that.

US Air Force Gen. James Hecker, who served as the commander of NATO’s air command before he retired this year, said previously that “if we can’t get air superiority, we’re going to be doing the fight that’s going on in Russia and Ukraine right now.”

“And we know how many casualties that are coming out of that fight,” he said.

Given the dangers of failing to achieve air superiority, Scooter said he “would suggest to our leadership to make the quality of our pilots, maintainers, and logistics core a huge priority — if not number one.”

“In this type of conflict, airpower wins wars,” he continued. “Infantry take and hold ground. It’s really hard to take and hold ground when you have to contend with enemy artillery and aircraft. The party holding air superiority and the ability to suppress enemy air defense is typically the party doing the bombing of ground troops.”

Scooter stressed that ensuring squadrons are well-maintained and at solid readiness levels is a significant capability to chase.

Even then, there’s no guarantee that air superiority can be achieved. Some military leaders have said that there may only be windows of opportunity rather than persistent dominance in the air, but those bursts can be exploited for potential breakthroughs on the battlefield.

‘Throw the book away’

Lessons learned from Ukraine extend beyond the leadership level and run down to the unit level, down to the soldier.

For individual soldiers, it’s important to be quick, stay mobile, and avoid drawing unnecessary attention. This means concealing weapons or anything that can make someone a target. Others in the war have told BI that appearing important on the battlefield is definitely something to avoid. Sitting around in a spot can also be a bad decision.

“Speed saves. The faster you go, the longer you live,” Scooter explained.

He said that it’s good practice for special operations forces in the US to think outside the box. This might mean working against the training manual or standard operating procedures in situations that might call for it, like evacuating wounded soldiers from the battlefield.

“Throw the book away, throw the manual away. Get rid of it, and pay attention to how things are actually done here,” Scooter said. “So much of what we train in the United States is completely not applicable to reality.”

Scooter isn’t the first US vet in Ukraine to arrive at that conclusion. One told BI last year that “we’ve gotten so used to the idea of just fighting guerrilla wars and fucking fighting terrorists and everything else that we kind of forgot what it means to actually fight a war.”

A critical area of focus for the US will need to be keeping pace with drone warfare, which is rapidly evolving in Ukraine, as Kyiv and Moscow routinely adapt their tactics and unveil new innovations to one-up the enemy.

Officials and analysts have said that the US is unprepared for the type of conflict that Ukraine and Russia are locked in — specifically, the drone conflict — and that dramatic steps will need to be taken to step up readiness for that kind of fight.

• I was looking for a less intense form of exercise and joined a swim class for older adults.
• I was surprised by how well I fit in with the other attendees; they were social butterflies.
• I enjoy taking the class and have been going for a few years now.

When I signed up for a water aerobics class for older adults, I felt embarrassed — I was about 30 years younger than everyone else.

I’d recently moved in with my parents because I became disabled with long COVID. I wasn’t able to take care of myself in the same ways or exercise at the same intensity I was used to anymore, and I started to look for new ways of moving.

When you have chronic fatigue, it can be difficult to get movement in every day, but my doctors have told me it’s still vital to try. The key is finding something that doesn’t push beyond your threshold but also keeps you as active as possible.

I go walking in spring and fall. However, in Southern Illinois, where I live, temperatures and weather conditions in summer and winter are too extreme for me to walk outside. But there’s a gym with a pool down the street, and I love being in the water, so I decided to look at their classes.

I was the youngest person in the class by a few decades

I was surprised to see the variety of pool courses offered. However, many of them looked too vigorous. The only ones that appeared to be within the scope of my abilities were for older adults. Still, I put aside my self-consciousness about being 39 and considering this particular class, and looked at the time slots. This was the next hurdle — most were morning classes, as older people are often early birds.

Another symptom of my illness is insomnia, and I don’t wake up until after most of them take place. However, there was one beacon of light — a one-hour class starting at 5 pm that met three days a week. I decided to shed my pride and sign up.

My first time in the water, it took no time to realize I was in the “social butterfly” class — I would fit right in. Not only did everyone in the class immediately introduce themselves, but they also asked me why I was there. When I explained my disability, they showed genuine support.

Once class started, it became apparent that they all knew each other extremely well. It turned out most of them had been taking this same class together for years and were a tight-knit group. Whenever new people joined, they welcomed us with open arms. Apparently, they also liked this time slot because they weren’t “morning people” either. I felt right at home.

I fit right in with the group

As time went on, I was even more convinced of their party animal ways — they often spent the majority of the class socializing, while occasionally following the teacher. Now, that’s not to say they’re not active, because they definitely are. However, whether or not they are doing the actual exercises we are being shown is another subject entirely.

By the end of the hour, I was also introduced to this particular class’s special activity — they always insist the last 15 minutes are set aside to play with a beach ball.

I joined the game and they cheered each other on, trash-talked in jest, and even got a little competitive. With my age, I’m able to dive for the ball and do some tricks that others can’t. When I used these skills, they cheered loudly and excitedly. In fact, one man commented on “what a strong arm” I have.

Over time, I even made a close friend

Any discomfort I’d felt about joining an exercise class for older adults as a middle-aged woman quickly dissipated. And the surprises kept coming — the next class, I made a special friend. A woman approached me to chat while we were supposed to be exercising. She’d recently moved to the area and had only been attending for a few months.

As we got to know each other, we figured out that we’d both come from big cities to this small area, we shared a liberal mindset in a largely conservative area, and we both loved trying out new restaurants. Knowing she was about my mom’s age, and that my mom also wanted a friend who shared this affiliation, I suggested the three of us go out to dinner.

Now, we regularly go to the movie theater, go out to dinner, and attend local events related to our shared interests. In fact, sometimes she and my mom even go out without me! In the meantime, I’ve been going to these classes for the past three winters and loving every minute.

I didn’t have “become disabled, move home with my parents, join a water aerobics class frequented by retirees, and make new friends from a different generation” on my Bingo card for this stage of my life. However, it has not only been good for my health, but also for my soul.