3 Recovery Tools Every CEO and Entrepreneur Should Use for Better Health and Performance
Most CEOs and entrepreneurs don’t fail because of a lack of drive. They fail because their body and mind eventually break down under the weight of endless demands. In business, more often feels like the only answer: more hours, more effort, and more output.
But in reality, that approach eventually erodes the very edge leaders depend on.
The truth is simple: recovery isn’t indulgence—it’s insurance. For top performers, health isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s the operating system that powers clarity, decision-making, and longevity. Without deliberate recovery, the compounding effects are costly. Energy declines, focus slips, and leadership presence fades.
The irony? Recovery doesn’t require hours of downtime or luxury retreats. In fact, some of the most effective tools are simple, science-backed, and easily integrated into a CEO’s demanding schedule.
Sauna sessions, cold exposure, and even grounding practices, often overlooked or dismissed, have proven benefits that sharpen judgment, build resilience, and protect leaders’ long-term health.
In this article, we’ll break down three recovery tools every CEO and entrepreneur should consider. Think of them not as “wellness fads,” but as performance assets designed to protect your billion-dollar body and mind.
The 3 Tools Every Leader Should Leverage
1. Sauna = Strategic Heat Stress
Conditions your body to rebound faster and builds cardiovascular resilience.
Long-term studies link sauna use to a lower risk of heart disease and improved longevity.
For leaders, it’s a way to stress-test your system in a controlled, adaptive environment.
2. Cold Exposure = Composure Under Pressure
Short cold exposure spikes dopamine and norepinephrine, boosting focus and mood.
Research indicates that as little as 11 minutes per week can produce measurable benefits.
Enhances mitochondrial efficiency, promoting improved energy, endurance, and recovery.
3. Grounding = Recharging Your Circuit
Making contact with the earth reduces cortisol levels, improves sleep quality, and stabilizes HRV.
Boosts cellular repair by replenishing your body’s energy reserves.
Helps leaders stay composed and clear-headed when volatility peaks.
Leaders don’t run out of ideas; they run out of energy. Recovery tools like the sauna, cold exposure, and grounding aren’t luxuries—they’re multipliers.
They help CEOs and entrepreneurs extend their edge, make better decisions, and preserve their longevity in a way that compounds across decades. At Executive Health, we don’t just optimize performance today—we build systems that protect the billion-dollar asset of your health for the long run.
To see these strategies explained in detail, watch the video below. And if you’re ready to design your own executive health operating system, explore how Executive Health can help.
Transcript (May Not Be Exact)
Julian Hayes II
(0:00) What's the number one mistake that CEOs and entrepreneurs make when it comes to their health? (0:07) That answer is simple. (0:09) They treat recovery as optional, like it's an indulgence.
(0:14) But here's the truth. (0:16) Without deliberate recovery, you will eventually pay the price through your energy, your clarity, your acuity, your leadership capacity, and your quality of presence with your family. (0:32) Welcome, I'm Julian Hayes II, founder of Executive Health, where the mission is to help CEOs, entrepreneurs, and other A-level leaders optimize their billion-dollar assets so they can thrive in business, lead in their communities, and most importantly, be more present with their families.
(0:49) Here is the reality that sometimes people overlook when it comes to business. (0:56) Business is an absolute 24-7 sport with no off-season. (1:01) It is probably the toughest sport to be in.
(1:04) You are expected to perform for decades. (1:06) You're expected to operate under volatility, pressure, scrutiny, nonstop demands, and you still got a personal life to deal with. (1:13) If you neglect recovery, the cost is certainly not just your health.
(1:18) It is your clarity. (1:19) It is your team. (1:20) It is your legacy and those most important to you.
(1:23) Safe to say there's a lot riding on your shoulders if you are an A-level leader. (1:28) When I think about health, when I think about fitness, I think about myself, I thought about, because I had this conversation with a 22-year-old, and I said, in your 20s, it's like playing Call of Duty on recruit mode for the video game people out there. (1:46) Recruit mode is the easiest one if you're not familiar.
(1:49) You can get away with pushing harder, sleeping less, and do whatever you want to your body, and you can still look super in shape, have no problems at all. (1:59) But in your 30s, especially after 35, definitely into your 40s and beyond, you can still look awesome. (2:07) I work out more at 39 than I did at 29.
(2:11) But the strategy is a little different. (2:15) More eventually becomes less when you think about your 20s compared to your 30s and 40s and beyond. (2:22) Recovery at this stage is not a luxury.
(2:26) It's insurance. (2:27) It's a necessity. (2:29) I want to share three recovery tools, three of my favorite ones that I use, and that I always advise and recommend others to do so as well.
(2:38) Number one is the sauna. (2:42) Think of this as strategically leveraging heat stress. (2:47) The sauna is not just relaxing.
(2:50) I mean, it's very relaxing, at least to me. (2:52) I know it's hot in there to some people, but to me, I look forward to it. (2:57) The sauna is also a controlled stressor that conditions our biology for resilience is what I think.
(3:05) One long-term, it's a very popular Finnish study. (3:10) It was published in the, I think, JAMA Internal Medicine, and it found that men who used the sauna 47 times per week, they cut the risk of sudden cardiac death almost in half compared to once a week. (3:25) Women, this applies to you as well.
(3:28) The sauna doesn't discriminate. (3:30) It benefits both men and women. (3:32) Heat exposure triggers heat shock proteins.
(3:35) Simply put, think of these as your body's repair crew, and they're protecting your brain, your heart, they're helping you recover faster, and a whole assortment of other things. (3:47) Now, for a leader of significant responsibility, a leader of great ambition, think of the sauna as a mini stress test. (3:59) It's training you to rebound quicker.
(4:01) It's training you to make clearer decisions, and it's training you to endure volatility without breaking. (4:09) Number two here is cold exposure. (4:13) Focus under pressure is how I think about this.
(4:17) I'm not a fan of the cold. (4:19) Do not like it at all. (4:21) Absolutely hate it.
(4:22) However, cold is another deliberate stressor that is going to help recalibrate our biology. (4:30) Even short bouts of cold water spike norepinephrine and dopamine, which, simply put, can be thought of as brain chemicals that sharpen our focus and elevate our mood. (4:42) And there was research that showed that as little as 11 minutes a week of cold exposure delivered measurable benefits across the gamut.
(4:52) Now, on a cellular level, cold builds more mitochondria, more energy factories, meaning more endurance, better recovery. (5:03) But here's the leadership parallel. (5:05) Let's connect it back to the business world.
(5:08) The same composure that you would need to sit in an ice bath is, in a nutshell, the same composure that's going to carry you through another volatile market. (5:20) It's going to carry you through negotiations. (5:24) It's going to carry you through the latest distractions that's going to be out there because they are coming in droves.
(5:33) Number three is the newest one that I use. (5:35) I've been using it for a while, though, but it is a favorite. (5:39) It is free.
(5:39) It is easy. (5:40) And it sounds so simple. (5:43) Grounding, recharging your circuits.
(5:47) Grounding sounds hella simple. (5:49) You make direct contact with the earth you walk barefoot on some grass. (5:55) There's other areas as well, but we're just going to use grass in this example.
(5:58) Wet early in the morning is even better. (6:01) Research has found that it lowers nighttime cortisol. (6:04) It improves your sleep quality.
(6:06) It even steadies your heart rate variability. (6:10) So the mechanism here is that you are literally pulling electrons from the ground because our body is electric. (6:17) We are electric beings.
(6:19) There's a great book by Robert Becker, The Body Electric, and so many more, but I don't want to get sidetracked. (6:25) You're pulling these electrons from the ground. (6:28) This is free energy that's going to improve our cellular repair systems.
(6:33) It's going to improve our resilience. (6:34) It's going to help inflammation. (6:36) It's going to help, man, I want to say nearly every single system of the body benefits from grounding.
(6:43) It's so simple and so free that it's so easy to overlook. (6:48) But I always say that leaders, they don't run out of ideas. (6:52) Leaders never run out of ideas, but they do run out of energy.
(6:56) So grounding is going to help replenishing your charge so you stay clear, composed, and influential when volatility and when pressure is at its peak.
Julian Hayes II
(7:06) Grounding is also a easy, easy, easy, easy tool to leverage if you can to help you mitigate jet lag.
Julian Hayes II
(7:18) Now, this one's easy, these three things I've named. (7:22) You are probably saying, I don't have time to go walk barefoot on the ground, in the wet grass, go sit in an ice bath, go sit in a sauna. (7:33) But I love to reframe these things.
(7:38) These are not indulgences. (7:40) These are not just, you're just messing around. (7:43) These are leveraged.
(7:44) These are inputs that you can use to make you better at your job, no matter what you do, whether you're a hedge fund manager, whether you are a banking executive, whether you are a managing partner at a firm, whatever you're doing, these are going to make you better. (8:03) So a few minutes of strategic recovery pays you back sharper focus, better decision-making, better spouse, better parent, more resilient and charismatic leader, better emotional intelligence, equaling more investments, more revenue, whichever word, whatever your industry is. (8:26) So the real cost is not the time that you invest.
(8:28) It's the energy and the clarity that you potentially lose when you skip it. (8:37) So the takeaway, recovery is not a break from leadership. (8:40) It's actually a leadership essential.
(8:43) It's actually a prerequisite for optimal leadership. (8:47) So sauna, cold exposure and grounding, definitely are not fads. (8:52) You're definitely not woo-wooy.
(8:54) These are tools to future-proof your billion-dollar asset, of course, which is your health. (9:00) And speaking of your billion-dollar asset, if you are a CEO, entrepreneur, or any sort of A-level leader, filled with ambition, ready to build a recovery system that matches the demands of your business, the demands of where you need to go in life. (9:15) That's exactly what we specialize in at Executive Health.
(9:18) The link to schedule a diagnostic call is below. (9:23) Until next time, thanks for joining me. (9:26) See you at the next video.
(9:27) Optimize today and lead tomorrow. (9:29) Peace.
