Dr. Casey Means Wants You to Stop Overthinking Your Health Routine

When Dr. Casey Means left her career as a head and neck surgeon to focus on preventive health, it wasn’t a decision she made lightly. After nearly a decade of medical training at Stanford and years of surgical practice, she noticed something troubling: Americans were getting sicker, not healthier, despite having access to more healthcare than ever before.

In today’s conversation with Kristin Cavallari on Let’s Be Honest (“Plastic In our Brains?!“), Means shared her journey from surgeon to health advocate, along with surprisingly straightforward approaches to better health that don’t require expensive gadgets or complicated protocols. Her message cuts through the usual wellness noise with refreshing clarity: some of the most effective health interventions might also be the simplest.

Take her morning routine. Her solution isn’t a $300 circadian rhythm lamp or an elaborate protocol—it’s as simple as stepping outside while brushing your teeth. “I get up and as I’m brushing my teeth, I like open the front door. I walk into the front yard. I look at the sun.” This small habit, she suggests, helps regulate our body’s natural rhythms in a way that indoor lighting simply can’t match. “Our body actually knows when to be awake and when to sleep, but the way that it knows is by whether it’s getting from the sun hitting our retina,” Means explains.

This kind of simple intervention feels particularly relevant given that Americans spend “94 percent of their time indoors or in a car,” says Means. We’re essentially living in a state of constant biological confusion, our bodies desperate for the basic signals—sunlight, movement, real food—that they’re designed to receive.

When it comes to movement, Means cuts through the noise with a surprisingly basic prescription: walk more. “If walking were a pill, it would be the most effective pill in human history,” she says, citing research from top medical journals. The average older American walks about 3,400 steps daily—”basically like less than two miles.” Research suggests increasing to 7,000 steps can be associated with significant health benefits.

“Our bodies are meant to be in motion from a cellular biology perspective for a lot of the day,” she explains, challenging the notion that an hour at the gym can compensate for sitting all day. Her advice? Look for ways to incorporate more movement throughout your day, whether it’s taking walking meetings or simply parking farther from your destination. For Means, she takes a treadmill walking pad outside to get both movement and sunlight while doing “administrative tasks.”

Means also wants you to transform how you shop for food. Rather than treating grocery shopping as a chore to be completed as quickly as possible under fluorescent lights, she advocates for regular farmers market visits. It’s “like a triple quadruple whammy because one, you’re outdoors and you’re walking while you’re shopping, so you’re getting sunlight and movement… you’re connecting with the people who [grow the food].”

This isn’t just about buying organic produce, she explains. It’s about understanding your food’s journey from soil to plate. She offers a practical tip: many farmers use organic practices but aren’t certified organic due to the expensive certification process. By talking to farmers directly, you can often get high-quality produce at better prices.

For those struggling with sleep, Means approaches sleep with the same practical mindset. Instead of focusing solely on nighttime routines, she emphasizes that good sleep starts with your daytime habits. Her recommendations include:

• Getting morning sunlight
• Dimming lights after dinner
• Using red light bulbs in the bedroom
• Considering supplements like magnesium L-threonate (about 300 milligrams) and L-theanine for relaxation

For those struggling with sleep, she suggests looking at the bigger picture of modern life’s impact on our natural rhythms. The constant exposure to screens and artificial light, she explains, disrupts our natural sleep-wake cycles in ways we’re only beginning to understand.

To create a morning routine that actually works, Means shares her own achievable approach:

• Opening the front door first thing
• Getting immediate sunlight exposure
• A morning drink (her current recipe: “Matcha, like, A2 grass fed organic milk, a scoop of creatine, a scoop of collagen, a little bit of allulose”)
• A walk around the block
• Ten minutes of meditation

“We have to get creative to essentially overcome our cultural programming and norms in order to give ourselves the basic things they need to function properly,” she explains. It might look a little weird to neighbors, she admits, but the benefits outweigh any momentary self-consciousness.

[Note: Always consult with healthcare providers before making significant changes to your diet or exercise routine.]