<![CDATA[DR. DERRICK HINES

<![CDATA[DR. DERRICK HINES - Blogs]]>Sun, 21 Jun 2026 06:56:54 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Why VO2 Max May Be The Biggest Predictor Of Longevity]]>Tue, 19 May 2026 19:59:20 GMThttps://www.derrickhines.com/blogs/why-vo2-max-may-be-the-biggest-predictor-of-longevity

When most people think about long-term health, they usually focus on things like cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, or body weight.

And all of those things matter.

But one of the strongest predictors of how long and how well you live may actually be how efficiently your body uses oxygen.

That is what VO2 max measures.

VO2 max is essentially a measurement of how much oxygen your body can take in and use during intense exercise. And while people often associate it with endurance athletes, it is really measuring something much bigger than athletic performance.

It is measuring how well your heart, lungs, blood vessels, muscles, and mitochondria are all working together.

Can your body bring in oxygen efficiently?
Can it deliver that oxygen where it needs to go?
And once it gets there, can your cells actually turn it into usable energy?

It turns out that tells us a lot about overall health.

VO2 Max Has A Huge Relationship With Longevity

One of the statistics I mention in this episode is honestly pretty staggering.

Some studies show that people in the lowest category for VO2 max have roughly a 500% higher risk of all-cause mortality compared to people with very high cardiorespiratory fitness for their age.

That is a massive difference.

I use smoking as an example a lot because everyone understands how harmful smoking is long term. The difference in mortality risk between smokers and non-smokers is somewhere around 50%.

So when you look at VO2 max statistically, we are talking about something that appears to have an even larger relationship with long-term health outcomes.

That is one of the reasons I think this conversation matters so much.

VO2 Max Is Really A Measure Of Capacity

One of the simplest ways I explain VO2 max to patients is this:

It is basically a measure of the size of your engine.

The bigger your engine, the easier it is for your body to handle physical and metabolic demands without getting overwhelmed.

When cardiorespiratory fitness is low, normal daily life places much more stress on the system. Walking upstairs feels harder. Recovery takes longer. Energy drops faster. The body has to work much harder just to handle everyday demands.

But when VO2 max improves, the body becomes much more efficient at producing and utilizing energy. And that tends to improve resilience across multiple systems.

I use the example of a vehicle a lot with patients.

If you constantly drive a vehicle at the very edge of what the engine can tolerate, eventually it starts wearing down much faster.

The human body is not all that different.

Higher VO2 Max Usually Means Better Overall Health

One of the things that has become increasingly clear in the research is that VO2 max is connected to much more than exercise performance.

A large meta-analysis published in 2024 showed strong relationships between cardiorespiratory fitness and multiple longevity markers including inflammation, blood pressure, cellular health, and metabolic function.

As VO2 max improves, many other health markers tend to improve alongside it.

That is why I think this matters for everyone, not just athletes.

This is really about building a body that has enough capacity and resilience to stay healthy long term.

Most People Stop Training This System

One of the things I notice as people get older is that they gradually stop exposing themselves to higher cardiovascular demands.

Once people reach their 50s and 60s, there is often this idea that getting your heart rate too high is dangerous or unhealthy.

But for most people, the research really does not support that. In fact, appropriately training those higher heart rate zones appears to be very important for maintaining resilience, energy, and long-term health as we age.

The good news is this type of training does not necessarily require hours and hours of cardio.

Some of the most effective protocols are actually fairly short.

The Norwegian 4x4

One of my favorite methods for improving VO2 max is something called the Norwegian 4x4.

The structure is pretty straightforward:

warm up for about five to eight minutes
perform four minutes at roughly 85-95% effort
recover actively for three minutes
repeat that cycle four times

I usually prefer using a bike for this because it lowers injury risk compared to running, especially for people who are not experienced runners.

What makes this protocol so effective is that it forces the body to become more efficient at bringing in oxygen and using it under stress.

And over time, the body adapts.

I have seen dramatic improvements in VO2 max in patients doing this even once per week consistently over several months.

Short Intervals Can Be Extremely Powerful

Another protocol I really like is what we call a VO2 max boost.

After a proper warm-up, you perform:

30 seconds all out
followed by 90 seconds of active recovery

And you repeat that six to eight times depending on fitness level.

The key here is intensity.

For those thirty seconds, you are pushing very hard. Then during recovery you allow your breathing and heart rate to settle before repeating the effort again.

Despite how short these intervals are, the adaptations can be pretty remarkable over time.

This Matters More As We Age

One of the reasons I think VO2 max training becomes more important over time is because cardiorespiratory fitness tends to decline fairly sharply with age.

But I do not think that decline is entirely inevitable.

I think a large part of it is that most people stop challenging these systems enough as they get older. They stop training oxygen utilization, stop reaching higher heart rates, and gradually lose capacity over time.

The body adapts to what we repeatedly ask it to do.

And if we stop asking for resilience, we slowly lose it.

Building A Bigger Engine Changes A Lot

One of the things I love about VO2 max training is that the benefits usually extend far beyond exercise itself.

People often notice better energy, better recovery, improved resilience, better physical capacity, and better overall function in daily life.

And over time, that adds up to a healthier body with more energy, more resilience, and a much better chance of staying active long term.

Derrick Hines, D.P.T., MS O.M.T.
Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab

P.S. I break down why VO2 max may be one of the most important predictors of long-term health, resilience, and longevity. Click HERE to watch the video on YouTube

]]><![CDATA[HOW LASER THERAPY IS CHANGING PAIN]]>Sat, 16 May 2026 14:13:57 GMThttps://www.derrickhines.com/blogs/how-laser-therapy-is-changing-pain

About 15 years ago, when I first started using laser therapy clinically, I honestly was not convinced it was going to make much of a difference.

At the time, the technology was much more limited than what we have available now, and I remember feeling somewhat skeptical about how impactful it could really be. After using it a handful of times, I eventually stopped pulling it out very often.

Then I had a patient come in who kept specifically asking for laser treatment during his visits. I remember asking him one day if he actually felt like it was helping, and he immediately started showing me the changes in his knee. His swelling had improved, his motion had improved, and he had gone several weeks without another meniscus flare-up.

That was one of the first moments where I realized there was probably much more happening physiologically than I initially understood.

A lot has changed since then.

The technology has improved dramatically over the last decade. Treatment depth has improved. The research has improved. And our understanding of how light interacts with human physiology has changed significantly as well.

That is one of the reasons I wanted to sit down with Dr. Rob Hanopole for this conversation.

You can CLICK HERE to watch the conversation

Laser Therapy Is Very Different Than Most People Think

One of the biggest misconceptions around laser therapy is that people tend to lump everything into the same category.

Red light therapy, infrared therapy, LED panels, and medical laser systems all get grouped together online, but they are not all operating at the same therapeutic level.

Some lower-powered devices can absolutely still provide benefits. People often notice improvements in circulation, skin health, inflammation, and recovery with them.

But high-powered medical laser systems are designed to deliver energy much deeper into tissue, which creates a very different therapeutic effect when you are talking about healing injured tissue, improving recovery, or supporting regeneration.

That distinction matters because healing is an energy-dependent process.

Healing Starts At The Cellular Level

One of the things we discussed heavily in this episode is mitochondria.

Mitochondria are the energy-producing structures inside our cells. They help generate ATP, which is essentially the fuel cells use to do their jobs properly.

When tissue becomes injured, inflamed, or chronically dysfunctional, energy production inside those cells often becomes impaired as well.

That is part of what makes chronic injuries so frustrating. The tissue is trying to heal, but the environment surrounding that tissue is often working against recovery at the same time.

Photobiomodulation, or laser therapy, appears to stimulate receptors inside cells that improve energy production. And when cells produce energy more efficiently, they tend to function more efficiently too.

If cells are involved in tissue repair, they repair tissue more effectively.
If they are regulating inflammation, they regulate inflammation more effectively.
If they are helping build tendon, muscle, or connective tissue, those processes improve as well.

That is one of the reasons laser therapy has become so interesting clinically over the last several years.

Chronic Pain Often Involves Poor Recovery Capacity

One of the things I think healthcare is beginning to understand more clearly is that chronic pain is not always simply a structural problem.

Sometimes tissue never fully heals.
Sometimes inflammation stays elevated longer than it should.
Sometimes circulation is poor.
Sometimes the nervous system stays locked into a protective response long after the initial injury occurred.

And sometimes the body simply does not have enough cellular energy available to recover efficiently.

This is where therapies that support healing at the cellular level become very interesting.

Because instead of only asking how we reduce pain temporarily, the conversation starts shifting toward improving the environment that allows healing to happen in the first place.

That is a very different approach to healthcare.

The Conversation Around Disc Injuries Is Changing

We also spent time talking about chronic spine and disc injuries because this is one of the areas where regenerative therapies and laser therapy are generating a lot of interest right now.

Disc injuries can be incredibly frustrating for patients. Discs have relatively poor blood supply compared to many other tissues, which limits healing capacity. Once inflammation and nerve irritation become chronic, people often end up cycling through medications, injections, and sometimes surgery without ever feeling like the underlying issue fully resolved.

That does not mean surgery is never appropriate because there are certainly situations where it is necessary.

But more patients are beginning to ask whether there are ways to support healing before immediately moving toward more invasive interventions.

That is one of the reasons regenerative medicine, photobiomodulation, biologics, peptides, and recovery-based therapies are growing so rapidly right now. People are becoming much more interested in helping the body repair itself more effectively instead of simply masking symptoms.

Medicine Is Starting To Think About Healing Differently

For a long time, healthcare focused heavily on chemistry and structure:
medications, surgery, biomechanics, structural damage.

And all of those things still matter tremendously.

But we are also beginning to better understand the electrical and energetic side of human physiology. Cells communicate electrically. The nervous system functions electrically. Healing itself requires enormous amounts of energy.

That is opening the door to therapies designed to support recovery and healing through cellular signaling and energy transfer instead of only chemical intervention.

I think we are still very early in understanding where this field is ultimately going.

Recovery Affects Much More Than Pain

One of the reasons I find these conversations so interesting is because recovery affects nearly every aspect of long-term health.

Recovery affects inflammation.
It affects movement quality.
It affects energy production.
It affects nervous system regulation.
It affects resilience and aging.

The better the body recovers, the better it tends to function overall.

That is why therapies focused on improving circulation, mitochondrial function, tissue healing, and recovery capacity are becoming increasingly important not only for injuries, but also for longevity, performance, and healthy aging.

And I suspect we are only scratching the surface of what these therapies may eventually become capable of doing.

Derrick Hines, D.P.T., MS O.M.T.
Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab

P.S. You can watch a wonderful conversation I had with Rob Hanopole about Laser Therapy. Click HERE

]]><![CDATA[ONE HABIT CAN CHANGE YOUR HEALTH]]>Sun, 10 May 2026 15:44:41 GMThttps://www.derrickhines.com/blogs/one-habit-can-change-your-health

One of the biggest mistakes people make with their health is assuming they need to completely change their life overnight.

They start thinking about inflammation, weight loss, hormones, sleep, exercise, stress, recovery, nutrition, and energy all at once. Eventually health starts feeling less like something they can improve and more like this giant problem they are constantly trying to catch up to.

I see this all the time with patients.

Someone comes in trying to improve their health, and they already have a long list of things they are attempting to fix simultaneously. They are trying to completely clean up their diet, exercise every day, improve sleep, lose weight, reduce stress, hydrate better, and somehow sustain all of it perfectly despite having work, responsibilities, kids, and a normal life layered on top of everything else.

Usually what happens is they stay consistent for a couple weeks, get overwhelmed, fall off, and then feel like they failed.

Health Is Built Through Momentum

One of the concepts we come back to constantly in our practice is health momentum.

The body functions as an interconnected system. Your physical health influences your hormonal health. Hormonal health affects metabolism, energy, mood, and recovery. Sleep quality affects inflammation, nervous system regulation, and resilience. Mental and emotional health influence physical health far more than most people realize.

Everything affects everything else.

That is why small improvements in one area often create changes in several others at the same time.

Someone starts walking consistently and begins sleeping better. Better sleep improves recovery and energy, which makes movement easier to sustain. As movement becomes more consistent, inflammation, blood sugar regulation, and overall physical function often start improving too.

The body responds very powerfully to repeated positive inputs.

Most People Try To Build Too Much At Once

I had a patient recently who came in struggling with chronic pain, inflammation, low activity levels, and weight gain. Like many people, he was trying to overhaul his entire health all at the same time. He had a long list of changes he wanted to make, but none of them were happening consistently enough to create real momentum.

When we looked deeper at his daily habits, one thing stood out immediately:
he was averaging roughly 2,000 steps per day.

So instead of building a complicated plan, we focused entirely on movement consistency. The initial goal was simply getting to 5,000 steps per day. Once that became sustainable, we gradually pushed toward 7,500 steps daily, which is where research starts showing significant improvements in overall health outcomes.

As that momentum started building, other habits became easier to maintain naturally. He gradually replaced soft drinks with carbonated water, his blood sugar became more stable, his energy improved, and over time his pain levels, mood, and weight all started moving in a healthier direction as well.

Six months later, he had lost around twenty pounds and felt dramatically different physically and mentally.

The biggest shift was not one dramatic intervention. It was finally creating enough consistency that healthier behaviors stopped feeling like a constant battle.

The Body Responds Better To Consistency Than Intensity

I think many people misunderstand how health transformation actually happens.

They assume progress requires extreme discipline, a perfect routine, or some major life overhaul that starts immediately.

But the body usually responds better to consistency than intensity.

Walking every day changes physiology.
Improving sleep habits changes physiology.
Getting outside in the morning sunlight changes physiology.
Small improvements in hydration, movement, recovery, and stress management all begin influencing multiple systems over time.

Initially those habits may not feel significant, but once they start stacking together, momentum begins building much faster than people expect.

The First Five Days Matter More Than Most People Think

One thing we often discuss with patients is making sure a habit happens consistently during the first five days. Research on habit formation shows that early consistency dramatically increases the likelihood that a behavior becomes sustainable long term.

That is why I usually encourage people to start with something manageable enough that they know they can maintain it consistently.

For one person that may be getting outside every morning for ten minutes.
For someone else it may be improving hydration.
For another person it may be adding a short walk at the end of the day or turning screens off earlier at night.

The specific habit matters less than building enough consistency for momentum to start developing.

Because once momentum starts building, healthier decisions begin reinforcing each other naturally.

One Healthy Habit Usually Leads To Another

One of the fascinating things about human physiology is that improvements in one system often create positive effects in several others.

Better movement improves metabolic health and recovery.
Better recovery improves sleep and energy.
Better sleep improves inflammation, hormone regulation, and nervous system function.

Over time, those systems begin reinforcing each other in a very powerful way.

That is why people are often shocked by how different they feel six months after making what initially seemed like a relatively small change.

Health momentum tends to build gradually at first, and then suddenly people realize their energy is better, they are moving better, sleeping better, recovering better, and functioning differently overall.

The process usually starts much smaller than people expect.

Start Creating Momentum

You do not need to completely overhaul your life overnight.

You do not need a perfect routine before you begin.

And you do not need to fix every aspect of your health immediately in order to start moving in the right direction.

Sometimes the most important thing you can do is identify one habit you know you can sustain consistently and begin there.

That may be improving hydration, walking a little more each day, getting outside in the morning, improving sleep habits, or replacing one unhealthy behavior with a healthier one.

Small actions repeated consistently create very large changes in human physiology over time.

And once momentum starts building, the process of improving your health becomes much more sustainable and much more powerful than most people realize.

Derrick Hines, D.P.T., MS O.M.T.
Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab

]]><![CDATA[Why Your Treatment Isn't Working (And What You Are Missing)]]>Thu, 07 May 2026 19:49:52 GMThttps://www.derrickhines.com/blogs/why-your-treatment-isnt-working-and-what-you-are-missing

One of the conversations I have fairly often with patients and even other practitioners is around the idea that a certain treatment “doesn’t work.”

Recently, I was talking with another doctor about a patient case, and somewhere in the conversation he said, “Physical therapy doesn’t work for that condition.”

And my immediate response was:

What do you mean by physical therapy?

Because that definition changes the entire conversation.

We Have Reduced Physical Health Into Something Far Too Small

If physical therapy simply means stretches, exercises, hot packs, electrical stimulation, and a few rehab drills, then yes, there are situations where that approach is not enough.

But that is also an incredibly narrow way to think about physical health.

When we look at patients in our practice, we are not just looking at muscles and joints. We are looking at the systems that create physical health in the first place. The nervous system, immune system, cellular health, metabolism, movement quality, recovery capacity, and very often mental and emotional health all influence how someone feels and functions physically.

And all of those systems influence each other continuously.

That is why two people can walk in with similar symptoms and respond completely differently to the exact same treatment plan.

The Problem Is Often Bigger Than The Symptom

A patient may improve strength but still have a nervous system stuck in a chronic stress response.

Someone else may improve mobility while poor sleep and inflammation continue limiting tissue healing and recovery.

Another person may temporarily reduce pain while underlying metabolic dysfunction continues affecting energy production and resilience.

The body compensates extremely well until it cannot anymore.

And when symptoms finally become noticeable, they are often connected to several systems underperforming at the same time rather than one isolated issue.

That is where many people get stuck.

A treatment may improve one area while another major contributor to the problem continues driving dysfunction underneath the surface.

Healthcare Often Separates Problems That Are Deeply Connected

I think this is one of the biggest limitations in modern healthcare right now.

We tend to separate everything into categories:

physical therapy
mental health
pain management
exercise
nutrition
recovery

As if those systems are operating independently from each other.

But sleep quality affects inflammation.
Inflammation affects pain sensitivity and tissue healing.
Stress affects nervous system regulation and recovery capacity.
Poor metabolic health affects cellular energy production.
Movement quality affects circulation, stability, tissue resilience, and joint health.

You cannot completely separate those things because the body does not separate them.

The longer you work with patients, the more obvious this becomes.

Good Practitioners Look For The Weakest System

When someone is not improving, the conversation should not immediately become:
“Well, that treatment just doesn’t work.”

The better question is:
What system are we missing?

Because if the symptoms are not improving overall, there is usually a system contributing to the problem that has not been identified or addressed effectively yet.

That is how we approach physical health in our practice.

We try to identify the system functioning at the lowest level and improve it as effectively and efficiently as possible. Then we look at the systems being negatively impacted by that dysfunction and improve those too.

Sometimes that involves rehabilitation and movement.

Sometimes it involves sleep, stress management, recovery, supplementation, peptides, lifestyle change, or nervous system regulation.

Sometimes mental and emotional health become a major part of the conversation because those things directly influence physiology and healing capacity.

The point is that physical health is never just physical.

If You Feel Stuck, Keep Looking Deeper

One of the most damaging things a patient can hear is:
“There is nothing else you can do.”

Because in many cases, that statement really means:
“We have not identified the primary driver yet.”

The body is designed to heal, adapt, and recover when the systems involved are supported appropriately.

That process is not always simple. Sometimes it requires testing. Sometimes it requires a different practitioner or a more comprehensive approach. Sometimes it requires looking beyond the obvious symptom and asking deeper questions.

But reducing complex human physiology down to “this treatment works” or “this treatment does not work” misses how interconnected the body really is.

So if you feel like you have tried everything already, I would encourage you not to stop searching for answers too early.

Instead of only asking:
“What treatment should I try next?”

Start asking:
“What system has not been addressed yet?”

Derrick Hines, D.P.T., MS O.M.T.
Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab

]]><![CDATA[Why Strong Athletes Still Get Injured]]>Sun, 19 Apr 2026 16:28:37 GMThttps://www.derrickhines.com/blogs/why-strong-athletes-still-get-injured

An injury does not care how hard you trained.

It does not care how fast you are, how strong your legs are, or how many hours you put in during the offseason. It shows up in one moment, on one movement, and it takes everything with it.

I have worked with athletes at every level this past month. Little league kids all the way up to professionals. And the same two things keep showing up that nobody is addressing.

The athletes are putting in the work. The effort is there. But the foundations underneath that effort have gaps in them. And those gaps are where the injuries are coming from.

When your hip runs out of room, your knee pays the price

The first thing I look at with every athlete is mobility. Specifically, how much range of motion is available in the joints that sport demands the most from.

Here is what happens when that range is missing.

Every movement in sport requires the body to distribute force across multiple joints. When you run, cut, jump, or land, your hips need to move through a full range of motion to absorb and redirect that force correctly. When they cannot, the force goes somewhere else.

Take hip internal rotation. When an athlete plants and cuts, the hip needs adequate internal rotation to manage that movement. If the hip is tight and runs out of range mid-movement, the force redirects straight to the knee. Specifically to the ACL.

You can watch this on film. The athlete goes to cut, the knee collapses inward, and the ligament takes the full burden of a movement the hip was supposed to handle. Research published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine has shown that restricted hip mobility produces measurably higher valgus knee stress during cutting and landing. That is the exact loading pattern that tears the ACL.

Had the hip been mobile, the force distributes correctly. The ligament never gets overloaded. The injury never happens.

This is why hip mobility work is non-negotiable for any athlete competing in a sport that involves cutting, sprinting, jumping, or change of direction. It needs to be trained consistently, multiple days per week, through active range of motion work. Exercises like single leg deadlift airplanes, where the athlete moves through internal and external rotation under load, build the active control sport actually demands. Passive stretching alone will not get you there. The athlete needs to own that range of motion while moving.

The foundation nobody is training

The second thing I see constantly, even at the professional level, is poor foot and ankle stability.

This surprises people. An athlete can be explosive and powerful and still have almost no functional control at the foot. And because every movement in sport begins with ground contact, what happens at the foot affects everything above it.

Research published in the Journal of Athletic Training has identified deficits in ankle stability and proprioception as among the strongest predictors of lower extremity injury in competitive athletes. The foot and ankle are the interface between the athlete and the ground. When that interface is unreliable, the entire body compensates on every step, every landing, every cut.

Building real foot and ankle stability means training the foot under the same unstable, dynamic conditions that sport creates. An unstable footboard, where the heel and forefoot have to stabilize independently, forces the intrinsic muscles of the foot and the surrounding tendons and ligaments to activate in ways that conventional training never reaches. Pairing that with single leg squat variations on the footboard means the athlete has to produce power and stabilize the foot at the same time, which is exactly what sport demands.

Elevated strength shoes are another tool that deserves far more credit than they get. They were marketed as performance tools to make athletes jump higher and run faster. That is not where their real value is. What they actually do is create a small micro stretch and stabilization demand on the ankle with every single step. Done consistently, the tendons, ligaments, and stabilizing muscles around the ankle become significantly more resilient to injury. For any speed or court sport athlete, introducing these early in a training program builds a level of ankle durability that conventional training simply cannot replicate.

The tissue most programs never touch

Muscles get trained. Cardiovascular fitness gets trained. But tendons are almost universally undertrained and that is a serious problem.

Tendons transfer force from muscle to bone. They absorb the loads that sprinting, jumping, and cutting create. When they are underprepared for those loads they become the weak link.

The research on tendon adaptation is straightforward. A study on isometric tendon loading found that holding a tendon under 30 to 40 percent of maximal load for 10 second intervals, followed by 50 seconds of rest, produces significant improvements in tendon stiffness and resilience. Simple protocol. Direct stimulus. Real adaptation.

For athletes this means programming isometric holds for the tendons that carry the highest load in their specific sport. The Achilles tendon for running and jumping athletes. The patellar and quadricep tendons for court and field sport athletes. The hip abductor tendons for golfers. The hamstring complex for sprinters.

Recovery days are the right time for this. The training load is low, the tendon stimulus is high, and the adaptation happens in exactly the structures that are most vulnerable during competition.

What changes when you address these things

An athlete who is consistently working on hip mobility, training foot and ankle stability, and loading tendons on recovery days is building something that conditioning alone cannot give them.

The ability to stay on the field.

I have seen this work change careers. I have also seen athletes whose careers were derailed by an injury that one small piece of information could have prevented. That is why this conversation matters.

It applies equally to a ten year old in little league and a professional athlete. The movement deficits look the same at both levels. The earlier this work starts the better. But it is never too late to address it.

The bottom line

Most sports injuries are predictable.

They happen because a body was asked to do something it did not have the range, the stability, or the tendon strength to handle safely. Fix those things and the injury risk changes dramatically.

Get this in front of a coach or a parent who needs to hear it.

Do one thing today to get a little healthier.

Derrick Hines, D.P.T., MS O.M.T.
Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab

]]><![CDATA[Where Should You Start With Your Health? (A Simple Framework That Works)]]>Sun, 19 Apr 2026 15:56:23 GMThttps://www.derrickhines.com/blogs/where-should-you-start-with-your-health-a-simple-framework-that-works

Everyone wants to get healthier.

But when it actually comes time to take action, most people freeze. Not because they are lazy. Not because they do not care. But because nobody has ever given them a clear, honest answer to the most basic question in health.

Where do I actually start?

After years of working with patients across every level of health, from chronic pain to elite performance, the answer to that question comes down to a simple diagnostic. Six questions. And the way you answer them tells you everything you need to know about where to begin.

The six questions

Before anything else, before supplements, before optimization protocols, before functional testing, go through these honestly.

Do you experience daily pain at or above a three out of ten?

Do you average less than seven hours of sleep per night?

Is your body fat above a healthy range? That is 25 percent for men and 30 percent for women.

Do you average fewer than 7,500 steps per day?

Do you regularly fall short of proper hydration? The target is roughly half your body weight in ounces per day.

Does your diet regularly include processed or packaged foods in more than two of your meals per day?

These are not trick questions. They are a mirror. Each yes reflects a gap in the foundational systems your body depends on to function, heal, and adapt.

If you answered yes to three or more of these, the answer to where you start is clear. You start at the foundation.

What foundational health actually means

There is a hierarchy to health that most people skip past entirely.

The base of that hierarchy is foundational health. These are the daily habits and conditions that determine whether your body has what it needs to run at a basic level. Sleep. Movement. Nutrition. Hydration. Sunlight. Stress regulation.

When these are not in place, nothing else works the way it should. Supplements underperform. Recovery is incomplete. Inflammation stays elevated. The body is constantly playing catch-up instead of building forward.

Sleep is where cellular repair happens. It is where hormones restore, where the brain clears metabolic waste through the glymphatic system, and where glutathione levels replenish. Research consistently shows that adults sleeping fewer than seven hours per night show measurable increases in inflammatory markers, impaired cognitive function, and reduced immune resilience. If sleep is not where it needs to be, that is your starting point. Full stop.

Movement is not optional for a functioning body. Your hormones, your joints, your muscles, your cardiovascular system, and your brain all operate better when you are moving consistently. The 7,500 step threshold matters because the research shows a significant jump in metabolic and cardiovascular health outcomes at that level of daily movement. Studies published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that higher daily step counts were associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality, with meaningful gains beginning around that threshold. If you are not reaching that number most days, your body is not getting the movement stimulus it was designed to operate on.

Nutrition quality determines the fuel your body has to work with. Two or more meals per day coming from processed or packaged sources means your body is running on inputs that drive inflammation, dysregulate blood sugar, and deplete the micronutrients needed for critical functions like glutathione synthesis, hormone production, and cellular repair. The starting point here is not a perfect diet. It is quality. Are most of your meals built around whole, minimally processed foods? Are you getting at least 0.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body weight? Have you reduced or eliminated the inputs that are actively causing damage? Processed carbohydrates, seed oils, added sugars, alcohol, and fast food are not neutral. They are subtracting from your health every time you consume them regularly.

Hydration is one of the most overlooked foundational inputs. Every system in the body, including nerve conduction, joint lubrication, cognitive function, and cellular metabolism, requires adequate hydration to function properly. Half your body weight in ounces per day is the baseline. Not the ceiling.

Sunlight exposure of at least 30 minutes per day supports vitamin D synthesis, regulates the circadian rhythm that governs your cortisol curve and sleep architecture, and has been shown in research published in the Journal of Internal Medicine to be associated with significant reductions in all-cause mortality risk.

Stress regulation matters because chronic unmanaged stress elevates cortisol, increases oxidative load, depletes glutathione, disrupts sleep, and drives systemic inflammation. It is not separate from physical health. It is directly woven into it. If minor disruptions consistently spiral you, that is a signal that your foundational health habits are not yet stable enough to buffer normal life stress.

Before you move on, clear the obvious damage

There is one more layer that has to be addressed before anything else.

Smoking. Vaping. Regular heavy alcohol consumption. Chronic exposure to damaging environments or substances.

These are not factors you compensate for with supplements or optimization strategies. They are actively subtracting from your health faster than anything you add can make up for. If any of these are present, they are the starting point. Not step two. Step one.

It is one of the most common patterns in health care. People invest in advanced protocols, individualized testing, and expensive interventions while stepping over the obvious things that are doing the most damage. The hierarchy does not reward that approach. The body does not reward it either.

When you have earned the right to go deeper

Once your foundational habits are genuinely in place, the next level becomes meaningful.

Functional health is where you start asking how well the systems inside your body are actually operating. Cellular health. Hormonal balance. Micronutrient status. Inflammatory and immune function. Cardiovascular and metabolic health. Musculoskeletal imbalances.

This is where testing becomes valuable. A micronutrient panel, a hormone panel, inflammatory markers. These give you a targeted picture of what is working and what needs support. But this level of investigation only produces useful returns when the foundation underneath it is solid. Testing for micronutrient deficiencies while eating two processed meals a day is information without leverage.

The sequence matters. Foundation first. Function second. Resilience and optimization after that.

The takeaway

Knowledge without action is just information.

So here is the action. Go back through those six questions and answer them honestly. Count your yeses. If you have three or more, you do not need a complex plan. You need to identify the one or two foundational habits that are furthest from where they need to be and start there.

Not all at once. Not with a complete overhaul. One thing, done consistently, that moves your foundation in the right direction.

If your sleep is broken, start there. If you are barely moving, start there. If your nutrition is mostly processed food, start there. If you are still smoking or drinking heavily, start there.

The body responds to inputs. Give it better inputs at the foundation and everything built on top of it gets better.
Do one thing today to get a little healthier.

Derrick Hines, D.P.T., MS O.M.T.
Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab

PS: Here is a YouTube video where I go deeper on this topic. Click HERE

]]><![CDATA[WHY GLUTATHIONE IS CRITICAL FOR ENERGY, BRAIN HEALTH, AND RECOVERY]]>Sun, 12 Apr 2026 16:59:13 GMThttps://www.derrickhines.com/blogs/why-glutathione-is-critical-for-energy-brain-health-and-recovery

There is a molecule inside every single cell in your body.

It is involved in your immune function, your brain health, your energy, your ability to heal, and your protection against almost every major disease we study.

Most people have never heard of it.

And the majority of people who do get tested for it are dangerously depleted in it.

It is called glutathione. And understanding what it does, why your levels are probably lower than they should be, and how to fix that may be one of the most impactful things you do for your health this year.

WHAT GLUTATHIONE ACTUALLY IS
Glutathione is your body's master antioxidant.

It is made up of three amino acids, cysteine, glycine, and glutamate, that your body assembles into a single molecule with an extraordinary range of functions. Every cell in your body contains it. Your liver and your brain contain the highest concentrations of all, because those two organs face the most toxic load and are the most sensitive to damage.

To understand why glutathione matters so much, you have to understand what it is up against.

Every time your body produces energy, whether through aerobic or anaerobic pathways, it creates byproducts. Think of it like exhaust from a high performance engine. The harder the engine works, the more exhaust it produces. In the body, those byproducts are called free radicals. They are unstable molecules that damage cells, drive inflammation, and pollute your internal environment.

Free radical accumulation is not a minor inconvenience. Virtually every chronic disease we study, from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's to autoimmune conditions to cancer, shares one common feature. Extremely high levels of oxidative stress, meaning free radicals are overwhelming the body's ability to clean them up.

Glutathione is the primary cleaning system.

WHAT GLUTATHIONE DOES AT THE CELLULAR LEVEL
The functions of glutathione come down to three things. It protects cells. It cleans up free radicals. And it regulates the systems around those cells.

It detoxifies. Your liver uses glutathione to process and eliminate toxins, heavy metals, environmental chemicals, and metabolic waste. Without adequate glutathione, that detoxification process stalls and the toxic load accumulates.

It neutralizes free radicals before they can cause cellular damage. This is the core antioxidant function and it happens continuously, every moment your body is producing energy.

It regenerates other antioxidant pathways. This is what earns it the title of master antioxidant. When glutathione levels are high, they amplify antioxidant function across multiple pathways simultaneously. Raising glutathione is the lead domino that lifts your entire antioxidant capacity.

It protects the mitochondria. Your mitochondria are the energy producing organelles inside every cell. They are also among the most vulnerable to free radical damage. Glutathione provides direct protection to mitochondrial membranes and function, which has direct downstream effects on your energy levels, your stamina, and your ability to recover.

It regulates inflammation. Oxidative stress and inflammation are deeply interconnected. When glutathione levels are optimal, the body has the tools to clean up damage before it cascades into chronic inflammation. This is why studies consistently show that healthy glutathione levels are associated with lower systemic inflammatory markers across a wide range of conditions.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BRAIN WHEN GLUTATHIONE IS DEPLETED
This is where the research becomes particularly striking.

Studies examining the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and dementia have consistently found one thing in common. Severe depletion of glutathione. Not just low levels. Critically low levels.

In Parkinson's specifically, research has shown that a measurable drop in brain glutathione is one of the earliest detectable biochemical changes, occurring before visible neuron damage and before clinical symptoms appear. The depletion precedes the destruction.

What this tells us is important. When the brain loses its primary antioxidant defense, oxidative stress accumulates unchecked. That accumulation drives neuronal damage, accelerates inflammation, and begins the progression toward dysfunction and disease.

The research question now being actively investigated is this. If we can keep glutathione levels consistently high, can we delay the onset of these neurodegenerative diseases or prevent them altogether? The early data is compelling enough that this is now a serious line of clinical inquiry.

For anyone with a family history of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, or dementia, glutathione deserves to be at the very top of their health priority list.

WHY MOST PEOPLE ARE DEPLETED
Glutathione levels are high in children and tend to decline significantly with age in most adults. But this is not inevitable. It is largely a product of how much oxidative load the body is carrying and how well it is being supported.
Several factors drive glutathione depletion faster than the body can replenish it.

Chronic stress is one of the biggest. Elevated cortisol increases oxidative load directly, forcing the body to burn through glutathione reserves at an accelerated rate. People under prolonged psychological or physical stress almost universally show lower glutathione levels.

Environmental toxins compound the problem continuously. Plastics, water contaminants, air pollution, chemicals absorbed through the skin every day from personal care products. The body uses glutathione to neutralize and clear all of these. In a modern environment, that detoxification demand is constant.

Poor nutrition removes the raw materials needed to build and replenish glutathione. The three amino acid precursors, cysteine, glycine, and glutamate, depend on adequate protein intake. Beyond that, micronutrients like selenium and B vitamins are essential cofactors in the glutathione synthesis pathway. Without them, the body cannot produce adequate levels regardless of other interventions.

Chronic inflammation accelerates depletion faster than almost anything else. When the body is managing ongoing inflammation, whether from disease, injury, or lifestyle factors, it burns through glutathione at a rate the body cannot keep pace with without direct support.

The pattern becomes self-reinforcing. Low glutathione allows more oxidative damage. More oxidative damage drives more inflammation. More inflammation depletes more glutathione.

WHAT DEPLETION ACTUALLY FEELS LIKE
The symptoms of chronically low glutathione are not obscure.

Persistent fatigue that does not resolve with rest. Brain fog and difficulty sustaining focus. Slow recovery from illness or injury. Elevated stress responses. A general sense that the body is not bouncing back the way it used to.

These are not random symptoms. They are the predictable downstream effects of a body that cannot clean up damage faster than it is accumulating it.

HOW TO RAISE YOUR LEVELS
The most direct and well-studied intervention is glutathione precursor supplementation.

Rather than taking glutathione directly, which has poor bioavailability in standard oral forms, supplementing with the individual precursor amino acids, particularly acetylcysteine combined with glycine and vitamin C, allows the body to absorb the building blocks and synthesize glutathione internally. Research has shown this approach can raise glutathione levels by 300 to 400 percent. That is not a marginal improvement. That is a complete restoration of a depleted system.

Timing matters. Because glutathione is used heavily during the day and replenished during sleep, splitting the dose between morning and evening maintains consistently higher levels throughout the full 24-hour cycle.

Nutrition supports the foundation. Increasing quality protein intake provides the amino acid precursors the body needs. Selenium, found in high concentrations in Brazil nuts, is a critical cofactor in glutathione function. B vitamins support the broader synthesis pathway. A micronutrient test is one of the most practical investments you can make here, because deficiencies in these specific nutrients will undermine glutathione levels regardless of what else you do.

Exercise raises glutathione levels directly. Regular physical activity has been shown to upregulate glutathione synthesis, likely through multiple mechanisms simultaneously. This is another reason the benefits of consistent exercise extend far beyond cardiovascular fitness.

Sauna accelerates detoxification. Research on sauna use has shown increasing evidence that heat exposure supports the elimination of environmental chemicals and heavy metals that continuously drain glutathione reserves. Adding regular sauna sessions reduces the oxidative load your glutathione has to manage.

Sleep is non-negotiable. The overnight period is when glutathione gets recycled and replenished. Chronically poor sleep does not just make you tired. It actively prevents the restoration of your primary antioxidant defense.
Periodic fasting amplifies everything. Going into a fasting state, ideally once per quarter, triggers autophagy, the process by which the body clears out damaged, dysfunctional, and precancerous cells. These are exactly the cells that drain glutathione at the highest rate. Pairing elevated glutathione supplementation with a fasting protocol compounds the effect significantly.

You are cleaning the environment while also providing the tools to do it.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Glutathione is not a niche supplement for elite biohackers.

It is a foundational molecule that your body depends on to protect every cell it has, clean up the damage that living in the modern world creates, and regulate the inflammatory and immune pathways that determine how you feel and how you age.

When levels are optimal, energy improves, inflammation drops, the brain functions better, healing accelerates, and resilience against disease increases. When levels are depleted, the opposite happens across every one of those areas simultaneously.

Almost every chronic disease shares low glutathione as a hallmark. That is not a coincidence. It is a signal.

If inflammation, fatigue, brain health, or recovery are priorities for you, glutathione is the lead domino.

Raise it first and watch what follows.

Do one thing today to get a little healthier.

Derrick Hines, D.P.T., MS O.M.T.
Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab

]]><![CDATA[FIX YOUR ENERGY, SLEEP AND RECOVERY WITH THESE SIMPLE CHANGES]]>Sun, 12 Apr 2026 16:06:29 GMThttps://www.derrickhines.com/blogs/fix-your-energy-sleep-and-recovery-with-these-simple-changes

You wake up tired.

Not just a little groggy. Actually tired. Like you never really slept at all.

You get through the morning on caffeine and willpower. Somewhere around noon you finally feel functional. By evening you are oddly energized. By midnight you are wide awake, frustrated, and staring at the ceiling wondering why your body will not cooperate.

You have tried going to bed earlier. You have tried supplements. You have tracked your sleep data until you are sick of looking at it.

Nothing has fundamentally changed.

Here is what is actually going on.

Your energy, your sleep quality, and your body's ability to recover are not three separate problems. They are three symptoms of the same broken rhythm. And that rhythm has a name.

It is your cortisol curve.

WHAT CORTISOL ACTUALLY DOES?
Cortisol has been given a terrible reputation.

It gets called the stress hormone. Something dangerous. Something to suppress. Entire product categories exist around the idea that cortisol is working against you.

That framing is incomplete and it is costing people real results.

Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone produced by the adrenal glands in response to signals from the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the HPA axis. Its job is not to harm you. It regulates energy availability, manages systemic inflammation, supports immune function, and keeps your metabolism running properly throughout the day.

Cortisol is not the problem. Cortisol at the wrong time is the problem.

THE RHYTHM YOUR BODY DEPENDS ON
Your body runs on a cortisol cycle that is directly tied to your circadian clock.

In a healthy system, cortisol peaks sharply in the first 30 to 45 minutes after waking. Researchers call this the Cortisol Awakening Response, or CAR. Studies published in Psychoneuroendocrinology have shown that a strong CAR is associated with better cognitive performance, better immune regulation, and better metabolic function across the entire day.

From that morning peak, cortisol gradually declines. By early evening it is low. Through the night it stays low, which allows your nervous system to shift into parasympathetic dominance. That is the state where deep sleep happens. Where cells repair. Where hormones restore. Where your body actually recovers from everything the day demanded of it.

Then around four or five in the morning, cortisol begins climbing again to prepare you to wake up and do it all over again.

When that rhythm is working, your energy is consistent, your sleep is deep, and your body bounces back from stress. Physical stress. Mental stress. All of it.

When that rhythm breaks, everything downstream breaks with it.

WHAT A BROKEN CURVE LOOKS LIKE

The curve does not just weaken. It inverts.

Instead of a strong peak in the morning and a low baseline at night, cortisol stays blunted when you need it and elevated when you do not.

Research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism has linked this dysregulated pattern directly to chronic fatigue, disrupted sleep architecture, increased systemic inflammation, and impaired recovery capacity.

The mechanism is not complicated. Without a strong cortisol awakening response, your body never fully shifts into an alert and energized state in the morning. Without a proper evening decline, your nervous system cannot transition into the parasympathetic state required for restorative sleep. You get stuck between two modes. Never fully awake. Never fully recovered.

And it compounds. Poor sleep elevates nighttime cortisol. Elevated nighttime cortisol destroys sleep quality. Destroyed sleep quality makes everything worse the next day. The cycle feeds itself for months and years until people stop questioning it and just accept feeling this way as normal.

It is not normal. It is a fixable rhythm problem.

THE MOST POWERFUL RESET SIGNAL YOUR BODY HAS
The cortisol awakening response is controlled by light.

When bright light enters the eye in the morning, specialized photoreceptive cells in the retina send direct signals to the suprachiasmatic nucleus, the brain's master circadian clock located in the hypothalamus. That signal activates the HPA axis, triggers cortisol release, and simultaneously suppresses melatonin production. Research in the Journal of Biological Rhythms has demonstrated that morning bright light exposure significantly amplifies the cortisol awakening response and anchors the circadian rhythm for the rest of the day.

Getting outside within the first 20 to 30 minutes of waking is one of the most direct biological interventions available to you. Natural outdoor light, even on an overcast day, delivers far more lux than any indoor environment. If getting outside every morning is not realistic, a 10,000 lux light therapy lamp replicates that signal effectively.

One important note. Wearing blue light blocking glasses throughout the entire day works against this process. You need short wavelength stimulating light in the first half of the day to drive cortisol up when it should be up. Save the blue light blocking for the evening when your goal is the opposite.

MOVEMENT COMPOUNDS THE EFFECT
Light alone is powerful. Light paired with morning movement is significantly more powerful.

Physical activity independently stimulates cortisol release through the HPA axis while also raising core body temperature, increasing cerebral blood flow, and accelerating adenosine clearance. Adenosine is the compound that drives sleep pressure and morning grogginess. Moving it out of the system faster means you feel alert sooner and more completely.

A 2021 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that morning exercise improved cognitive performance, attention, and decision making throughout the day more significantly than afternoon or evening training. A meaningful part of that effect is cortisol-mediated.

Ten minutes of genuine effort first thing in the morning, a brisk walk, bodyweight movements, a full training session, paired with bright light exposure, sends a compounding signal to your nervous system that the day has started. That signal anchors the rhythm and begins pulling the entire curve back into its correct position.

This is also why people who train consistently in the morning report better energy and better sleep over time. They are not just building fitness. They are reinforcing a healthy hormonal rhythm every single day.

THE EVENING SIDE MATTERS JUST AS MUCH
Getting the morning right is half the equation
.
The evening drop has to happen on schedule too. And several completely normal habits are actively preventing it for most people.
Late meals are one of the most overlooked contributors to elevated nighttime cortisol. Digestion requires metabolic activity, which keeps the HPA axis engaged well past the point when it should be declining.

Research in the International Journal of Obesity has linked late eating directly to delayed circadian clock timing and disrupted hormonal rhythms including cortisol. Moving dinner earlier, ideally to five or six in the evening, removes that stimulus at exactly the window when your curve needs to be falling.

Artificial light in the evening is the other major disruptor. The same retinal photoreceptors that drive the morning cortisol response are sensitive to bright indoor light at night. Overhead lighting after sunset suppresses melatonin production and keeps the HPA axis active longer than it should be. Switching to low warm lighting after the sun goes down is a direct input into your circadian signaling system, not just a relaxation preference.

The last hour before sleep should be treated intentionally. Lower the lights. Lower the stimulation. Give your nervous system a clear environmental signal that recovery is beginning.

WHAT THE RESET ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE
This does not require an overhaul of your life.

Bright light within the first 30 minutes of waking. Ten minutes of movement that raises your heart rate. Dinner moved as early as you can manage. Dim warm lighting from sunset onward. A deliberate wind-down in the final hour of the day.

That sequence, done consistently over several days, begins to re-anchor the cortisol curve to its natural rhythm. Energy during the day improves. The unwanted evening second wind fades. Sleep becomes deeper. Recovery between days starts to feel like it is actually working.

For people whose rhythm has been dysregulated for a long time, the reset takes longer. But the mechanism is the same regardless.

Consistent environmental signals in the right sequence at the right times of day rebuild the rhythm. The body responds because this is what it is designed to do when the inputs are correct.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Your energy, your sleep, and your recovery are not three separate problems requiring three separate solutions.

They are outputs of one underlying rhythm.

Get the cortisol curve right and all three improve together. That means giving your body the signals it needs in the morning to peak when it should peak, and the signals it needs in the evening to drop when it should drop.

Light. Movement. Meal timing. Evening wind-down.

These are not soft lifestyle suggestions. They are direct inputs into a hormonal system that is well understood, well studied, and responds predictably when you work with it instead of against it.
Simple changes. Real returns.

Do one thing today to get a little healthier.

Derrick Hines, D.P.T., MS O.M.T.
Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab

]]><![CDATA[Aging Is Not Linear, It Happens In Bursts - How And When To Slow The Acceleration]]>Fri, 10 Apr 2026 21:17:47 GMThttps://www.derrickhines.com/blogs/aging-is-not-linear-it-happens-in-bursts-how-and-when-to-slow-the-acceleration

Most people think about aging the way they think about a slow leak in a tire.

Gradual. Steady. A little worse every day.

That's not actually how it works.

And understanding the difference might be one of the most important things you can do for your health right now.

WHAT THE RESEARCH IS ACTUALLY TELLING US
In biology, aging does not move along a smooth, predictable line.

It accelerates. Then it slows. Then it accelerates again.

There are specific windows in your life where the rate of aging speeds up significantly. These are not random. They are somewhat predictable. And if you know they are coming, you can prepare for them.

Right now, the research points to two major acceleration windows.

The first is somewhere around your mid-40s, roughly 40 to 45.

The second is somewhere in the mid-60s, roughly 60 to 70.

Both windows are slightly moveable depending on how healthy you have been leading up to them. If you have been consistently taking care of yourself, the window may shift a little later. If you have been neglecting your health, you may feel it earlier.

But the windows are real. And the research is clear that they exist.

WHY THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING
Here is the practical implication.

You do not have to be perfect every day of your life. What you do need to do is get extremely intentional during these specific periods.

If you are in your mid-40s right now, the next five years can change how your next two decades look. That is not an exaggeration. The choices you make during this acceleration window will shape your strength, your metabolism, your inflammation levels, and your cognitive function well into your 60s and 70s.

If you are in your mid-60s, the same logic applies. What you do in this window will determine whether you are traveling, functioning, and doing the things you actually want to do at 80 or 90. It is that direct.

This is not about being perfect forever. It is about being aggressive when it counts most.

WHAT TO ACTUALLY DO DURING THESE WINDOWS
There are a handful of non-negotiables that need to go on your priority list during these periods.

Build muscle. This is number one for both groups. Not just movement. Not just cardio. Actual strength training that challenges your muscles enough to force adaptation. That means going deep enough into your Rate of Perceived Exertion, reaching an RPE of 7 to 9, where you have only one or two reps left before failure. That is where muscle gets built. Anything short of that and you are maintaining at best.

Protect your metabolism. If your body composition is not where it needs to be, now is the time to address it aggressively. That means tracking what you eat, reducing processed carbohydrates and added sugars, controlling blood sugar, and using tools like continuous glucose monitors to actually see what is happening inside your body. Uncontrolled blood sugar is one of the biggest drivers of accelerated aging. This is the window where it matters most.

Prioritize cell recovery. Glutathione. Micronutrient testing. Hormone levels. These are not things you have to chase forever, but during these acceleration windows, knowing where your levels are and addressing deficiencies gives you a real edge. Fasting-mimicking protocols done every two to three months can also help reset your metabolism and reduce inflammatory load during this time.

Sleep and nervous system recovery are not optional. Not in these windows. Everything else you do compounds better when sleep is dialed in.

THE MINDSET SHIFT THAT MAKES THIS WORK
Think of it like buying yourself health credits.

If you go all in for a defined period of time, tighten your diet, restrict alcohol, exercise with real intent, prioritize sleep, you are not committing to that level of discipline forever. You are buying yourself the ability to live more freely on the other side.

You are investing now so that at 80 you are traveling. Cooking the meals you want. Doing the activities you enjoy. Moving without pain.

That trade-off is real and it is available to you.

FIND YOUR LOW HANGING FRUIT
You probably already know where your gaps are.

If you need to bring your weight down, you know it. If you are not training with enough intensity to build real strength, you know it. If your diet is carrying more processed food than it should, you know it.

The data is overwhelming that we have a very high capacity to slow down biological aging when we pay attention to how our body is functioning. We are not passive passengers in this process.
But we have to act in the right windows.

If you are in one of those windows right now, this is your heads up.
Do one thing today to get a little healthier.

Derrick Hines, D.P.T., MS O.M.T.
Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab

]]><![CDATA[Creatine Isn’t Just for the Gym. It’s for Your Brain, Your Energy, and Your Health.]]>Sun, 08 Feb 2026 02:12:08 GMThttps://www.derrickhines.com/blogs/creatine-isnt-just-for-the-gym-its-for-your-brain-your-energy-and-your-health

Creatine is one of those supplements that gets misunderstood because of where it came from.

For a long time, it lived in the “gym bro” category. Big tubs. Loud labels. Something people associated only with muscle and strength.

But when you actually step back and look at the research, creatine turns out to be one of the most well-studied, most versatile supplements we have. And its benefits go far beyond the gym.

I’ve been getting more questions about creatine than almost any other supplement lately. So let’s walk through what it actually does, what the science says, and how it might fit into your life.

What creatine actually is
Creatine is not a stimulant. It’s not a hormone. And it’s not synthetic in the way many people assume.

Your body already makes creatine. You also get it from food, especially animal-based protein like beef, chicken, and fish. What creatine does, at a very basic level, is help your cells produce energy. Specifically, it helps regenerate ATP, which is the energy currency every cell in your body runs on.

Muscle cells use it heavily. Brain cells use it heavily. Nerve cells use it heavily.

Anywhere energy demand is high, creatine matters.

Creatine and muscle. This is the obvious one.
This is where creatine earned its reputation, and the data here is extremely strong.

A 2024 meta-analysis looking at multiple randomized controlled trials found that creatine supplementation consistently increased lean muscle mass while also reducing body fat percentage. Across studies, the effect was real and repeatable.

In practical terms, creatine helps your body respond better to training. It does not replace training. You still have to show up and do the work. But when creatine is on board, most people see somewhere in the range of a 5 to 15 percent improvement in strength over a training cycle.

Most research points to a daily dose somewhere between 5 and 20 grams, depending on body size, training volume, and goals. For most people, 5 grams a day is a solid starting point.

Where it gets really interesting. Creatine and the brain.
This is the part most people don’t know about.

In 2024, a double-blind crossover study looked at what happens when people are sleep deprived. Participants underwent about 21 hours of partial sleep deprivation and were then given a single high dose of creatine, around 20 to 25 grams.

What they found was striking. Creatine significantly improved cognitive performance and processing speed in these sleep-deprived individuals. In other words, it helped offset many of the cognitive effects we normally see when someone doesn’t sleep well.

This does not replace sleep. Sleep is still one of the most important foundational health pillars you have. But it does tell us something important.

Creatine can act like an emergency fuel reserve for the brain.

If you had a poor night of sleep and you still need to function, think clearly, and make good decisions, increasing your creatine intake that day may help support brain energy and performance.

Beyond acute sleep deprivation, longer-term studies suggest creatine may improve overall brain function, memory, attention, and processing speed. Some of this data points toward higher doses than the traditional 5 grams a day, especially when brain health is the goal.

Hydration matters here. If you’re taking creatine, drink your water.

Creatine, nerves, and aging
There’s growing evidence that creatine may play a protective role in the nervous system.

Several systematic reviews suggest creatine may help reduce neuronal loss with aging and support nerve health under stress. This is why it’s showing up more frequently in conversations around traumatic brain injury, post-concussion symptoms, and neurodegenerative conditions.

Is it a miracle? No.
Is it an adjunct that may improve outcomes by 10 to 20 percent? In many cases, yes.

And when you’re stacking small advantages over time, that matters.

Creatine and mental health
This is one of the more underappreciated areas of research.

As far back as 2012, a study in women with major depressive disorder found that adding just 5 grams of creatine per day to an SSRI led to faster and greater improvements in depressive symptoms compared to medication alone.

More recent follow-up research has supported this idea. Creatine appears to improve the brain’s ability to produce and manage energy under stress, which may help reduce depressive symptoms, particularly as an add-on strategy.

This does not replace therapy. It does not replace medication when those are needed. But as part of a broader approach to mental health, creatine shows meaningful promise.

How to actually use creatine
For most people, the simplest approach works best.

Start with 5 grams per day. Take it consistently. You don’t need to cycle it. You don’t need to overthink timing.

In special situations like acute sleep deprivation, brain injury recovery, or periods of extreme mental stress, doses in the 15 to 25 gram range may be useful for short periods. If you’re considering higher doses long term, do it with guidance from a healthcare professional.

Pay attention to hydration. Pay attention to how your body feels.

One final note on quality. Creatine monohydrate is the form that’s been studied the most. Look for products that use Creapure, which is sourced from Germany and has stricter manufacturing standards. The label may not always make this obvious, so sometimes it takes a little digging.

The bottom line
Creatine helps muscles.
Creatine helps the brain.
Creatine helps nerves.
Creatine may support mental health.

If something can improve physical performance, cognitive performance, and resilience to stress by even 10 to 20 percent, that’s a multiplier worth paying attention to.

For most people, creatine deserves a place in daily life.

Do one small thing today to get a little healthier. This might be it

Derrick Hines, D.P.T., MS O.M.T.
Acadiana Pain & Performance Rehab

PS: Here is a YouTube video where I explained more about creatine. Click HERE

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