How Lisa Leong turned burnout and shingles into a personal health lab

Executive overview

Training like an athlete while working at executive intensity triggered chronic illness — shingles, nerve pain, months bedridden. The turning point was not a gadget but mindfulness, forced by desperation.

From there, Lisa built a systematic approach to her own health: treating every day as a lab experiment, testing tools (biohacking, qigong, infrared therapy), and measuring against a long-horizon goal of what she wants to be able to do at 100.

The core insight: being fit and being healthy are not the same thing — and only experimentation on your own body reveals the difference.

The burnout that changed everything

• High-pressure executive role, international travel, and Olympic triathlon training running simultaneously
• Recurring chest infections masked deeper depletion; steroids and antibiotics kept her going
• Took a holiday, collapsed, and was diagnosed with shingles followed by post-herpetic neuralgia — severe nerve pain, bedridden for months
• Seven painkillers a day; feared she would never return to work
• Identified as "fit but unhealthy" — high output externally, high depletion internally

Mindfulness as the first reset

• A trusted friend had recommended mindfulness for years; desperation finally got Lisa to try it
• Completed John Kabat-Zinn's 12-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program
• Informal mindfulness — being fully present in each interaction — had immediate ripple effects at work and at home
• Key insight: our mental suffering around pain compounds the physical pain itself; separating the two reduces the total load
• Breath became her primary anchor: shallow or held breath signals stress; slow exhales bring her back

The morning routine (top five of ten)

• Lemon water first thing — hydration, and a ritual signal to start the day
• Zen Kitchen — empties the dishwasher as an act of service for her husband; framing it as a named practice makes it stick
• Bulletproof coffee — ghee instead of butter (lactose intolerance); smooths the energy curve and extends focus without a crash
• PEMF mat — pulsed electromagnetic frequency mat used lying down to activate in the morning and wind down at night; simultaneously uses a TheraGun on legs and calves
• Four golden wheels — a Qigong practice replacing seated meditation; re-grounds her in the body and has measurably shifted her mood and presence

Biohacking experiments: what worked and what didn't

• Cryotherapy (–180°C chamber): tried it, found it not suited to her body; abandoned
• Infrared sauna: strong positive effect — clarity, skin improvement, powerful state change after hard days; wishes she had one at home
• Red/infrared light therapy (Joovv desk lamp): used every morning, especially in Melbourne winters, to replicate morning sunlight on the face and address seasonal affective disorder
• Hyperbaric oxygen chamber: combined with infrared sauna for jet lag while flying internationally every week; stopped because lying still for an hour is impractical
• Cold therapy vs. heat therapy: bodies differ — Lisa's responds to heat and light, not cold

Qigong and recovering joy

• Lost her sense of joy earlier in the year; felt trapped and couldn't biohack her way out
• Read about Robert Peng, a Qigong master whose work with Susan Hawke (Bob Hawke's daughter) attracted wide attention
• Flew to New York for a 10-day intensive with Peng
• Recovery moment: mid-week, noticing a bee moving through flowers — she realised she was present again
• Qigong is now her primary practice; everything else is secondary

Goal-setting: working backwards from 100

• Adapted from Peter Attia's Outlive: identify the 10 most important physical things you want to do at age 100
• Lisa's list includes hiking 20 km on a hilly trail with a 5 kg pack, cycling on Zwift, and playing table tennis
• Each goal determines what current habits are worth keeping: if a habit doesn't serve those future physical capacities, it gets cut
• The morning routine is built around these goals, not around trends or what others are doing

Principles that have emerged

• Personalise rigorously: what works for others (cold therapy, bulletproof coffee for cholesterol) may actively harm you
• Hold routines lightly: the notepad changes weekly; nothing is permanent
• Aim for natural: after years of gadgets, she is paring back toward what feels most integrated
• Over-intervention has its own costs — meddling too much creates its own disruptions