From reducing visceral belly fat to stress and muscle hacks, longevity doctor reveals the four behaviours to ‘live healthily for as long as possible’

Dr Mohammed Enayat offers many treatments at his London clinic to help people live better for longer, but, he tells senior fitness writer Harry Bullmore, there are also several no-cost behaviours you can do to help you out

In his Instagram bio, Dr Mohammed Enayat describes himself as a “longevity doctor”. The reason for this is fairly self-explanatory – his profession sees him specialise in helping humans “engineer our health so we can achieve a state of vitality”. He achieves this through interventions at his Hum2n Longevity clinic in London, which delivers head-to-toe treatments comprising everything from cryotherapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy to the intravenous introduction of curated nutrient blends into the body.

However, there are far simpler interventions you can use to manipulate your health and environment, “giving yourself the best chance of living as healthily as you can for as long as you can,” he tells me. Here are his top four.

Movement

“One of the biggest lifestyle modifications correlating to longevity is movement,” Enayat says. “We want to be doing a mixture of zone one, zone two, zone three and zone four exercises.”

These zones relate to the intensity of the activity. As a rough guide, zone one relates to approximately 50-60 per cent of your maximum heart rate, zone two is 60-70 per cent, zone three is 70-80 per cent and zone four is 80-90 per cent. Another way to look at it is in terms of effort; very light, easy, moderate and hard.

“You want to be doing aerobic exercise to break a sweat at least once or twice a week,” Enayat continues. “That would be a higher intensity, or zone four, effort, then the remaining time would be 45 minutes of brisk walking or light jogging two or more times per week.”

He also recommends regular resistance training; exercises which involve overcoming resistance, be that using free weights or bodyweight moves, to build and maintain strength. “Size and quality of muscle are directly related to longevity,” Enayat explains. “In terms of a body composition ratio, we want to be aiming to have more muscle and less fat.”

To achieve this, he recommends two to three resistance training sessions each week, focusing on compound exercises like squats and deadlifts, as well as movements that target your mid-body muscles like the plank.

Benefits of movement for longevity

Aerobic exercise is going to develop your cardiorespiratory system (your heart, blood vessels, lungs and airways), which are responsible for delivering oxygen and nutrients to cells around the body. According to a 2024 systematic review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, “high cardiorespiratory fitness is strongly associated with lower risk for a variety of mortality and incident chronic conditions”.

Research has also linked muscle strength and size with improved longevity factors, Enayat explains.

“Studies show that proximal muscle size – so the size of your hamstrings and quads in the thigh, and your core muscles – correlates to longevity. One of the theories behind this is that these larger muscle groups have a higher concentration of mitochondria [which leads to more efficient energy production].

“Another study showed that a higher concentration of mitochondria in the body correlates to longevity as well.”

Beyond these benefits, resistance training can reduce your risk of injury in daily life, both by lowering your risk of falls and by improving the tolerance of tissues like bones, ligaments and tendons, thus decreasing arthritis risk.

Together, resistance training and aerobic exercise can also improve your body composition, or muscle-to-fat ratio.

“Fat leads to increased inflammation within the body,” says Enayat. “Visceral fat that sits around our organs is more pro-inflammatory and associated with more cardiovascular disease morbidity. We want to reduce our visceral fat, and we can do that through nutrition, but also through exercise.”

Regular movement has a strong link to improved longevity, according to specialist Dr Mohammed Enayat (Getty/iStock)

Stress

You would expect a guide on living better for longer to include sections on exercise and diet. Stress might be a more surprising inclusion, but according to Enayat, it is one of the most important.

“The human organism is a combination of biological processes and the effects our environment has on us,” he explains.

“If we drive a car in very bad terrain, what happens? The tread wears out quicker, the windscreen wipers go quicker and rust starts to develop. It’s the same with the human body. If we operate the human body in a toxic environment, we’re exposed to bad things and toxins through diet and high stress, and this drives inefficiency and disease within our biology. That’s why it’s known that stress kills.

“Stress is a major factor in the vast majority of, if not all, chronic diseases. But when we break down stress, what is it? It’s our ability to process our environment. So there are things we can do.”

He recommends practices such as meditation, mindfulness and exposure to nature.

“All of these things are correlated to longevity because they decrease the internal stress response,” Enayat adds.

Benefits of limiting stress for longevity

“Meditation and mindfulness can bring our stress response down,” says Enayat. “Studies show even exposure to nature, such as being able to see the horizon, is beneficial for you, and that’s something we don’t get in big urban environments.”

This reduces the impacts of chronic stress on the body, such as increased blood pressure, weakening of the immune system and accelerated cellular ageing, according to a 2025 article from the University of Florida.

“A good measurement for stress is something called heart rate variability [variations in the time between heartbeats, and a common metric on most modern fitness trackers],” Enayat adds. “It tells us how ready we are to handle stress, or our biological resilience.”

Practices that reduce your internal stress response can help you live a healthier life (Alamy/PA)

Sleep

We all know we should be sleeping more. But between social commitments and the siren’s call of your mobile phone, it is easier said than done.

“We sleep in different phases,” Enayat explains. “We want to be getting at least one-and-a-half to two hours of deep sleep a night, then one hour of REM [rapid eye-movement] sleep.”

To achieve this and improve your sleep quality, he recommends a few pre- and post-bed interventions.

“Try to be phone and screen-free in the hour before bed, eat your last meal three hours before bedtime, and try to wake up and see sunlight to start stimulating the circadian rhythm.

“Consistency in bedtime timings can also be helpful in setting your circadian rhythm, and cooler rooms have been shown to induce better sleep.”

He also prescribes regular kegel exercises, which involve squeezing and releasing the muscles of the pelvic floor, to limit the need to use the toilet at night.

Benefits of improving your sleep on longevity

“During deep sleep is when we regenerate the most; that’s when we produce the most stem cells [which act as a repair system for damaged tissues in the body] and a healing response to our immune system,” Enayat says.

As a result, deep sleep is crucial for maintaining and strengthening bodily tissues such as bones, tendons, ligaments and muscles.

Enayat recommends being screen-free in the hour before bedtime to improve your sleep (Getty/iStock)

Diet

This was an inevitable inclusion in any list related to improved longevity. But Enayat’s tips go beyond the age-old advice of eating your greens and hitting a daily protein target. “If you’re feeling generally well, I’d recommend intermittent fasting,” he says, adding that he recommends doing it a few days per week.

“Try to have two-thirds [of your food] plant-based, one-third healthy fat and proteins, avoid refined carbs, and try to eat and buy from organic farm shops if possible,” Enayat adds.

Benefits of making these changes to your diet on longevity

“We know that intermittent fasting is associated with longevity because it supports a process called autophagy [when cells break down and destroy old, damaged or abnormal proteins],” says Enayat. “We’re constantly reproducing ourselves within the body, and autophagy helps kill off senescent, or ageing, cells which are pro-inflammatory.”

His reason for recommending organic, locally sourced food where possible is to limit unwanted added ingredients.

“We’re thinking about the pesticides in the soil; we’re thinking about how the livestock is fed; we’re thinking about where the food is grown. Is it seasonal? Has it come from abroad? Has it been sprayed with preservatives that we often end up eating?”