I opened the Oura app this week just to check my sleep stats.

What I didn’t expect was to see that my cardiovascular age is now 2 years younger than my actual age.

Just 9 months ago, that number was 1 year older.

Holy shit. This is incredible. I’m still in awe.

I haven’t done any procedures.I haven’t taken any medications.

What changed?

I left a chronically toxic environment — and I had the courage to stop rearranging furniture in a life that was draining me. I began really listening to my body.

A few days ago, Oura gave me this number:7.1 m/s — my current pulse wave velocity (PWV).

And that number means everything:

PWV measures the speed at which blood pressure waves move through your arteries.The stiffer your arteries, the faster the wave travels.The more elastic and responsive they are, the slower — and healthier — the number.

Think of it like this: a brittle firehose sends the wave flying.A supple garden hose absorbs the pressure and slows it down.

Oura’s vascular age model uses PWV — along with resting heart rate, HRV, and recovery load — to estimate cardiovascular age. I’ve been tracking mine closely.

At 7.3 to 7.2 m/s, I was coming in at 1 year older than my actual age.I hovered there for months — sometimes reading same age, sometimes half a year older or younger.Then the shift began:1 year younger.1.5 years younger.Now holding at 2 years younger, with a PWV of 7.1 m/s.

This isn’t just a trend line — it’s vascular recalibration.Arteries that used to be rigid are now responsive.Nervous system tone has shifted from sympathetic overdrive to parasympathetic repair.Inflammation has dropped. Pressure has dropped.Elasticity has returned.

And it’s reflected in my resting heart rate:Down from a chronically elevated 91 bpm to a steady 67–72.

That’s what 7.1 m/s means:Less vascular tension. More oxygen delivery.Less cortisol. More recovery space.Not survival. Regulation.

My cortisol was sky-high.I was walking around dazed — disconnected, numb, barely inside my own body.On the outside, I looked like I had it together.On the inside, I was unraveling.

My blood pressure was up.I had nightly headaches.Middle-of-the-night panic.Endless thought loops I couldn’t shut off.

My resting heart rate lived in the 90s.I could feel my heart pounding while lying still.I wasn’t sweating.Wasn’t recovering.Wasn’t sleeping.My arteries were tight.My system was locked in fight-or-flight — every damn day.

Now?

Resting HR in the 60s.Deep, stable sleep.Sweating daily.Movement is natural, not forced.Parasympathetic tone is back online.

And right after a deep 2-week detox — Mimosa pudica + diatomaceous earth — my Oura score surged.

The shift was clear:→ Less stress→ Lower cortisol→ More movement→ Deeper sleep→ Bigger recovery window→ Days where my body needed to lie flat and do nothing — and I let it→ Oxygenation up→ Inflammation down→ Vascular age younger

But let’s not forget —my body had to almost break down to get my attention.

I had nightmares.Pounding headaches.A racing heart.A fog I couldn’t shake.

That was my body saying:Your intuition was right all along.This life is a mismatch for the health you want.

I realized I had a choice.And I chose my health.

That had to happen first.Before any detox. Before any rucking. Before any recovery.

Could I have un-aged my cardiovascular system while still in that environment?No fucking way.I was going to die there.

So what actually changed — from the day I quit in November 2024 to now?

It didn’t happen all at once.It wasn’t a plan I mapped out in advance.

It was built week by week —by a body responding to limits, stress loads,and what each phase could handle.

Not what was trending.Not what a guru said.Not what a protocol promised.

This was built from lived tracking.From paying attention.From noticing what helped — and what didn’t.By trusting myself to hear what my body was begging for —and giving it what it needed, no matter what.

Here’s what I actually did — a real-time sequence of recovery steps built week by week in response to how my body was speaking to me:

I left a chronically misaligned environment.That was the first medicine.

I slept — more than I ever thought I needed.Some days I didn’t leave my bed. Rest wasn’t a reward; it was the repair.

I began walking. Then I added rucking, slowly, with increasing weight.I gave myself huge margins for recovery — because capacity builds only when recovery leads.

I sweat now, every day.Through rucking, Peloton bursts, trampoline rebounds, sauna, and sun. That wasn’t always the case — it came back as my system thawed.

I replenished the minerals my body had been depleted of due to extreme stress:Magnesium. LMNT. Trace drops. Glutathione. Bioavailable aminos. Glycine. Collagen. Creatine.Real repletion — not just protocol stacking.

I detoxed with intelligence.I pulsed Mimosa pudica and diatomaceous earth based on how much energy I had to process and clear.I didn’t push; I listened.

I stopped eating at night.My last meal now is often before 5 PM. I leaned into keto only when my body was ready — not before.

I added mitochondrial support: CoQ10, K2, and GlyNAC.But not until the foundation was in.

And most importantly — I stopped forcing.I started tracking. I trusted my Oura. I trusted my pulse.But above all, I trusted me.

This didn’t happen because I tried harder.It happened because I stopped gaslighting myself.I stopped betraying what I already knew.

The healing was there.I just had to stop swimming against it.