Barry Kessling, 34, announced this week that he has never felt healthier after abandoning the elaborate 47-step morning routine he had assembled over three years of scrolling wellness influencer content, a decision he says has “changed everything” and “given me back roughly six hours of my day.”
Kessling’s former routine reportedly included cold plunges, infrared sauna sessions, tongue scraping, a 12-supplement stack, gratitude journaling in three separate notebooks, grounding barefoot in his backyard, and a smoothie containing what he described as “more powders than food.” He now simply drinks a glass of water and goes to work. “I used to spend my entire morning optimizing myself for a day I never actually got to live,” Kessling said. “Turns out the real biohack was showing up to my job on time.”
Dr. Melinda Prosser, a wellness researcher at the Ashgrove Institute for Behavioral Health, says Kessling’s experience reflects a growing phenomenon she calls “Wellness Fatigue Syndrome,” in which individuals become so exhausted from pursuing optimal health that they experience a net decrease in actual well-being. “We’re seeing patients who are technically supplementing themselves into the ground,” Prosser said. “One gentleman came to me with a magnesium overdose from taking four different ‘calming’ products, none of which calmed him because he was too busy taking them.”
Friends of Kessling report he seems noticeably more relaxed, though some have expressed concern that he has now redirected all of his newfound free time into aggressively evangelizing about the benefits of doing less. “He won’t stop talking about how he doesn’t do anything anymore,” said neighbor Todd Aldrich. “He’s turned not having a routine into a routine. He journals about how he no longer journals.”
Kessling says he has no plans to return to his old habits, though he admits to occasionally missing the cold plunge. “Mostly I just miss having a reason to buy things,” he said. “But I’ve replaced that void with smugness, which I’m told is also free.”
