--- description: The tech entrepreneur talks about his “Don't Die” philosophy, anti-aging protocol, and the scientific advances that excite him most. title: Bryan Johnson’s Best Longevity Tip Is Free image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e8a50af169f00e5/6998cbdc83ec37ed54c7b275/Bryan-Johnson-longevity.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Jan 05, 2026 # Bryan Johnson Has Spent Millions Trying Not to Die. His Best Longevity Tip Is Free by [Dominique Mosbergen](/author/dominique-mosbergen/) ## Dominique Mosbergen Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Health correspondent  Bryan Johnson Bryan JohnsonJosh DeAngelis Bryan Johnson has a singular focus in life: Don’t die. The tech entrepreneur has spent millions of dollars trying to optimize his health and slow his aging. He has made headlines—and raised many an eyebrow—for the dozens of supplements he downs daily, his experiments with unproven “anti-aging” therapies including [infusions of his son’s plasma](https://time.com/6315607/bryan-johnsons-quest-for-immortality/ "undefined"), and his claims of being the [world’s healthiest person](https://blueprint.bryanjohnson.com/pages/blueprint-protocol?srsltid=AfmBOoqum5WTQ-XkDMdiauvFMMwH1Tqgb-v6E0e-N07Dlei2tNrUPgVh#expanded-protocol "undefined"). Because of rapid advances in medicine and AI, Johnson thinks death might one day no longer be inevitable for humans. “Are we potentially the first generation who won't die?” he muses. In the meantime, the 48-year-old devotes hours of his day to working out, eating a strict vegan diet, perfecting his sleep, getting red-light and oxygen therapy, and religiously monitoring a copious number of health metrics—from the “biological age” of his heart to the quality of his stool and the number of his nighttime erections. Many longevity scientists say Johnson peddles hype and unscientific advice, and gives the field of aging research a bad name. Johnson’s longevity start-up Blueprint sells a range of supplements, skincare and haircare products, and $35 bottles of olive oil that claim to help people “maintain healthy inflammation levels.” Johnson says he shares—and sells—[his longevity protocol](https://blueprint.bryanjohnson.com/pages/blueprint-protocol?srsltid=AfmBOoqum5WTQ-XkDMdiauvFMMwH1Tqgb-v6E0e-N07Dlei2tNrUPgVh "undefined") so people can learn from his experiences and, if they so choose, try parts of his regimen for themselves. Johnson [announced](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bryanrjohnson%5Fblueprint-raises-60-million-ugcPost-7389007279834050560-jx9t/?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop&rcm=ACoAAAMonsABRq8xmI-Xcacnvfo7R4ph9PrUU8E "undefined") in November that Blueprint had raised $60 million in funding from Silicon Valley investors and Hollywood celebrities including Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton. “Some of the world’s most powerful people are backing Blueprint,” Johnson said on LinkedIn. “The next era of human is here.” As part of [TIME's series](https://time.com/tag/longevity/ "undefined") interviewing longevity leaders and influencers, we spoke to Johnson about his “Don’t Die” philosophy, his anti-aging protocol, and the scientific advances that excite him most. He also shared the simple, free thing that he says everyone should do to enhance their health. _This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity._ ## People have described you as a biohacker, anti-aging influencer and longevity guru. How would you describe yourself? I think a lot of people struggle to understand what I'm doing, and reach for words and concepts that they're familiar with, like “biohacker,” “Dorian Gray,” “Prometheus,” “Patrick Bateman.” But I would say I'm more similar to a “rejuvenation athlete” or a representative of a new kind of human rooted in the philosophy of “Don't Die.” ## There’s a lot to unpack there. What’s a “rejuvenation athlete”? When LeBron James sleeps well, eats well, and prioritizes sleep, nobody is critical of his protocols. They admire his athleticism on the basketball court. And yet, people are critical of my protocols because they don't understand the context within which they are being done. I’m trying to create a new sport out of health. Humans love games, games with points. So, for example, I’ve co-created the [Rejuvenation Olympics](https://www.rejuvenationolympics.com/ "undefined"), a ranked leaderboard looking at people’s speeds of aging. Anybody can compete, it’s open to all. \[Johnson is currently ranked No. 1 on the leaderboard, based on a blood test that purports to measure the pace of biological aging.\] I've also repeatedly published all of my biomarkers. If you take 70 of the biomarkers most predicted for longevity, I have among the best—if not the best—biomarkers of anybody in the world. I see this as an introduction of a new framework of how to understand health, age, and rejuvenation. ## And what is “Don’t Die”? Don't Die is the next major ideology for the human race on par with democracy, capitalism, socialism, Islam, Christianity. It's a new way of being. It attempts to answer the most important question on planet Earth. And that question is: What does the human race do when you're giving birth to “superintelligence”? Up until now, we humans have been the most formidable form of intelligence on the planet. But now with superintelligence and the progress of AI, we don't know what the new emergent reality is going to be, so Don't Die is an extreme manifestation of humility. Since we don't know what is going to happen \[with AI\], and it could be bad or it could be good, what’s important is that we recognize the one thing we do agree upon and that is Don’t Die—and it’s actually a quantifiable ideology. I've tried to become the most Don’t Die person in human history, where I’ve measured the biological age of every organ in my body and looked at all the scientific evidence and said, how do I slow my aging or reverse it? And then I repeated that process again and again until I achieved the best biomarkers in the world. We can take that process and apply it to everything, even to planet Earth. You could measure the Earth with billions of data points. You could say, what is a healthy biosphere? Are the waterways healthy? Are the toxin levels appropriate? You could apply this to school lunches for kids. We don't allow kids to smoke cigarettes, but we feed them “die” in the form of school lunches: There’s plastic in canned vegetables, in milk. ## You’ve said in previous interviews that you don’t intend to “die.” Does that mean living forever through AI, or are there existing interventions that you think could help your actual, physical being with this goal? Firstly, the progress in AI is enabling the discovery of new therapies and drugs that will allow us to slow down and reverse aging. You can take an adult stem cell and literally take it back to a childlike state \[[in mice](https://www.science.org/content/article/two-research-teams-reverse-signs-aging-mice "undefined")\]. These nascent technologies will take some time to develop and mature, but we are starting to lay the foundations, and people can see that this is not some magical dream. It's actually something that has promise in experiments today. Secondly, I try to make this very clear: I'm not saying “living forever.” I'm saying, “Don’t Die.” These are two very different concepts. Don’t Die speaks to the here and now, the absolute next moment you exist. It is a survival instinct. I'm saying that as we give birth to AI, it's possible that this is an emergency situation, that if we don't take it seriously enough, we may fumble—and it's not clear whether we humans have a future or not. So that is very different than saying we're going to live forever. I don't talk about mind-uploading. I don't talk about living in the cloud. I don't talk about transhumanism. All these future-oriented, forward-looking contemplations are a luxury of thought and, sure, do your thing if that’s your thing, but I'm focused on the essential thing for us as a species, and that is, nobody wants to die right now. ## When did this philosophy first take root? When I was 21, I really felt compelled that I wanted to try to do something in my life that would contribute positively to humanity. At the time, it wasn't obvious to me how to do that, so I thought, well, I'll become an entrepreneur. I'll make a whole bunch of money by the age of 30 and then with that money, I'll try to figure out what to do. So when I sold Braintree and Venmo, I had that opportunity. \[Editor’s note: Johnson was the founder of Braintree, a payment processing company that acquired Venmo in 2012\. Braintree was acquired by PayPal for $800 million a year later.\] I was 34, I had made a couple hundred million dollars, and the question was, what do I do now? I knew I wanted to do something in the direction of science and technology. I started a venture fund and I invested in synthetic biology, precision chemistry, computational therapeutics. Then I started Kernel \[a biotech company that has developed noninvasive brain-activity monitors\]. And that’s when I started asking myself the question, “Are we the first generation that won’t die?” I was also trying to put my finger on what I thought would be the singular thing that the 21st century would be known for—and I think that it will be two things. One, this will be the century when Homo sapiens give birth to superintelligence, and two, Homo sapiens will figure out that they aren’t going to die. And I think everything else that will happen in this century will be a footnote to those two things. So, I decided that I wanted to work on one of those two things—either build superintelligence, or work on Don’t Die. ## So, what do you do to not “die” everyday? A couple years ago, I realized that when I drive somewhere, I trust that I can put an address into \[an app\] and it will map out a path to get to my destination that will be better than what I could’ve done based on my own knowledge. It knows what the traffic patterns are, where construction is, where there are accidents. So, I thought, if I can trust an algorithm to show me the best route, could I trust an algorithm to show me how to be in the best possible health? My team and I started building this algorithm, which is populated with all my biomarker data, and I became the most measured person in human history. I looked at all the scientific evidence and started figuring out the best therapies. I basically gave my life over to the algorithm. I eat what it says, I exercise the way it prescribes, I'll take whatever molecules it says. I have simple philosophies, like “Every calorie fights for its life,” so nothing goes into my body unless it's a “supermolecule” and it's attested by a third-party lab for toxins and other things. \[Editor’s note: According to Johnson, a “supermolecule” is a nutrient that has been shown in studies to support healthy aging.\] ## What does your typical day look like? My day begins the night before. I go to bed at 8:30 p.m., and I get two hours of REM sleep and two hours of deep sleep. Then I wake up naturally around 4.30 a.m. or 5 a.m. Just like a professional athlete who has a routine to perfect their craft, I have a five-hour routine to perfect mine. I eat the Blueprint stack \[an assortment of supplements that includes dozens of pills and several powdered drinks\] for breakfast. Then I'll do a workout for about an hour or an hour and a half, which is a mix of strength, cardio, flexibility, and balance. I’ll then do 20 minutes in the sauna at 200°F with ice on \[my testicles\] to prevent the reduction of fertility markers. I'll follow that with six minutes of [red-light and near-infrared therapy](https://time.com/7071807/do-at-home-red-light-masks-really-work/ "undefined"). I then do 45 minutes of IHHT or intermittent hypoxia-hyperoxia training \[a procedure that involves breathing in low- and high-oxygen air at varying intervals through a mask\]. Then I'll work, but throughout the day, I may have doctor's appointments and I’m meeting with my science team. It’s basically a full-time job in addition to my full-time job. ## In your years of experimenting, are there certain interventions that seem to work for you better than others? I have tried almost every major therapy that exists and my conclusion is: do less. So, before you go out and get that IV drip or chase that new supplement, learn how to sleep. Sleep is the most powerful drug in the world for recovery, performance, and brain function. Only once you get \[sleep, exercise, and diet\] in place can you start layering on the appropriate longevity therapies, such as supplements and the right measurement protocols to make sure these therapies are working. But most people struggle with the basics of sleeping and avoiding junk food, fast food, and eating too much food, and then they try all these health therapies to try to compensate. It’s almost like doing penance for your sins. ## You mentioned some nascent technologies that could transform the field of longevity. What else is exciting to you right now in this space? Firstly, on a cultural side, I think people are waking up to the idea that we have built a culture around “die” and we need to do something about it. Our food is “die,” our politics is “die,” our social media is “die.” We've built society in a way that makes people sick, and I think people are realizing that it doesn’t feel good to be sick. It's actually really miserable and painful, and the majority of people are struggling—with mood disorders and feeling anxious and depressed, and feeling lethargic and overweight. So I think it's very positive that we're waking up to all that. The Make America Healthy Again movement, for example, is after the same goal. We're both wanting to make society healthy. Secondly, on the science side, I think we're seeing some really significant breakthroughs happening. This is not some made-up story. There's actually a practical path to legitimately reversing aging. A couple years ago when I said that we may be the first generation that won't die, \[people thought I\] sounded like a crazy person. Like, “What are you talking about? How does that even make any sense?” But when you look at the progress of AI and all the advances of recent years, people are now like, “Huh, maybe.” _This article is part of TIME Longevity, an editorial platform dedicated to exploring how and why people are living longer and what this means for individuals, institutions, and the future of society. For other articles on this topic,_ [_click here_](https://time.com/tag/longevity/ "undefined")_._ Bryan Johnson’s Best Longevity Tip Is Free ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/future-of-living/7341335/bryan-johnson-longevity/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/future-of-living/7341335/bryan-johnson-longevity/"},"headline":"Bryan Johnson’s Best Longevity Tip Is Free","datePublished":"2026-01-05T19:00:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T01:03:46.831Z","description":"The tech entrepreneur talks about his “Don't Die” philosophy, anti-aging protocol, and the scientific advances that excite him most.","url":"https://time.com/collections/future-of-living/7341335/bryan-johnson-longevity/","keywords":["Longevity","sponsorshipblock"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e8a50af169f00e5/6998cbdc83ec37ed54c7b275/Bryan-Johnson-longevity.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Dominique Mosbergen","jobTitle":"Health correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/dominique-mosbergen/"}],"creator":"Dominique Mosbergen","articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e8a50af169f00e5/6998cbdc83ec37ed54c7b275/Bryan-Johnson-longevity.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/longevity/","name":"Longevity"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/future-of-living/7341335/bryan-johnson-longevity/","name":"Bryan Johnson’s Best Longevity Tip Is Free"}}]}] ```