Jess Spendlove makes the case that your body and brain aren’t built for modern-day chaos.
Rather, your body runs on rhythm, and consistency is the operating system your biology depends on.
Jess breaks down why consistency is a system rather than a daily willpower contest, why your real constraint is energy rather than time, and how reactive, chaotic days quietly accumulate as physiological strain that leaves you running on empty.
Drawing on the framework from her debut book, For the Long Run (out 29 July 2026), she introduces the five rhythms — nutrition, movement, stress and recovery, sleep, and connection — that your biology needs to run together to perform sustainably.
In this episode I share:
- Why consistency has the wrong reputation
- The difference between consistency and perfection
- Why you should optimise for your busiest days, not your best
- The concept of structured flexibility
- How to identify your non-negotiable habits
- Why your body and brain thrive off rhythm
- The hidden cognitive cost of chaos and unpredictability
- How rhythm helps create more energy and clarity
- The five rhythms that shape your health and performance
- Why sustainable performance is built through small repeated behaviours
- How to stop benchmarking yourself against old versions of your life
- Why your habits need to fit your current season of life
Key Quotes
“Your body and brain are literally wired for rhythm.”
“The goal is not a perfect protocol. The goal is sustainable rhythm.”
Episode Resources
📖 PRE-ORDER For the Long Run by Jess Spendlove 👉 https://amzn.to/4t33BPh
Jessica Spendlove Website – www.jessicaspendlove.com
Jessica Spendlove Keynotes – JessicaspendloveKeynotes – Jessica Spendlove
The High-Performance Profile Quiz https://jessicaspendlove.com/quiz/
Jess Spendlove Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/?hl=en
Jess Spendlove LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spendlove-64173bb8/
About Your Host
Jessica Spendlove | Wellbeing Speaker & High Performance Strategist
Jess Spendlove is an international wellbeing and high performance speaker, coach, and advisor. With over 15 years of experience across corporate leadership, elite sport and the military she is known for helping ambitious leaders and teams optimise energy, build resilience, and sustain peak performance.
As one of Australia’s leading performance dietitians and a trusted voice in executive wellbeing, Jess delivers science-backed strategies that empower individuals, teams and organisations to thrive under pressure and achieve long-term success.
Episode Transcript
The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy
Jess Spendlove (00:00.184)
Did you know your body and brain are literally wired for rhythm? Unfortunately, modern life doesn’t care about your biology. I wish it did, but it doesn’t. Tell me if this sounds like your life. New meetings land in your calendar without anyone telling you. There’s a traffic jam, your child gets sick, a project timeline gets moved up, a staff member or a team member leaves. And the first thing to go are your basics. You skip the gym, you miss lunch, you’re late to bed.
And the knock-on effects of that add up. So if any of that sounds familiar, today’s episode is for you. Hi, I’m Jess Benlove and welcome to Stay at the Top.
Jess Spendlove (00:42.242)
Something I’ve been thinking about a lot is if I could influence you to just do one thing when it comes to prioritizing your health or sustaining your performance, which if you ask me, they’re the same thing. But if there was one thing that I could help you to achieve, it would be finding consistency. Now, consistency is a word that I think has a really bad reputation. It kind of needs a bit of a PR makeover.
Consistency for a lot of people when I talk to them is the idea of perfect conditions, or it’s the idea of the exact same routine rhythm protocol in this exact order. I’m here to tell you that is not the case. Consistency is really about you being clear on your non-negotiable behaviors. Not mine, not your partners, not your friends, not your colleagues.
Yours. Now, these non-negotiable behaviors, most importantly, are what you can achieve on your busiest days, not just your best. One thing, and I have been guilty of this many times, including even recently, is you fall into the trap of benchmarking against the absolute best version of yourself, the perfect conditions.
What you were doing 10 years ago, before you had children, or before you were at a certain stage in your career, or before you had all of the commitments that you’ve got today, or potentially before the injury or the back pain, which I can definitely relate to right now, before that happened. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That tells me that you’re driven, that you’re a high performer. I totally get it. But when you’re benchmarking your current life.
And your busiest days against a different version of your life and the perfect conditions, it’s setting you up for failure. So instead, what you need to do is think about what is the minimum that I can achieve consistently. This is really about identifying one, two, maybe three habits that you can do any single day. Now, the thing with that though, it doesn’t have to be in an exact
Jess Spendlove (03:07.87)
Order. And this is another mindset that I’ve had to work through to shift. And I know a lot of people I speak to are the same. It’s not about being these exact conditions. So for example, maybe your non-negotiables are: I have a high-protein breakfast, I do some sort of movement across the day, and I have a wind-down routine. I don’t know, just some examples.
Some of those will be in a certain order given they’re at time points of the day, but others are just when you get a chance to do that. Now I know for me, I definitely prefer to exercise in the morning, but in this season of life, that is not possible. And that really took a lot of shifting with my own mindset to be comfortable with that. And that’s something which when I talk with a lot of people, they experience that as well.
So rather than saying I must exercise in my lunch break, I must exercise in the morning, whatever that might be, it’s really just changing that perspective and going, movement and exercise is important to me, anchoring that in the why. Yes, it might be from a physical health perspective, it might be from a weight or gaining muscle or from that perspective. But it might also be more importantly,
From a mental health perspective, from a mood, from a clarity, from a focus, from an energy, from a recovery. That stuff really matters. And so when you’re anchoring in that, it’s about finding the opportunity. And that’s why one of the concepts I talk about a lot, including in my new book for the long run, is structured flexibility, which is this idea of being clear on these non-negotiables, identifying what they are.
And looking for the opportunity across the day to get them in. Because what that does, that creates momentum. And that momentum, leveraged off the back of consistency, exponentially increases your health, your performance, and everything to do with both of those. Another way I like to think about this structured flexibility concept is like the bumper bars when you go to the bowling alley. Now
Jess Spendlove (05:19.798)
I’m a big fan of these because there’s no fun in going. And if bowling just isn’t your thing, or you’re with friends or with your family, and the ball is just going down the gutter. That is just frustrating and that’s no fun. So we pop on the bumper bars and happy days. That concept is how you should think about these habits and this idea of structured flexibility.
It’s really just these four walls. How can you set yourself up? So, regardless of the conditions, your habits are happening within the day. The same as when the bumper bars are up, the ball is staying in the alley and it’s getting to the end. Happy days, it’s a win-win all round. So if you’re just struggling to execute on this or wrap your head around this idea of structured flexibility, which I know can be challenging.
If you’re someone who is quite a type, speaking from experience, or if you just really like things in a certain way, but for whatever reason in this phase of life, that just isn’t how you can operate. So, really for me, structured flexibility is that sweet spot, like the bumper bars at the bowling alley, if this is something
Which is required. And the other thing I’ll say here is this is really about you being clear on what these non-negotiables are. So that decision is made. You don’t then need to cognitively use that bandwidth or willpower to make decisions each day. If you’re clear on them, it’s just about these are what they are and this is how I operate. And that’s why in my book, it’s really around you building your own daily operating system made up of these habits.
And rhythms, which we’ll get to next, that you can operate with. It’s not about what I can do. It’s not about what your colleague can do. It’s about what you can do. And that’s why I’m so big on not forcing like a set protocol onto anyone. It’s about teaching you habits or principles or things that I’ve seen work in elite sport with the special forces, with the thousands of people that I’ve worked with. And you can select and cherry pick what works for you.
Jess Spendlove (07:36.576)
What speaks to you, what you actually want to change. Because here’s the thing: health doesn’t actually have to be hard. And I feel like the bros have made us think that it needs to be. But this is why it’s not about a 10-step 5 a.m. protocol, which sounds like I need to run a marathon, have an ice bath, read a book, journal, all before I get to work. That might be a slight over-exaggeration, but I feel like that is what the narrative is out there.
No, it’s not. It’s about you, your life, where you’re starting from, where you want to go, and most importantly, what is achievable for you to do consistently every single day. I guess the reason why consistency is so important is because it helps you find your own rhythm. Now, this idea of rhythm is something that I’ve been exploring more recently in my work, in my book.
And it’s something I really feel connected to. I love the term rhythm because it applies flow and ease and also it can move and it can shift and move in different ways. But the truth is, your body and your brain do function best with rhythm. Now, the reason for this is while it can shift and move and ebb and flow, there is still a level.
Of predictability. I guess ultimately, with a lot of these habits that we’re talking about, the end goal is that they happen automatically. But I guess what I’m trying to do is shift that mindset from thinking automatically and trying to embed behavior means an exact set way. That is not the case. But your brain and your body do like rhythm. And the reason for that is because.
It starts to trust that that behavior is going to happen. Now I’m sure what is happening for you, like it does for me, because every day is different, when you don’t anchor certain habits across your day and you let your day run you, then there is no rhythm. So what I’m meaning by this is if you let your day and what you’ve got on govern when you have your lunch.
Jess Spendlove (10:03.072)
Or when you have a snack, or if you have a brain break, or what time your day starts or finishes, if you’re just rolling with it, which most of us are, definitely happens to me some days. Then while in the moment that might feel like the easiest thing, what that is actually doing is eroding your energy and it is costing you more cognitive bandwidth. So it’s more expensive. And the other thing, when things are chaotic.
And unpredictable and there is no rhythm, your body and your brain don’t know what’s coming. So it’s scanning, thinking what’s coming, and it’s expending more energy making those decisions. Whereas when it starts to go, well, hang on, we’re in a rhythm here. We have our lunch around 12 to 1 each day, and we’ve been doing that for the past few weeks and months, and I know that’s just something that happens, then it starts to trust that process. And not only does it trust the process.
But it starts to thrive off that. And a lot of this is about starting to live proactively rather than reactively. And so in the moment when we start to live like this, it might feel harder. It might require more cognitive resources. But pretty soon, you start to feel the benefit of that. You have more energy. You have more focus. You have more clarity. You get to the end of your day or week with more energy.
You’re not as exhausted. You’ve got more energy on the weekend for hobbies or family or friends or whatever that is. And all of a sudden, your brain and your body are like, this is great. And this starts to embed from a behavior change perspective. So the way I like to talk about this, and a great way for you to think about this, is your phone. So I’m sure we all plug our phone in at night. So it’s 100% charged in the morning.
And when it’s 100% charged, we know that we can get the most out of it each day. But for whatever reason, if you’ve plugged your phone and it hasn’t connected properly, and you wake up the next morning and your phone’s at 10 or 20%, you know you’re not going to get as much out of it out of the day. So you’re using it more conservatively or you’re trying to find a charger to plug it in. We’re consciously thinking and probably stressing about our phone and how little battery it’s got.
Jess Spendlove (12:25.942)
The point of this though is you know you can’t get the same usage out of it compared to when it’s plugged in at 100%. So, like your phone, who likes to be charged each night, who wants to start the day at 100% so you get the most out of it, it trusts that, it knows that. That’s exactly how you should be thinking about yourself. From these little habits, your non-negotiables, that you can do each day across the day.
And then, of course, also what you do at the end of the day. And so when it comes to your brain and your body, I believe there’s five important rhythms. They are what you eat, how you move your body, how you manage your stress and you recover, how you sleep, and your connection. And when I talk about connection, that is how you are aligned to your values, to your purpose.
And to your people. So the quality of your relationships. These five rhythms are essential to every element of your energy, your health, and your performance. Now, that doesn’t mean all five of those rhythms need to be optimized and you need to be focused on them at every single point of the day. Remember, we need to come back to the start of this episode, which was about consistency and your non-negotiables. These five rhythms feed into
Your energy, your well-being, and your performance. And I totally understand. Hearing this, it can be so easy to fall into the trap of I’m just resetting, I’m overhauling everything, I’m focusing on everything at once. But it doesn’t need to be that way. Because how often, when you have done some sort of major reset or overhaul, Hello New Year’s Eve resolutions every year, how often does that stick? Instead, what I’m inviting you to do.
With knowing these five rhythms, is to pick the one or maybe two that speak to you. What feels easiest for you to elevate or focus on or just lock into some form of consistency? How can you find rhythm in each of these different areas that will help you have more energy, which over time will help you be more consistent, which then helps you prioritize your health? And overall,
Jess Spendlove (14:44.994)
That helps you sustain your performance. So these five rhythms: what you eat, how you exercise, how you manage your stress and you recover, how you sleep, and your connection, these five rhythms make up your daily operating system. And this daily operating system is exactly what I talk about and share in my new book for the long run, which is now available for pre-order. All of the strategies, all of the tips, all of the habits.
Inside this are science-backed, but they are designed with real-world application. My intention with this book is to teach you the idea of structured flexibility, to show you what I have seen work across 15 years, working with thousands of elite athletes, special forces, CEOs, entrepreneurs, founders, and everyday people like myself.
So these five rhythms, they’re science-backed, but they are designed for real-world application. So they fit your life. So the most important three things to take away from today’s episode is one, consistency. And remembering that this is not about you being a robot or having the perfect conditions. It is about what you can do on your busiest day, not just your best. The second is that your body and brain thrive off rhythm.
It doesn’t want chaos. So if you can think about your day and how you can start to create a level of rhythm so your body and brain know what’s coming, not only will you use less cognitive bandwidth, but it will help you create and sustain more energy. Win-win. And the third thing is the idea of these five rhythms: what you eat, how you sleep, how you move your body, how you manage your stress, and your connection.
And there’s a practical framework for building them, which is exactly what I share inside my book for the long run. One of the main reasons I wrote this book is because I kept observing incredibly capable people either hit their ceiling or consistently burn themselves out. And the reason for this is because the daily operating system that they were currently running was working against them. So if you’d like more energy or you want to prioritize your health.
Jess Spendlove (16:55.892)
or sustain your performance, then I’d highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of my book. The pre-order details are in the show notes. That’s all for this week. Next week I’ve got an amazing guest episode with Kate Kendall where we’re talking all about the power of breath and how you can leverage it with some simple tools and tactics. I can’t wait for you to hear it. So on that note, I’ll be back again next week helping you all not only reach the top, but sustainably stay there. I’ll see you all then.