Andrew Craig's 6 Morning Non-Negotiables

5 minutes 29 August 2024

Written By

Jo Coates

Jo Coates is a Content and Social Media Manager at Symprove. Fuelled by Crème Eggs she’s not afraid to smash the poo taboo, dig into the latest gut health news and share her own IBS story. When she’s not planning content for the month, you’ll find her noting down poems on her phone, flouncing around the office in her colourful get ups and looking for hand models for her latest Instagram Reel.

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Ahead of the release of his latest book, Our Future is Biotech, we caught up with entrepreneur, author, and Symprove fan Andrew Craig to find out what biotech actually means, what features in his morning non-negotiables and how he came to find Symprove.

Tell us about you and your work

I am a best-selling author and entrepreneur, and the founder of personal finance website: plainenglishfinance.co.uk. Our stated mission with Plain English Finance is ‘to improve the financial affairs of as many people as possible’. My first book, “How to Own the World”, has been one of the top-selling personal finance books in the UK for the last several years, and currently enjoys thousands of reviews across Amazon, Audible and Goodreads.

Since founding Plain English Finance, I’ve appeared in numerous national and specialist financial publications including: The Mail on Sunday, The Financial Times, The Mirror, City A.M., The Spectator, Shares and MoneyWeek magazines, YourMoney, This is Money and Money Observer, and been interviewed on Sky Television, Bloomberg and Shares Radio.

My new book Our Future is Biotech is all about how world changing the biotech industry is about to be. As I say in the book: "Tech has been the most important theme for human progress for the last century. Biotech is next. Biotech means that we can all live better, safer, healthier, wealthier, happier, and longer lives."

What is biotech?

Chambers Dictionary defines biotech as: “…the use of living organisms (e.g. bacteria), or the enzymes produced by them, in the industrial manufacture of useful products, or the development of useful processes, e.g. in energy production, processing of waste, manufacture of drugs and hormones, etc.”

In plain English it is about using the natural world and living organisms to make useful things. Importantly this is about so much more than healthcare. As well as increasing lifespan and healthspan, biotech can and will be able to roll back environmental degradation and help clean our rivers and oceans, revolutionise agriculture and clean power generation, and even super-charge the processing power of our computers with new “biological” computing.

What has biotech got to do with our health?

A great deal! First – because it is at the cutting edge of developing treatments for disease. Human insulin was one of the first true biotech drugs and has revolutionised diabetes treatment for hundreds of millions of people all over the world.

Biotech is giving us revolutionary diagnostic technologies and the possibility of far more personalised and preventative medicine than in the past – moving healthcare more towards prevention and holistic health as against “sticking plaster” treatments for symptoms.

Biotech is helping scientists and clinicians get to a much more sophisticated understanding of every aspect of our health – what causes disease and aging, what the best diet really is, and the best steps we can take in terms of habit and exercise to maximise our health throughout our lives.

All of this and the emerging field of longevity bring on the horizon the possibility of us being able to live much longer and healthier lives.

How did you hear about Symprove?

I discovered Symprove in a health food shop some years ago. I’ve been taking it for something like 7 or 8 years.

What does routine mean to you?

Routine is about consistency, habit and understanding the merits of little and often and of the enormous power of “the compound effect”. Very small daily changes which are relatively easy to implement in our lives lead to massively better outcomes when applied over many years: For our work, finances, health and mental health.

Can you share your morning non-negotiables?

Taking Symprove.
Having at least a minute at the end of my morning shower being as cold as I can bear. There is a great deal of evidence that cold exposure is extremely good for our health.
Breathing exercises: I do breathing exercises every day using an app on my iPhone. Improving your breathing habits is also hugely important for health overall.
I also take a brisk walk at least 2km nearly every morning and quite often after lunch too. Walking is immensely good for your health and also regulates blood sugar after a meal.
I do 15 press ups or more and a stretch routine – which is my bare minimum (near) daily commitment no matter what is going on or where I am.
Bonus thing: For several years now I have also managed to write three pages of a morning journal every day, and use a daily journaling app on my phone too – where I can add a photo – which creates a lovely (and uplifting) record of what you’ve been up to over the years.

NB – I believe that all of these habits impact my mental health, health and gut health.

Original, Mango and Passion Fruit or Strawberry and Raspberry?

Mango and Passion Fruit but I haven’t tried Strawberry and Raspberry yet so should probably switch up my subscription at some point to see about that!