A dispatch from the edge of new puppy ownership.

It is 8 a.m. I have already been awake for hours.

Meet Ellie. She is a puppy. She is adorable.

She is destroying me.

I want to be clear about something. I am a human performance coach. I have spent years building a ten-pillar framework for maximizing health and happiness. I teach people how to manage stress, optimize sleep, build resilience, regulate their nervous systems. I have a registered trademark, for crissakes.

And I am currently being defeated by a creature who weighs less than my lightest kettlebell.

So I did what I’ve been encouraging all of you to do. I opened the Coach Keir AI app and typed in my problem.

“I’m struggling with the stress of parenting a new puppy as a full time job, on top of my full time job.”

I want to share exactly what it said. Verbatim. Because it’s better than anything I would have written at that hour…

What Coach Keir Said: Round One

The first response named what was actually happening:

KJ, welcome to the puppy tax — the hidden cost nobody warns you about. Sleepless nights, constant vigilance, zero personal space, and a tiny furry creature who has absolutely no idea what you’re going through. It’s basically a newborn who will eventually chew your furniture.

Here’s what’s actually happening physiologically: you’re running a chronic stress response. Interrupted sleep alone tanks your cortisol regulation, impairs decision-making, and reduces emotional resilience. Add constant unpredictability (will she destroy something while I’m on this Zoom call?) and your nervous system is on high alert all day. That’s exhausting.

Immediate tools from the Slowfit toolkit:

First, your breathing. When the puppy stress spikes, do a quick downregulation reset: mouth closed, 4-count nasal inhale, 8-count nasal exhale. Repeat for 3-5 minutes. That extended exhale is a direct dial into your parasympathetic nervous system — it physiologically cannot stay in fight-or-flight mode with a long exhale. Do this during any quiet moment, even while the puppy naps.

Second, protect your sleep ruthlessly. Also grab a Manta Sleep mask with this link — blackout sleep is non-negotiable when you’re already sleep-deprived.

Your move today: Do that breathing protocol right now, then schedule one 20-minute walk — just you, no puppy. Your nervous system needs a reset.

What’s hitting hardest — the sleep deprivation or the constant unpredictability?

I answered: the sleep deprivation. And the follow-up was even better.

Round Two: The Neuroscience of Running on Empty

KJ, what you’re describing is textbook — and it’s not a character flaw, it’s neuroscience. Sleep deprivation doesn’t just make you tired, it literally impairs your prefrontal cortex (the rational decision-making part of your brain) while simultaneously amplifying your amygdala (the emotional alarm system). You’re essentially driving with no brakes and a heavy accelerator.

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s work is essential here — her book How Emotions Are Made explains exactly what’s happening to you. Her “body budget” model is brilliant: sleep, nutrition, exercise, and social connection are the bedrock of emotional stability. When sleep is depleted, your brain’s predictive emotional processing goes haywire — it starts catastrophizing and overreacting because it literally doesn’t have the resources to regulate properly. You’re not overreacting because you’re weak. You’re overreacting because your brain is running on empty.

Practical interventions right now:

Protect whatever sleep you’re getting ferociously. Same wake time every single day — even weekends, even after bad nights. This anchors your circadian rhythm when everything else feels chaotic. Grab a Manta Sleep mask and get Momentous Magnesium Threonate (with code foghorn) — it crosses the blood-brain barrier and meaningfully improves sleep quality.

Track your recovery with Whoop — join Team Foghorn Fitness free. When you can see your actual recovery data, you stop guessing and start making smarter decisions about when to push and when to protect.

Your move today: Set one non-negotiable sleep boundary tonight. What time does the puppy allow you to be in bed?

The resource tiles that surfaced below the response: Dr. Alia Crum’s Science of Mindset podcast, the Wim Hof Method book, Full Catastrophe Living, How Emotions Are Made, Hope for Cynics. Every one of them relevant. Every one of them something I personally put in the Vault.

Why I’m Showing You This

I’ve published three posts about this app. One about the features. One about why I designed it to not be addictive. One about the ethics of building AI for human performance.

This is the post I should have written first.

The app is not impressive just because of its feature set. It’s useful because at 8 a.m., when I’m running on fragmented sleep and have a full day of coaching ahead, it gives me fast, direct, specific access to the synthesized thinking of someone who has spent years studying this stuff.

That someone is me. Which means I’m getting my own best thinking back when I’m too depleted to access it myself.

That’s a strange and genuinely useful thing.

A few things I want to flag about that exchange, because they matter:

• It called me KJ. Not Coach Keir, not Keir, not “I understand you’re struggling.” It knew who it was talking to—because of a few questions in the onboarding process— and it was direct.

• It named the physiology immediately. No sympathy spiral. No “that sounds really hard.” Here’s what’s actually happening in your nervous system. Here’s why.

• The affiliate links surfaced organically. Manta Sleep mask, Momentous Magnesium, Whoop — these are products I actually use and recommend. They appeared because they were relevant, not because an algorithm was optimizing for commission.

• It ended both responses with a single, specific action. Not a list of ten things. Not an attempt at endless dialogue to artificially increase engagement. One move. Today.

• It asked a follow-up question. It didn’t assume. It narrowed toward what I actually needed. Then it sent me on my way.

That’s what “trained on my methods” actually means in practice. Not a chatbot that has read some random fitness content. A coaching interface that reflects a specific philosophy about how to help people, built from years of my writing, research, and direct work with athletes.

You don’t have to have a puppy. You can have a deadline, a training plateau, a sleep score trending the wrong direction, a knee that won’t cooperate, or just a week when everything feels like too much.

That’s what this app I built is for.

OK. Ellie is ramping up for another loud barking session in her puppy zone at the moment, looking for attention. I’m going to do the breathing protocol right now.

Best,

Keir

P.S. The app is free to download. Coach Keir AI is available to all users. The full Vault — 270+ books, podcasts, tools, and on-demand workouts — unlocks with a paid subscription. Download here.

P.P.S. If you’re dealing with something the app can’t fully address — an injury, a major life transition, or you just want a real human in your corner — that’s what the 1:1 coaching is for. Book an intro session at foghornfitness.com.

P.P.P.S. All ten pillars of the Slowfit Method® live here on Substack. Paid subscribers get the deeper dives and the full resource library. Upgrade here.

P.P.P.P.S. Photo credit to my pal, Jana Ašenbrennerová.