Cover From protecting sleep to setting boundaries, six high-performing women across Asia share the daily wellness habits in their routine (Photo: Getty Images)
From protecting sleep to setting boundaries, six high-performing women across Asia share the daily wellness habits in their routine (Photo: Getty Images)
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Six high-achieving women across Asia in the fields of aviation, share the wellness habits—rest, boundaries, blood tests, real food—that actually sustain success
On social media, longevity has become glossy. We see hyperbaric oxygen therapy, peptides, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) drips, glucose monitors, red-light panels and supplement stacks presented as the new toolkit for living longer and performing better. Some of these interventions may be promising, while some are still early. Some may be useful in the right clinical context. But the more crowded the wellness world becomes, the easier it is to overlook the habits that are far less glamorous and far more foundational.
Earlier this month, I went to Lanserhof in Sylt, Germany, one of the world’s leading medical wellness retreats, for a longevity programme focused on baseline checks and health optimisation. I arrived thinking about optimising my performance. I left with something far more confronting: the discovery that I have an incurable autoimmune disease.
It was scary, but it was also empowering. Catching it early gives me the chance to respond timely, and a higher possibility of remission. It also reminded me that jumping into advanced interventions without a solid foundation is like installing a state-of-the-art security system on a house with a crumbling base. Before asking if we can add another treatment, supplement or protocol, we may need to ask what we have not yet protected: our sleep, our stress levels, our relationships, our boundaries, our biomarkers, even our ability to rest.
To explore this quieter side of high performance, I interviewed six high-achieving women across management consulting, yachting, health, aviation and women’s health to understand the less visible habits that sustain them. Their answers were refreshingly unglamorous: sleep, boundaries, walking, family, food, medical checks, solitude, joy. They didn’t talk about trends, but discussed the systems that worked.
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1. Sleep is where success repairs itself
Above Sleep is a cornerstone of high-performance (Photo: Getty Images)
Sleep is a cornerstone of high-performance (Photo: Getty Images)
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For many ambitious women, sleep is still treated as negotiable. It is the first thing sacrificed when the calendar expands. Yet almost every woman I spoke to described rest not as indulgence, but as a condition for performance.
For Imane Jamal Eddine, GM and head of sales at Microsoft Asia, wellness is no longer something that happens after the work is done. “Wellness is my operating system,” she says. “When I am rested and clear, I make sharper calls, I listen more deeply, and I bring my best self to the people around me.”
Her most protected habit is sleep, particularly during travel weeks. “I treat sleep as one of my greatest performance tools,” she says. “My one anchor is to travel the night prior and have a quiet wind-down ritual before an important customer day.”
Lenita Tobing, partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Jakarta, has learned to prioritise sleep in a realistic way. “I have never been someone who naturally sleeps more than six hours,” she says, “but I have learned that the quality of my sleep matters just as much as the quantity.” For her, the goal is intentionality: sleeping well rather than collapsing on the sofa after exhaustion wins. During intense periods, she uses micro-recovery; she opts for a power nap, closing her eyes for five minutes between meetings, or choosing a short reset instead of pushing through.
The key takeaway? Protect sleep quality and use micro-rest when life is intense. Treat recovery as part of performance, not a prize for surviving overwork.
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2. Build the foundation before supplementation
The wellness industry can make health feel complicated. Liz Bradford, co-founder of Maia Health and former COO of HSBC Commercial Banking Australia, takes a more practical view. “Energy isn’t a mood, it’s a metabolic output,” she says. “Food is the biggest lever I control day to day.”
She chooses a simple and structured approach: front-load protein, eat real meals and avoid the blood-sugar rollercoaster that can disguise itself as a productivity problem. “The 3pm crash isn’t our calendar,” she says. “Fix the food and the willpower you thought you’d run out of quietly comes back.”
When it comes to supplements, Bradford believes the starting point should be knowing your own baselines rather than guessing what might be missing. Testing can show whether there is a genuine deficiency or imbalance to address. But even then, she is clear that supplements should sit on top of the fundamentals, not replace them. “You can’t supplement your way out of a diet and a bedtime you haven’t sorted.”
Her most unglamorous recommendation? Walking. “No kit to sell,” she says, “and one of the most powerful things a woman can do for her blood sugar, metabolism, mood and joints.” She also advocates strength training because muscle is a longevity asset, especially as women age.
Lindsay Davis, founder of FemTech Association Asia in Singapore, echoes this return to basics: exercise, nutrition, quality sleep, stress management, meaningful relationships and regular conversations with healthcare providers. It is a reminder that the foundational habits are not glamorous because they are not rare. But they work precisely because they are repeatable.
The lessons from these two ladies are to eat enough protein, take proper lunch breaks, walk daily, lift weights regularly and be sceptical of supplements that promise to replace fundamentals.
3. Boundaries are the unglamorous burnout prevention
Boundaries are often discussed as a leadership skill, but they are also a wellness intervention. Without them, time, attention and emotional energy leak everywhere.
Ewa Stachurska, CMO of Sanlorenzo Asia-Pacific and Simpson Marine in Hong Kong, says her responsibilities forced her to rethink the reflexive ‘yes’. “As your scope expands, you quickly realise that time and emotional energy are finite resources,” Stachurska shares. Earlier in her career, she wanted to support every project and solve every problem. Now, she says ‘no’ to micromanagement, low-impact meetings and opportunities that do not align with long-term priorities.
“Saying no isn’t about being unhelpful or distant,” she says. “It’s about protecting your energy so that when you do say yes, you can bring your absolute best to it.”
For BCG’s Tobing, she uses one key mental filter to separate urgency from importance, especially in consulting, where everything can appear immediate: “Will this matter a year from now?”
Many high-achieving women are praised for capacity, but capacity is not the same as sustainability. Sometimes the most strategic wellness habit is declining something impressive.
When it comes to setting boundaries, create a decision filter. Ask whether a commitment aligns with your long-term life, whether you have the bandwidth, and whether it will still matter in a year.
4. The new luxury is knowing your numbers
Medical prevention is a topic which rarely comes up in wellness conversations, but should because it can change the trajectory of a life.
Davis believes women should establish relationships with a trusted GP or gynaecologist and ask more questions. Through her work in femtech, she has seen how often women hesitate to discuss health concerns due to judgement, shame or lack of information. Her recommendation is simple: know your baseline and monitor it over time.
Bradford takes a similar data-informed approach. “I test rather than guess,” she explains. She tracks blood markers such as ferritin, vitamin D, thyroid, HbA1c and inflammation, then acts on what the data shows rather than what is trending. For women especially, she believes “normal” is not always the same as optimal for how someone wants to feel.
This is where my Lanserhof experience became deeply personal. My diagnosis was confronting, but early detection gives me a higher chance of getting into remission. It is a powerful reminder that the greatest luxury may be foresight: the regular, rigorous check-ups that reveal the quiet risks we carry long before they make themselves known.
5. Your support system is part of your health system
Above Family is an important part of a healthy support system (Photo: Getty Images)
Family is an important part of a healthy support system (Photo: Getty Images)
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We often discuss performance through individual discipline: the workout, the diet, the morning routine. But the women I spoke to repeatedly returned to relationships.
Tobing calls her support system one of her most important wellness habits. “We often talk about exercise, nutrition or sleep as pillars of wellness, but emotional well-being deserves just as much attention,” she says. Even short moments with her husband, family or close friends help her feel grounded.
Amy Yang, vice president marketing of APAC and IMEA at VistaJet, is equally clear. “My family is my rock,” she shares. Her husband has supported her career moves across countries, including relocating for her promotion. Lifelong friends also play a different role. They see her not as a title, but as herself. “They keep me grounded, remind me of my roots and give me the perspective needed to reset.”
In Asia, where many women hold multiple roles at once-leader, daughter, wife, mother, caregiver-the emotional load can be invisible. One of the quietest forms of burnout happens when we become the support system for everyone else without replenishing our own.
The key takeaway? Schedule emotional nourishment with the same seriousness as work. A short call, family dinner or honest conversation can be a recovery tool.
6. Choose a practice that returns you to yourself
Not every wellness habit looks like discipline. Some look like joy, solitude, movement or space.
Yang’s great reset is Latin dance. As a championship-level dancer, she describes it as a passion that requires complete presence. “You simply cannot execute complex choreography and technique while staying in sync with music and your dance partner if your brain is still scanning corporate emails,” she reveals. Dance gives her a mental boundary that does not need to be forced.
Davis calls her small breaks “mental margaritas”—moments away from work and life demands. Most mornings begin around six walking her dog before the day becomes busy. Despite building communities professionally, she recharges best in her own company.
Stachurska also deliberately schedules white space. “If you wait for thinking time to happen organically, the immediate demands of the day will always swallow it whole,” she explains. So, she blocks time for strategy, reflection and creative direction, often changing her environment through walks, time on the water or sport.
For me, inner work is learning to hear the quieter signals beneath achievement. The question isn’t just ‘How can I do more?’ It is also pondering, ‘What does it look like to pursue my ambitions at a sustainable pace, and does my body feel safe in the life I am building to get there?’
When it comes to recharging choose an activity that returns you to yourself, whether it’s walking, dance, solitude, prayer, journaling, sport or creative work. Presence is recovery.
7. The key is what you do consistently
If there is a pattern among these women, it is that sustainable success is rarely built on spectacular habits. It is built on repeatable ones.
Choose sleep before you collapse. Prioritise food before supplements. Set boundaries before resentment builds. Understand medical baselines before blind optimisation. Choose movement over perfection. Build relationships before isolation. Protect joy before burnout happens.
The future of wellness may include advanced diagnostics, personalised medicine and emerging longevity interventions, but the foundation of overall wellbeing is still profoundly human. And perhaps that is the habit successful women most need to talk about: the courage to care for themselves before the body demands it.
Jessie Li is a public speaker, philanthropist and the founder of Lead with Balance.
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