Longevity is trending, and the consumer health industry has started broadening its scope, beyond the confines of “how to get a six pack in six weeks” or “how to become alarmingly musclebound before lunch” to include a more sustainable model for health.

But still, there are healthy and unhealthy approaches to longevity. Getting obsessive and letting it dictate your every move? Bad. But altering your routine slightly in ways that, cumulatively, have a positive influence? That’s more like it.

The morning is a pretty good place to start. For most of us, it’s the quietest, most consistent and therefore adaptable part of the day. Here’s how to design a morning routine for longevity, according to the experts.

The Best Time to Wake Up

“The good news is that the morning habits that will increase your chances of a long and healthy life are also the habits that can make a good start to any day—enough sleep, some exercise, a healthy breakfast,” says Elizabeth Goyder, Professor of Public Health and member of the Healthy Lifespan Institute at the University of Sheffield.

“But otherwise there is no one prescription that is right for everyone and a morning routine has to be sustainable, and fit in with also the other changing demands in your life,” she says.

For most people, the time you wake up is a product of when you go to bed and what time they have to start their day. And actually, provided you’re getting enough sleep (6-9 hours for most people), that’s kind of OK.

No wake-up time is inherently best, but what is healthier, according to the science, is getting up at roughly the same time every day. As with so much of health, it’s a matter of consistency.

“The most important aspect of sleep is regularity,” says Dr. Daniella Marchetti, a clinical health psychologist specializing in behavioral sleep medicine at Rise Science. “Going to bed every day at the same time and rising every day at the same time (regardless of how you slept that night) is the best thing someone can do to feel refreshed in the morning.”

So pick the window that works best for you: and stick to it, no matter what.

The Best Morning Gym Routine

For longevity, muscle mass is key. You don’t need to be stacked, but having a decent amount of muscle mass is both useful and very hard to achieve in older age, so starting sooner rather than later is your friend here. Morning can be a good time to get it done: the gym’s a little quieter, the crowd’s a little more focused, and you’ll go through the rest of your day with the smug satisfaction of having already done a hard thing.