Two years. 149 shows. Three hours. Zero cancellations. Follow Swift's blueprint for staying healthy, focused, and astonishingly consistent throughout the history-making Eras Tour.
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There’s performance, then there’s performance. Between March 17, 2023 and December 8, 2024, Taylor Swift took the concept of career passion to new heights. The Eras Tour also took two years of preparation, both physiological and production-related, leading up to those 20 grueling months of output. “I know I’m going on that stage whether I’m sick, injured, heartbroken, uncomfortable, or stressed,” Swift said when TIME named her the 2023 Person of the Year after the first half of the tour. “That’s part of my identity as a human being now.”
On December 12 when Disney+ releases the highly-anticipated The End of an Era docuseries from Taylor Swift, viewers get the most intimate look yet at what it took to survive the highest-grossing tour in history. The six-part series—paired with a concert film release of Swift’s final show, in Vancouver—is sure to reveal more details than ever about the superstar’s intense recovery routine that powered her across 21 countries.
Each performance ran over three hours with a 44-song setlist (not to mention at least two surprise songs each night) and constant choreography. That kind of mentally, physically and emotionally demanding endeavor required the strategies of an elite athlete.
That spurred Swift to adopt new habits. The 14-time Grammy winner previously admitted that she used to tour “like a frat guy,” while in Miss Americana, she revealed that she’d sometimes eaten so little that she feared she’d faint onstage. The Eras Tour called for her to care for her body in a new way. “I knew this tour was harder than anything I’d ever done before by a long shot,” she said. She set herself up for success by making very intentional choices offstage that now speak to the science of self-care in the face of career demands…even for us mere mortals.
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John Shearer/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management MIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA – OCTOBER 18: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO STANDALONE PUBLICATION USE (NO SPECIAL INTEREST OR SINGLE ARTIST PUBLICATION USE; NO BOOK USE)) Taylor Swift performs onstage during The Eras Tour at Hard Rock Stadium on October 18, 2024 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Photo by John Shearer/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
She prioritized sleep as a performance tool
Most outlets have covered that Taylor Swift “sleeps a lot.” But what’s less discussed is that Swift treats sleep with the commitment of a clinical protocol the way elite athletes do. When Seth Meyers recently asked how she finds time to rest while touring and secretly producing The Life of a Showgirl, Swift explained: “I actually sleep a lot and I sleep often. It’s just that I don’t do anything other than [work] when I’m not sleeping.”
That’s not laziness—that’s known as “energy budgeting,” a concept some sleep physiologists say protects the nervous system during long periods of high output.
Swift’s travel schedule across time zones would surely disrupt circadian rhythm, but she’s learned to buffer against it. After her Tokyo-to-Las Vegas sprint in February 2024 to catch the Super Bowl, then-boyfriend Travis Kelce was recorded asking her on the field, “How do you not have jet lag right now?” Her answer: “Jet lag is a choice.”
The comment stirred some ire in some circles pushing for work-life balance, but her point could be understand to suggest that some life events are just worth rallying for. To recharge no matter where she is, it’s been speculated that she replicates some parts of her sleep routine, such as with a sleep mask, and practices sensory grounding with Diptyque Baies candles and Tom Ford’s Santal Blush—consistent scents that regulate the limbic system and signal to the body that it’s safe to rest.
Research shows consistent sleep is one of the most powerful anti-aging interventions. During the tour, Swift treated it like fuel.
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SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE – MARCH 02: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO STANDALONE PUBLICATION USE (NO SPECIAL INTEREST OR SINGLE ARTIST PUBLICATION USE; NO BOOK USE)) Taylor Swift performs during “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at the National Stadium on March 02, 2024 in Singapore. (Photo by Ashok Kumar/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
She took “dead days”—which science says are essential
Tour schedules were structured as typically three shows, followed by four days off. During the August 2023 L.A. leg, she performed six shows in seven days.
The pace was only sustainable because rest was equally strategic—a rhythm nearly identical to what endurance athletes follow. Swift embraced those off-day timespans for what she called “dead days,” saying, “I do not leave my bed except to get food and take it back to my bed and eat it there,” she told TIME. “I can barely speak because I’ve been singing for three hours straight.”
A “dead day” is a form of deliberate nervous-system downregulation that exercise physiologists say prevents burnout. It’s not indulgence; it’s metabolic repair.
For the rest of us, the message is: you don’t need a stadium tour to earn a dead day. Treat weekends sacredly, and don’t feel guilty if you find some downtime to soak in over the holidays. That becomes an investment when the rush of the new year rolls in.
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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – OCTOBER 25: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO STANDALONE PUBLICATION USE (NO SPECIAL INTEREST OR SINGLE ARTIST PUBLICATION USE; NO BOOK USE)) Taylor Swift performs onstage during “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” at Caesars Superdome on October 25, 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Erika Goldring/TAS24/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
She cut out alcohol for staying power, not purity
Some headlines focused on Swift’s “sobriety on tour.” Again, this approach only ensured the next show stayed strong. Drinking affects glymphatic function, the brain’s overnight waste-removal system—key to memory, immunity, and long-term cognitive health. Swift seemed to intuit this.
“Doing that show with a hangover? I don’t want to know that world,” she told TIME. What she was describing is something performance scientists call preserving high-cognitive output. Alcohol impairs reaction time, balance, and respiratory control—all crucial for singing and choreography.
But Swift didn’t make it moralistic or absolute. She allowed for one “hilarious” Grammy night. (Sources have said her wines of choice are Sancerre, sauvi B, or pinot grigio.) That flexibility actually aligns with modern longevity research suggesting consistency matters more than perfection.
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DETROIT, MICHIGAN – JUNE 09: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO STANDALONE PUBLICATION USE (NO SPECIAL INTEREST OR SINGLE ARTIST PUBLICATION USE; NO BOOK USE)) Taylor Swift performs onstage during “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour ” at Ford Field on June 09, 2023 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Scott Legato/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
She trained until the execution was automatic
They make it look so easy—but how do stars manage to sing through dancing (in heels), jumps, and onstage stunts?
Plenty of coverage has noted Swift’s treadmill routine. Every day for six months leading up to opening night, she ran while singing the entire setlist—a full run for the bangers, a fast walk for the ballads. She wasn’t just getting tons of cardio. She was training ventilatory endurance, a technique used in respiratory therapy and by Broadway performers to maintain stable pitch under exertion.
She followed it with three months of dance rehearsal so the moves would be “in my bones.” You might think of it as “muscle memory,” though fitness researchers call this “movement automaticity”: instilling neuromuscular patterns so deeply that they stay intact under exhaustion—nearly literally to the bone.
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TOPSHOT – US singer Taylor Swift performs on stage during “The Eras Tour” at the Hard Rock stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, October 18, 2024. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE / NO FRONT PAGE OR MAGAZINE POWER (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
She continued training throughout the course of performance
Onstage, Swift climbed steep stairs, dove off the stage, whipped chairs around, and even scaled a house. Most celebrity fitness stories focused on her abs or arms. Swift’s trainer Kirk Myers at Dogpound emphasized something different: power.
“Taylor is the most resilient person I have ever met,” he told Vogue. “Most people would probably throw up if they tried her regimen.” The program focused on spinal health, functional strength, and eccentric control—the kind of conditioning required for nightly stair climbs, stage dives, chair work, and scaling a house mid-set.
Notably, Swift continued strength training during tour—something many trainers say prevents injury better than rest alone. “I know I’m keeping my strength and stamina up,” she told TIME. Rehearsal footage has also suggested she worked on her posture with a Forme sports bra.
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FOXBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS – MAY 20: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO STANDALONE PUBLICATION USE (NO SPECIAL INTEREST OR SINGLE ARTIST PUBLICATION USE; NO BOOK USE)) Taylor Swift performs during The Eras Tour at Gillette Stadium on May 20, 2023 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by TAS Rights Management/Getty Images)
She developed a post-show bath ritual—part hygiene, part neurocalming
The docuseries trailer gave fans a glimpse of Swift’s nightly wind-down: removing lashes, drawing a bath, and sliding into a zone that neuroscientists would call parasympathetic dominance.
Her tub lineup wasn’t random. Ouai’s St. Barts cleanser, Christophe Robin’s Delicate Volumizing Shampoo—these are sensory anchors. Her two-step skincare routine, using Dr. Barbara Sturm’s cleansing cream followed by Tata Harper’s Regenerating Cleanser, aligns with dermatologist advice for removing long-wear stage makeup.
But the deeper value is ritual. This nature of predictable sequences serves as signal to the brain: The work is over; it’s safe to rest now.
Swift’s bath wasn’t a luxury—it was a nightly neurological reset.
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