Dave Asprey's Blog, page 272

Biohack Your Life.

Join the entire Bulletproof team for three days to upgrade your mind and body using cutting edge biohacking tools normally available only to elite professionals. The first annual Bulletproof Conference: Biohack Your Life premieres January 17th through 19th in San Francisco.

The first two days are led by Jay Schroeder, world-class strength and neurological conditioning authority, and creator of new technology that stimulates rapid nervous system and cellular improvements. He will bring more than $100,000 in biohacking equipment which he and his team of professional trainers will use to help you upgrade the way your body moves, directly impactingyour nervous system and cognitive function. Elite level pro athletes pay more than $50,000 to train with Jay. The third and final day is focused on Bulletproof training and seminars with me and other experts in other biohacking fields such as biofeedback, neurofeedback, smart drugs and more, with hands-on demos for you to experience how technology can transform your ability to perform.

Experience the Bulletproof Vibe and many other early stage, unreleased biohacking technologies for mind and body enhancement. Plus you get to hang with some of the world’s top biohackers for three days!

Refuel with Bulletproof meals at the conference and share insider knowledge that’s not yet published on the website. Take home an amazing sample of Upgraded Products, get a high end limited edition Bulletproof conference shirt, and discounted access to biohacking technologies at the show.

This is a unique opportunity to do more self-upgrades, experience more biohacking technology, and gain more knowledge from biohacking experts in three days than has ever been assembled in one place. I will personally be on hand the entire time, and will be booking a limited number of discounted 30 minute individual Bulletproof Power Coaching Sessions each day, first come first served.

Register now:

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Biohacking Fitness Upgrade: Whole Body Vibration Training

Most of us aren’t looking for pro-athlete fitness, but we do want some level of good fitness in our lives.

As people busy with work, family, and play it is difficult to fit normal fitness regimens into a schedule unless you are willing to commit a lot of time and effort. Most people would rather save that time and effort for other things.

The biohack I share with you today is Whole Body Vibration Training (WBVT). WBV Training is a way to hack time, strength, and natural hormones to take your fitness regimen to the next level.

I often hear this story from my Silicon Valley friends seeking the benefits of exercise like stronger bones, more strength, and better physique… but in less time.

Even if you are living life to the fullest, eating MCT oil and grass-fed butter regularly, taking vitamin D, or even using a Zeo to hack your sleep, one facet of health you don’t always have time for is training. You know that your physique can be upgraded, but with your commitment to work and family, pushing your fitness to another level is a stretch.

The problem is, you want to lose (or gain) an extra five pounds in order to fit better in your clothes, but don’t know if it is worth it. You have at least two options.

One, start working out more and hope that the increased time working out helps get your body in the shape you want. This will take away from your work and leisure time, but it will also lead to muscle over-fatigue and may increase cortisol responses from excessive training. Or two, settle for what you are now and never change. You may not gain the perfect physique you want, but you will look amazing compared to most people since you’re following the Bulletproof Diet.

Fair enough. But if you had the opportunity to get the body you wanted, would you take it?

 

The Whole Body Vibration Training Plate

Rafeal Nadal, Queen Latifah, Serena Williams, Olympic Athlete Rebecca Romero, and the whole NFL Broncos team get the extra edge over their competition by using WBV Training.  If it works for them, it can help upgrade your physique.

Whole Body Vibration Training boosts your fitness, strength, tone, strength, flexibility, bone density, and range of motion all in a time-efficient manner. Like 15 minutes. That is what I call a fitness hack!

WBVT consists of standing on a platform that vibrates in a way designed to stimulate your hormonal, cardiovascular, lymphatic, and nervous systems simultaneously. You can use it to get the lymphatic and circulatory benefits of hours of walking, or you can perform some simple exercises, Body by Science style, to get actual exercise that grows muscle.

Nadal stated right after his French Open victory:

“This is part of the way I work out regularly. [WBV Training] I hope you could see that everything is possible and at the end, work is what makes you feel satisfaction.” (1)

Everything is definitely possible, and as biohackers we are constantly pushing the envelope on our possibilities. Whole Body Vibration Training helps you do this in a number of ways.

WBVT’s many benefits include decreased time of work out, increased strength compared to resistance training, positive hormonal effect, and much more. This very well may be the way we train in the future, and there is research to back it up.

 

Whole Body Vibration Training Benefits:

Decrease Your Work Out Time

WBV Training shows us that training does not need to be difficult and time consuming. WBV Training provides a dynamic workout in about 15 minutes. It does this by working up to 95% of the muscle fibers while you exercise. This near-total muscle experience translates into a high-intensity exercise.

High intensity exercise equals less time in the gym and better physical gains. I use my Bulletproof Vibe WBV Plate with weights about once a week for 15 minutes. With my extended travel, two kids, and work schedule, this is the right amount of weight training for me. But most other days, I find 10-15 minutes to stand on the platform to refresh my energy, stimulate circulation, and help my body excrete toxins by stimulating lymphatic drainage.

Increase Your Strength, Especially Explosive Strength

The way we conventionally workout uses the formula Force=Mass x Acceleration. Simply put, increasing either of these increases strength. For WBV Training, the mass is your body and the vibration is the acceleration.

Using your body and the vibration, the WBV Plate also uses Gravity as another form of acceleration to generate “G-forces.” It naturally incorporates more acceleration so you become stronger!

According to a study comparing WBV Training to conventional training, WBV produces higher strength levels within six weeks. It does so through its use of gravity – added acceleration in the “force” equation – and the reflexive muscle contraction it provokes. (7)

A scientific leader in this field, Dr. C Bosco, held many studies on WBV Training’s muscular benefits. He came to find out that WBV Training has a neural effect on muscle growth, meaning it constantly puts your muscles under load.

Athletes who used WBV increased their leg press by a significant amount of average velocity, force, and power. While this is what athletes are supposed to do, through repetition without increasing intensity or changing things up, the rate of muscle growth often plateaus. The neural effect of WBV is what made the difference in this study, and is what makes it ideal for maximizing your muscle potential.(20)

Along with enhancing muscle, Busco concluded that vibration enhanced the power capacity we have as humans, which means we may go beyond what our genetic power entails.(21) Both studies show big innovation toward strength, and are the reason why Olympians use these machines. For us, it also may help with weight loss.

Lose More Weight

If you want to cut any excess fat from your body, WBV Training is for you.

A weight loss study done in Europe showed a group using WBV Training lost 11% body weight during intervention phase and maintained 10.5% of that loss. Compared to a group that used Diet + Conventional Exercise, which lost 7%, WBV Training is an efficient way to lose weight, and shrink visceral fat. (2)

In the same study, visceral fat shrank by 48 cm2 in the WBV Training group compared to 18cm2 in the Diet + Conventional Exercise group. This weight loss was caused by the WBV’s metabolic alteration and hormone effect.

Increase Your Positive Hormones (and Vice Versa)

Your hormones should be healthy eating Bulletproof, and WBV Training will take your testosterone and growth hormone to another level. It does this while also decreasing cortisol, which is a big change from conventional training.

Bosco et al. proved that after 10 repetitions of WBV Training there is a tremendous effect on the hormonal system, by:

460% increase in Growth hormone 460%,

7% increase in testosterone

27% decrease in cortisol  (22)

A similar study states WBV stimulates GH secretion, reduces circulating cortisol, and reduces plasma glucose.(10)

Overall WBV Training does not represent a stressful stimulus for the neuroendocrine system, which is the opposite of most conventional training.(8) That’s why I am glad to do it (without weights) whenever I am home.

Notably, a famous study done in 1995 by Frank Perna and Sharon McDowell states that cortisol levels spike 20 hours after conventional training.(23) This stress can negatively affects the body’s recovery process. On the other hand, WBV Training decreases cortisol levels in the body during and after training.

Stress shortens your life, and we’re all better off hacking stress in order to reap the full benefits of WBV.

 

WBV Training Even Helps the Elderly…a lot!

Studies show that WBV Training improves strength more efficiently in the elderly.(5) Since the elderly have trouble using conventional machines, the WBV was used and many found an improved balance function.(3)

WBVT also improves quality of life, quality of walking, balance, and motor capacity in elderly.(4) It does this for the elderly, and for every age group.

For seniors with knee osteoarthritis, WBV Training reduced the proliferative response of TCD4+, which is a medical anagram for counting T-cell depleted bone marrow.(9)

 

Other WBV Training Benefits

Increased lymphatic drainage(6)
Increased bone mass and mineral density(14)
Increased flexibility and mobility(6)
Metabolic alterations in bone, stomach, bowel, prostate, kidney, and bladder.(14)
Enhances knee neuromuscular control(13)
Immediate improvement in blood circulation(15)
Pain reduction(6)
Improved proprioception and balance(4)
Multiple Sclerosis Deterrent(17)
Increased secretion of serotonin and norepinephrine(6)

Whole Body Vibration Training helps everyone. From Olympic Athletes reaching their peak to the biohacker seeking better blood flow and bone density to the elderly wanting to improve balance and motor capacity, WBV Training is valuable.

This revolutionary training technology is the upgrade you want in order to hack your fitness. The catch is, most WBV training units like the Power Plate are very expensive. There are a few mass-market ones with a history of weak welds or cheap (but unhealthy) side-to-side rocking motion. Through extensive research and expert help we have created the Bulletproof Vibe WBV Plate, which is used today in professional sports training and chiropractic clinics.

While many WBV units cost between $5,000 and $15,000, the Bulletproof Vibe WBV Plate is about 10% of that including shipping!

If you want stop reading about the benefits, and start feeling and seeing them, then check out a local gym, health club, or buy one now. WBV is pushing humanity’s fitness to new levels.

Before using a WBV Plate, contact your physician if you are pregnant, have foot, knee and hip implants, lumbar disc problems, or acute inflammations or infections. The funny thing is that WBV will most likely help you improve some of these things (not late stage pregnancy!)

If you are living the Bulletproof lifestyle, and need that extra push to reach your fitness goals, or just want more benefits in less time, then WBV Training is for you. Being able to cut your training down by hours in a week while substantially increasing strength and improving your hormonal levels is hard to deny. Get ready for the new innovative machine people are using across the globe to upgrade their fitness.

For information on who and how to use the WBV Plates go here:

Owning a WBV Plate
WBV Plate Youtube Channel
Celebrities Using WBV Training

How do you train right now? Do you think WBV training can take you to the next level? Leave a comment below and we will test the tide.

References on page 2

Upcoming Live Events, New Podcasts, Coffee Research, and free coaching sessions

Lots of fans asked to know where they can catch me speaking live. Here’s a list:

Humanity+ I’ll be speaking at this conference in San Francisco December 1st & 2nd.  The ‘Humanity+ Conference’ an unprecedented opportunity to engage with today’s leading experts on emerging technologies and trends that will change the way we live.  The conference will explore the important ethical and philosophical dimensions of upgrading humanity through technology – whilst sharing the very latest scientific and technological breakthroughs.  For details, visit http://2012.humanityplus.org/. My topic will be “The Augmented Author: Technologies to Upgrade People Who Write”

The Bulletproof Conference: Biohack Your Life:  Those of you who saw the announcement and signed up for the early notification list have already received your early-bird emails, if you haven’t, check your spam box.  General registration will open November 12, and will be announced on the blog and the mailing list. I expect an over-subscribed conference based on interest so far. This is the only conference like it anywhere where you get access to hands-on biohacking led by world-class people. To hell with learning about biohacking. This is about actually *doing* it.

PaleoFX  I’m pleased to have been invited to speak at the second annual PaleoFX Symposium in Austin, TX, March 28-30, 2013. I’m looking forward to meeting awesome speakers like Sarah Fragoso, Nora Gedgaudas, Kelly Starrett, Paul Jaminet and many, many more. Tickets are on sale now, and early buyers who reserve their ticket by Dec 1 will be automatically entered in a contest to win access to a VIP dinner with speakers, or to have the full cost of their PaleoFX ticket refunded.  For details, visit www.therealpaleofx.com.

Other Announcements:

I need your help! – A lot of people signed up for the Bulletproof Coffee cognition study, but too few completed the study consistently enough to be useful for the researchers. This means that there are still free bags of coffee available when you complete the study successfully, which is not that hard to do.  The researchers have requested that at least 30 more people complete the study so that we can have solid evidence about what Bulletproof Coffee does for your brain. To do it right, please make sure you do the two daily (very short) sessions at roughly the same time every day, and if you must miss a day, don’t miss more than two sessions. Read the background for the study and sign-up here. In addition to the free coffee already on offer, the first 40 people who complete the study have a chance to win prizes:  a $250 Bulletproof Gift Certificate, and an hour of executive coaching with me (value: $500). Your odds are good here.

If you signed-up after September 7th, you will receive an e-mail about this Sunday, November 11.

Podcasts- You probably noticed that there have not been any new podcasts, I’ve been working to find an audio engineer to significantly upgrade the quality of the audio on the podcasts, and new podcasts will resume in December. In the meantime, we hit the #1 iTunes ranking for the Fitness & Health category. Thank you.

Products- The next batch of Upgraded MCT Oil, our all-new, 100% pure pharmaceutical grade MCT oil, hits the shelves November 16th. Order now and get a 20% discount!

 

How to Biohack Your Courage Using the Wizard of Oz (and Heart Rate Variability)

Lots of us are in the habit of thinking of the body as a simplistic machine that can be separated into separate, independent parts. It’s a useful way of thinking about the body. Your brain does your thinking, your liver is a filter, your heart is a pump, and it works to understand the system of your body at a high level. The problem is that there are much more complex interactions between our hearts, brains, and bodies, and no system in the body is truly independent from the other systems. Figuring out how to work across these systems is the key to owning your courage.

We also tend to think of emotions and intelligence as two separate entities, which is not entirely true. Your emotions are way faster than your intelligence, but that speed comes at a cost – your emotions happen whether or not it’s intelligent or logical that they do, and they happen before you have a chance to think about them. They just show up, but because they happen first, they also influence your cognition.

Some aspiring biohackers make the mistake of focusing on just their brain function, or just on managing stress. The truth is that doing either one has secondary benefits on the other, and separating them out makes them easier to think about, but it’s inaccurate.

Let’s say you’ve upgraded your IQ and intelligence with the techniques here on the blog.  Let’s say you’ve also worked to manage your stress levels by practicing meditation and other relaxation techniques.

But have you connected these things?  You’ve got the heart the tin man wanted, the brain the straw man wanted, but do you have the courage the lion wanted?

If you’re like most people, the answer is no, but it’s not for lack of trying.

How to Hack the Courage of a Lion

To build courage, you face your fears. This doesn’t have to be a dramatic show of events.  If you’re afraid of heights, skydiving right away might be overkill.  The best place to start building courage is with little things.  Walk up to someone on the street and say hello while making eye contact.  Ask for her/his number.

The problem with this gradual process is that most of us don’t understand what fear really is, so we go about teaching ourselves to “not be afraid.” When you do this, your core assumption is that your fear is rational and will listen to your rational thoughts. Fear, being survival and brain-stem based, doesn’t listen to rational thoughts because rational thoughts are too slow.

Think about it. If it was your sole job in life to spot a tiger about to pounce, you wouldn’t spend a lot of time listening to a slow-talking voice yammering about things like logic that aren’t dangerous. That’s why your fear-brain will gladly ignore you as you convince yourself that you’re not afraid of something because your rational brain thinks there’s no reason to be.

So now you’re screwed. You’ve taught yourself that you’re not afraid because there’s no reason you should be, you’ve disconnected your rational brain from your biology-driven fear response, the same one we share with all creatures that have a spinal cord. Your fear response is there for a reason – to keep your body from getting eaten, burned, or starving to death, and it will be there as long as you are alive.

The trick to hacking your courage is to know how to deal with that single fact.

By teaching yourself to ignore your fear when there’s no reason to be afraid, what you achieve is not courage. It’s ignorance. But it’s useful ignorance – it lets you temporarily overpower your fear response using sheer will. Since you learned to ignore the feeling of fear, you won’t even feel it when you’re using sheer will to overcome that feeling and act anyway.

Using sheer will to overcome irrational fear is a biologically expensive act, and all that wasted energy keeps you from being Bulletproof. When you run out of energy to power your sheer will holding the invisible fear at bay, the fear response from your reptile brain will absolutely interfere with your comprehension, with your focus, and with the way you treat other people. In other words, you’ll act like an asshole. Totally not Bulletproof.

In order to conquer your fears and build the courage of a lion, you will face your fear. Not the things that you’re afraid of, but the source of the fear itself: your sympathetic nervous system.

Learning to deal with that part of your nervous system that creates fear used to take years of meditation. Now things are different – we have heart rate variability training.

How Heart Rate Variability Training Gives You the Courage of A Lion

When most people face one of their irrational fears, they go into an automatic stress response.  Their heart rate quickens, they sweat a little which changes galvanic skin response, they get a lump in their throat as salivary glands shut down, and their heart rate variability (the rhythmic change in the space between each heart beat) decreases. Most people don’t notice any of this at a conscious level; it’s automatic and effortless. And it makes you weak.

Combat veterans know this well and account for it, as elegantly described in On Combat, The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace, a book every aspiring biohacker should read. (That is an affiliate link; if you buy the book, Amazon may pay about 8 cents to support the blog; doesn’t go into my pocket…)

The strongest indicator that your fear-brain is getting in the way of your logical brain is your heart rate variability, or HRV. It turns out that when your brain stem is preparing your body to run away or fight (even without your conscious permission), the first thing it does is to change the rhythm of your heart beat so that your heart beat is very steady. When you’re unstressed, the space between each heart beat naturally varies quite a lot.

HRV training teaches you to control this stress response by using technology to tell you when your heart rate is highly variable, then teaching you to use your consciousness to control your animalistic fear response. There are two main ways this works. The first is by teaching you to recognize when your reptilian-derived brain stem is firing your sympathetic nervous system, priming your body to fight.

This directly gives you courage. Now, you can feel a fear when it happens, so you can acknowledge it and overcome it. It’s far less cowardly than simply pretending the fear doesn’t exist because there is no reason for it to exist. It also allows you to avoid feeling weak or unworthy when your reptile brain does something like make you lose control of your bowels in a fight, which happens to soldiers all the time.

The second way HRV gives you courage is that it teaches you to consciously turn off your sympathetic nervous system response to stress, the one you call fear. That’s amazing. First HRV teaches you how to know your reptilian brain is making you experience fear, then it teaches you how to make it stop. Then you can act with real courage, acknowledging and owning your fear rather than acting with a veneer of courage smeared on top of repressed fear.

How to upgrade your courage in 6 weeks

This list comes from my experience as a performance coach for senior executives, including ones with paralyzing fear of public speaking.

[image error] Get an emWave2. If you like this post, please consider buying one from my small store here.


Agree that you will practice Heart Math training using the device every day for at least 10 minutes once or twice a day, for 6 weeks straight. 6 weeks matters. Just do it.


Spend as much of that time in the “green” zone as possible.  Track your progress with the software that comes with the emWave.  Pay attention to how you feel and what you are thinking about when you are in the Bulletproof state of high coherence (the “green” zone on the emWave2).


Do this every day without missing for 6 weeks, which will allow time for your brain plasticity to come into play and teach you a new skill – how to turn off your sympathetic nervous system.

When you are faced with one of your fears, do whatever makes the light on your emWave2 turn green, even if you’re not connected to it at the time.  You’ll notice that you don’t have the same degree of fear, and you don’t feel as drained after facing it.  Once this has occurred, you’ll know that you’ve biohacked your brain, heart, and courage, at least some.

Your brain and heart are closely connected.  Hacking both is important, but to truly upgrade your self, you need to connect them.  The simplest way to do this is with a Heart Math emWave2.

In 2010, I became a certified HeartMath executive coach, and I’m on the advisory board for the company that makes it because I believe this is one of the most important technologies available for all biohackers.  It hacks the entire world of Oz – your heart, brain, and courage.  It allows you to face your fears, and manage the stress that stops most people from doing so.  It makes you more psychologically resilient, and that’s totally Bulletproof.

Have you used the emWave2? I’d love to see some comments here….

Transcript of the Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan’s show is called The Joe Rogan Experience for good reason. Joe’s fans called this one of his most awesome two hour interviews on twitter, and even the most hardcore Bulletproof fans found new information. Joe actually tried out my CES (cerebral electric stimulation) brain hacking machine, we talked coffee, brains, nutrition, neurofeedback, float tanks, smart drugs, radiation, and a lot more.

People talked about listening to the show 2-3 times just to take notes, so we asked for a volunteer to make a transcript.  We had an amazing volunteer, Zack “Deep Theory” Sadeq, transcribe the show in exchange for a bag of  Upgraded Whey and a whole lot of good will.

Sign-up with your e-mail for the complete transcript
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Excerpts:

JR: So for folks who don’t have the patience to go and listen to this podcast again there’s a [*!@&]load of information on this site. As well as, not just the Upgraded MCT oil, you’ve got Upgrade Coffee, everything’s Upgraded. Upgraded Chef.

DA: Yep. And here’s what it means when it’s upgraded; I’m looking at the whole process of making something and how you make that process as good as it can be. My background, I really am a computer hacker. I’ve studied computer science, I work in computer security. I’m not an actively a hacker, I’m an executive but I understand the mindset of changing a system to get the outcome that you want. It turns out to make the coffee, the problem is actually how the beans get turn into green coffee. That’s where most of the problems happen. So I went through and I learned all about this stuff through multiple disciplines, pulled it all together and said, “What if I created this new process for making the coffee that didn’t have the toxins in it? And you look at that. We’re about done with the study where we’re getting advice from Stanford University on the cognitive function of this coffee. So we’re comparing normal coffee versus this upgraded coffee to show what it does to your response time and your attention. We don’t have enough results to be statistically significant yet we’re still recruiting people. The results I have say ,” Yeah, it works.” So this is real stuff and every step of the way when you create a food, it tells you how that food is going to make you perform. And what I’m trying to do is help people understand if for one day they could have the best day ever, where there energy and there focus and everything is super clear and they feel like a great golden god… if you do that one time you know you’re capable of it and you can start working towards that. Most people I know have felt like crap without knowing it most of their life. They’ve never had a wonderful day. Once you have that day, you can learn how to kick more ass repeatedly. So its like, get all the crap out of your diet, just do it right for a week. Then just see what can happen. Look at the comments on my blog. People, they do this and it takes like six weeks. It’s not that hard to do. All of the sudden, you have twice the energy you have before. That’s what I’m looking to do for people.

…

JR: Jiu-Jitsu guys are always [taking fish oil]. A lot of guys who are doing cross fit as well need heavy doses of fish oil.

DA: Yeah it’s an anti-inflammatory. It’s good stuff. But I tell you if you use krill it’s going to work a lot better.

JR: Krill?

DA: Krill has the same EP and DHA but it’s phosphorylated. It’s bound to phospholipids which means your brain can use it directly. Fish oil has to be phosphorylated, meaning you need to get extra phosphoserine or choline to do that.

JR: So you have to take choline supplements if you take fish oil to get the optimum effect?

DA: Or maybe just eat eggs.

JR: Eggs have choline?

DA: Yeah, here’s the thing. Some of the super strong choline supplements, there’s no question they have a really beneficial effect in most people. In some people, too much choline has a reverse effect. It’s probably maybe a third of people. So this is one of those things where if you get it in your food you’re good, and if the choline supplements make you feel really good, which they do for a vast majority of the people. I’m a fan of choline supplements in general, I recommend them on the blog. You’ve got that ingredient in Alpha Brain. By the way, that’s just a killer list of nootropic ingredients. I fully approve that. That’s a Bulletproof level supplement for sure.

JR: Awesome. Thank you.

DA: The thing is though if you’re one of those choline sensitive people you might not want a ton of choline. You want to limit yourself to a certain amount.

JR: Yeah we’ve had issues with that. With people getting really sensitive. Some people get headaches.

DA: Some people get jaw tension, some people get headaches. Yeah and those are the people who are choline dominant. But here’s the kicker; you get those people to take aniracetam like I have on my site. Aniracetam uses up extra choline. So that’s an interesting way of using a smart drug. This is actually a drug, not a natural substance. But it’s one that will bring your choline levels down, which means you can benefit from the other stuff that’s in AlphaBrain. But you also get this boost from the other type of nootropic.

JR: How many different things do you take a day?

DA: I take probably on an average day about 40 pills.

[Laughter]

JR: See, I told you I’m not crazy.

DA: No, here’s the crazy number. When I was really getting my health all the way where I wanted it, before I was where I am, I did one-hundred and eighty-seven pills a day for several months.

JR: Now what about the actual capsule itself, what are those made out of? Gelatin? Is that no big deal for your body to process?

DA: You actually need gelatin. Our diets are gelatin deficient right now.

…

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What have you applied from the show that you’ve seen results from?  What was your favorite part of the show?

From Early Bird to Night Owl

Do you know what type of bird you are?

Most people don’t. They work the typical 9 to 5 without considering when they are most productive.

As biohackers, that is not okay. We want to work smart and play hard with maximum results.

A biohacker’s goal is to pinpoint times when creativity flows and focus is dead on.

The catch is–everyone is different. Being a night owl or an early bird depends on personal preference… at least somewhat.

This is makes sense, right? If you prefer working at a certain time of the day, then work at that time! After all, studies may say one thing, but the defining factor is how you feel and when you produce.

However…your optimal productive time is often associated with your genetics.

According to Lamberus Klei of Carnegie Mellon and Patrick Rietz of the University of Pittsburgh, your sleep preferences are genetic.(1) In 2008, studies at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry demonstrated sleep-time preferences are often inherited, and subsequent data indicates that 50% of sleep-time choices are dictated by genetic factors.(3)

However, other studies contradict these results. Many scientists interpret productivity, mood, and alertness in early birds and night owls in different ways. This post is to help you figure out which time is most productive for you.

If you’re like most productive people, you’ll want to upgrade how you work so you have time for other important things in life! Here are the studies:

The Early Bird

Scientists from the University of Bologna infer that early birds are more conscientious people.
A 2008 study by psychologist Marina Giamnietro et al. indicates evening-people tend to be less reliable, less emotionally stable and more apt to suffer from depression, addictions and eating disorders.(1)  (From a personal perspective, “doh!”)
The American Psychologist Association agrees that ‘morningness’ is associated with greater positive emotions in all age groups.(6) Measuring happiness is subjective, but it does show ‘morningness’  is associated with positive emotions.
Published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Christopher Randler, a professor at the University of Education in Heidelberg, Germany reported that early birds are more proactive than evening people, and so they do well in business. “They tend to get better grades in school, which gets them into better colleges which then leads to better job opportunities. Morning people also anticipate problems and try to minimize them. They’re proactive,” he says.(6)

The studies that say evening types are less reliable and stable, but that could be the result of night owls trying to fit the early bird way of life!

Let’s see what the night owls have to say about that.

The Night Owl

Research by Satoshi Kanazawa et al. at the London School of Economics discovered significant differences in sleep preferences, and found that people with higher IQs are more likely to be night owls. They found an evolutionary shift from being active in the day towards nightly pursuits and that those individuals who preferred to stay up late demonstrated “a higher level of cognitive complexity.”(2)
Researchers from Belgium and Switzerland studying sleep habits found that early risers needed more rest than their nocturnal counterparts and didn’t focus as well later in the day as those who slept in.(2)
Functional MRI studies were used to judge homeostatic sleep pressure- the body’s need for sleep- in night owls and early birds. The morning birds woke up between 4 and 5:30 a.m and went to bed by 9 p.m. The night owls went to bed at 3 or 4 a.m. and rose at noon.

In the night owls, increased activity was seen in two parts of the brain at 10.5 hours that are involved in regulating the circadian signal. Essentially, the circadian signal was winning out over the pressure to sleep.


For the early birds, on the other hand, “the sleep pressure prevents the expression of the circadian signal,” so those individuals were less able to keep their attention focused, says study coauthor Philippe Peigneux. The study is the first to show that circadian rhythms and sleep pressure interact to govern behavior.(4)


The early birds also felt sleepier and didn’t react as quickly during tasks. Researchers say early birds could be more sensitive to sleep pressure than night owls. (5)

Which Bird Are You?

While choosing your time of productivity, it is important to remember that your sleep also plays a big role. If you lack GOOD sleep, then you will not perform ideally.

Since I have made almost every possible mistake when it comes to hacking sleep, I’ve documented the most effective methods for sleeping better in less time. Here they are.

As a bird, I am a night owl. I prefer getting work done at night.

In combination with the Bulletproof Diet, and being a night owl, I definitely feel less sleep pressure than my early bird friends. It helps that I’ve also got several biohacking toys that let me get the most out of my sleep when I really need it. Knowing my ideal times for focus allows me to prioritize work and play, go until the wee hours of the morning and still feel refreshed when I wake up in the morning.

That said, I spent a year rising at 5am to do an hour of meditation every morning, and I found it worked for me too. I was rested and productive, but I went to bed earlier (between 11 and 1:00am). An hour of meditation can replace two hours of sleep, and you can function as a morning person even if it’s not your natural state.

There is an awesome article at FastCompany.com that gives you insight on how top executives get their work done at night too. It shows you how they have narrow focus, avoid clutter, boost creativity, and think big as the midnight oil burns. It may also help that the early birds are all asleep!

For you biohackers, choose what works best for you. Look at your family history, your work setting, your home setting, and how you feel at these times. And experiment! Hack your body so you can optimize your work at the time you want.

Using Bulletproof Coffee at times when you are not used to working will allow you to experiment with your BEST productivity time. The studies show there are benefits to both sides, and it is your job as a biohacker to see what suits you best.

How have you figured out what kind of bird you are? Got any tips for working with birds of the opposite feather? If you have any questions, share them in the comments below.

 

References on next page.