How to Fix Your Brain When It’s Tired, Wired and Slow – Matt Gallant & Mr. Noots : 961

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Formerly Bulletproof Radio, A state of high performance. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Today we're going to talk about something, it's kind of interesting, you know, improving your brain, increasing something called bdnf, which is brain derived nootropic factor and neurogenesis and nootropics. And we'll talk a little bit about how collagen is tied in with all of that with a couple guests who've been on the show before. One of the guests actually has been on lots of times. Talk about magnesium enzymes, blood sugar, psycho and probiotics and nootropics. I'm talking about none other than Matt Gallant, who's a co founder of Bioptimizers and their new Nootopia line of nootropics. And he's an expert in many of these systems. We've had lots of good conversations, including in person up here. So if you're a longtime listener, you know that Matt has a lot to say and has been on the show a lot, in part because he and I have a bdnf. I'm going to call it a fetish because I've been looking at pretty much two things for all of my biohacks have been mitochondrial enhancement and BDNF enhancement. And when I say all of my biohacks going back to the late 90s was when I started going, wait, what's going on with this? How do I make these two things work so you have more power and more neuroplasticity. You can do all sorts of stuff that you otherwise couldn't really, really do. And our other guest today is Mr. Newts, who is Matt's partner in making custom nootropics and the chief product officer for Nootopia. And Mr. Newts is his code name because he doesn't want his regular name out. Although I think on the last show we disclosed your regular name, we unmasked you and all that, but you still go Mr. Newts.

Yeah, you outed me, Dave. You outed me.

Yeah, I'm. I did that to Batman too. So he's very angry with me. All right, so let's talk about stuff we haven't talked about before. Right now I want to get in first on neurodegenerative disease. And the reason for that is, is that I looked at so much evidence for neurodegeneration when I wrote my big book on the brain called Headstrong. So when you look at Parkinson's, a little bit of Ms. You look at Alzheimer's, you learn all these things about what can go wrong. And it turns out those are things like aging, even if you aren't getting one of those things. And since then, I think Covid itself when people get it, or maybe some other things that people got related to that are not helping people's brain health. I know that the damage to our society, to our children's psyche, has been major, even just from not seeing smiles, that actually has noticeable effects on BDNF and things like that. So I feel like overall our mental wellness and our brain aging is worse now than it was before. So I wanted to go in and revisit that stuff. And first, Matt, you kind of had a brain trashing experience like I did. So tell me what you've done over the last 10 years. What happened to your brain and what did you do to get it where it is now?

Yeah, so I was born with the wiring of an alcoholic on both sides of my family. I had some grandfathers alcoholic and some other close family. And I was able to kind of manage drinking. But it got progressively worse, as most addictions do. And at 28, I completely went off the rails for five years and was pretty much intoxicated every day, usually from morning to night. And then by the grace of God, got sober at 32. The problem was my brain was damaged. And then by the grace of God, got sober at 32. The problem was my brain was damaged. It was, you know, obviously when you push your brain and your bio, your body that hard and those kind of ways, there's some consequences. My memory was quite damaged. My short term memory was shot. My ability to focus for at least a couple years was practically non existent. I started doing research on different things you could do to repair the brain because I wanted to be productive. And the one thing I found that was my first breakthrough was lion's mane. We'll talk more about bdnf, but Lion's mane is one of the most powerful ways to improve BDNF. Within 30 days, my memory transformed my ability to focus, start coming back. And that started my journey on brain optimization. I was so blown away by the results. Then I started adding good fats. Then I discovered photobiomodulation. Then I discovered 40 years of Zen. Then it was nootropics. And all of these things helped. But I've experimented a lot with lion's mane on and off, and it's been one of the most powerful things. Can I hit you? With a shocking stat. And hit everybody in the audience with a shocking stat.

Absolutely. I thought you were going to talk about electromuscular stimulation for a minute there, but just a regular shocking stat. I got you.

100 milliseconds decline in brain speed is all it takes to have dementia. And I read that from the edge effect from Dr. Braverman. It's a great book. It's a great book on neurochemistry. It's a great book on understanding the brain. And the problem is most brains decline in speed 7 to 10 milliseconds per decade. And that's not considering some of the things you just mentioned. I think with some of the consequences and damage that's been done in the last few years, it's probably a lot more than that. And my grandmother had dementia the last few years of her life. And you know, so I'm sober, I'm seeing my grandmother have dementia. It freaked me out. And that's really what led me to finding lion's mane and experiencing the powers of neurogenesis. But I'd love to queue up Mr. Noos to talk about the benefits and the power of bdnf.

So cognitive latency and cognitive decline have a real strict parallel. So when that latency is happening, you know that the next phase of that is loss of memory, loss of recall, loss of ability to actually do quick transactions. And that turns into a lot of bad decision making. And good decision making comes from a speedy brain that can create new neural pathways and that can resolve cognitive information in more meaningful ways for outcomes. So BDNF brain derived neutrophic factor is this core piece that is the catalyst for neurogenesis. Neurogenesis are blooms of new neurons that allow you to then create new neural pathways as well as to attack old memories, old cognitive support systems, and the process of being able to go from being not necessarily cognitively aligned to being able to create brand new process. Molecular transformation or molecules of transformation is what we, we kind of call how lion's mane works with the brain. Yeah, so that's kind of the piece there. And it's really important when people start realizing, in fact, a real key point of this is when you start creating new brain cells. And a lot of us have been under the illusion that at, you know, at 14 years old or at 22 years old or at 24 years old, we suddenly plateau and neuroplasticity goes out the window. And, and all three of us have proven that that is absolutely not the reality. So it's really important to Realize that as you're creating new neuroplastic elements, right, with this being BDNF and this cognitive enhancement type stuff through neurogenesis that it's really important for us to then take advantage of that program. Those neurons, program state changes, program.

How much of that brain speed that we talked about is actually driven by bdnf? I don't know. I thought that was more of like a mitochondrial thing and electrical resistance. But do you have data that says increasing BDNF increases or decreases the after effect of bdnf?

So just like in taking nootropic stacks, Right. Is that when the, when the enzymatic process is separating those cognitive elements into the different neurotransmitters, Right. There's a cognitive slump delay. And then once they get caught up, then they're faster, right? Then you're firing. But it's during that processing time you're going to slow down slightly. The interesting thing of with this is that this is raising your baseline OS so that you're actually operating at a higher baseline than anything else you put on top of it. Say danger coffee is going to be more effective. You're going to get a higher fast response rate and you're going to be in a programming mode. Now you've done. Dave, you're really familiar with garbage collection and software programming.

I am familiar with both traditional garbage collection and software programming.

So when you throw a piece of code into RAM so that it can be utilized by the machine, right. If you forget to take it out again after the process is done, that little detritus, that garbage that sticks in there over time will fill up RAM and suddenly your machine will hang. You're going to have to reboot and do that. And that's when you talk about mitochondrial repair and some of those things. One of the benefits of BDNF is part of the process is also clearing out dead, old ineffective neurotransmitters. So when those neurons neurotransmitters are then rejuvenated, now you've got much more product to work with, much more brain power to work with. So it's clearing up RAM and it's creating more RAM at the same time.

I want to talk about myelin sheet because it relates to this. You know, I think the most important system in the body for basically our experience of life is our nervous system. And you know, people separate nervous system from brain, but there's no separation. It's all one system. And our brain sends signals through our nervous system. And again, the Nerves have this myelin sheet which covers it and lion's mane fats. And Dave, thank you for being a proponent of saturated fats because those as well help rebuild and maintain a good myelin sheet. And I remember, Dave, I asked you a few years ago if you remember this. We were on a private four years of Zen call and I told you I couldn't drink coffee anymore, I believe because I was drink a cup and I'd get fried. And that feeling of friedness, in my opinion, was that my myelin sheet was worn out somewhere somehow. And then when I started rebuilding it, now I'm drinking danger coffee and I've got no problems. Right, Quick, quick anecdote. I've done 40 years of den six times. And by the way, for those of you listening, put that on your bucket list and your to do list. It's been absolutely one of the most trans, if not the most transformational thing I've done for improving my life. So having done six trainings, what we would do each training is we'd figure out, okay, how can we make this training better? And one of them was increasing just the amount of time and intensity, as you know, Dave. And when we added Lion's mane like 10 grams a day, that took our training result from day to day to absolutely the next dimension, like the brain could recover because BDNF is almost like a steroid for the brain. Now if you give a human being steroids and they don't go train weights, they don't go lift weights, they'll actually still gain some lean body mass on a DEXA scan or body fat scan. But obviously somebody who's going to push the brain, whether it's through learning or doing something like neurofeedback, they're going to be able to transform their ability to get rid of bad habits, old ways of thinking, negative ways of thinking, and installing new powerful ways of thinking, which is what you also do at Zen. So BDNF was a game changer and specifically doing up with 10 grams of lion mane. But here's the great news. We've blown that away. I'm going to talk about that. We found a way to hyper concentrate lion's mane. Well, Mr. Newts has, through his brilliant extraction formula processes. And we've blown away what I've ever experienced using 10 grams of normal lines mane. So excited.

Yeah, I want to, I want to talk more about that because you guys have been sending me for the past few months these different beta tests in this attractive container with a very professional Label called collagenius. And I'm, I know there's collagen in there, but it's got a whole bunch of different interesting things in there. So we're going to, we're going to talk about that. But you know, your focus on dosage is really interesting.

So.

And there you go. That's. I guess Mr. Newts is holding up the new one. All right. New and improved. There you go. I like it. This is what happens when experts in nootropics try to be marketing guys. I don't know.

Well, you can call a genius, right? And ways to look at it. Just a quick note on the dose and David, I'm glad you bring that up. There's a truth when it comes to any molecule, whether it's toxins or positive ones, which is the dose creates the effect. If you drink one glass of wine, it's very different than six and 12. And again, it's a form as a recovered alcoholic. I know that. And then it's also true with supplements and positive molecules. Now, certain things, you have to be very mindful of the dose because again, optimal dose is the key with anything. However, there are certain molecules out there and like enzymes, another good example where the effects are dose dependent. And when you increase the concentration, the amount, the potency of that key molecule, you just get better results. And that's what Mr. Newts did. So really excited.

Okay, that's, that's interesting. So what you have now is a drink mix which is collagen based, but it's got, you know, C8MCTS cocoa butter instead of cow butter, which makes it more acceptable for people who don't. Do you have dairy allergies? And there are a good number of people like that. You've got two different kinds of collagen in here. You've got marine collagen and bovine. But then you've got a selection of mushrooms along with some cacao from. Why cacao from two different places? I thought that was a little bit obsessive. You've got Dominican and Peruvian. Why cacao from two different places? I thought that was a little bit obsessive. You've got Dominican and Peruvian.

I'm a cacao fanatic. I live in Panama. I've traveled through most of Central and South America and I love trying cacaos. And when we were formulating another product called Protein Breakthrough, I tried cacao from pretty much every country that grows cacao. Cacao. And I just fell in love with these two different farms. One's in Peru, one's in Dominican. And they're different. You know, cacaos are like coffee, they're like wines. They have notes. And I love the combination of the notes between the more earthy Dominican style and the more fruity Peruvian. And to me, the combination is beautiful.

So were you actually doing lines of cacao in those countries?

You know, I have not. I can honestly say, out of all the drugs I've done, there's not too many. I haven't. I've never snored a cacao.

So there is. For listeners, there is a ceremony, cacao ceremony, where a medicine person will blow cacao dust into your nose. And I did it once at Burning man, and, dude, just not a good idea. I'm sorry. You could just eat a couple extra bars of it or whatever, but I don't know. That was not my favorite experience, but I did cry. Not from the psychotropic effects, but just because my sinuses hurt. So there you go. That was my experience. Maybe there's people who love it, but I do recommend a medicinal cacao ceremony with all of the sacredness that comes with it as a true plant medicine. But you can drink it in hot water and stone ground. That just seems a little bit less. I'm not doing cacao enemas. I'm not doing cacao in my nose again. And I haven't tried anymore, so I'm not going to. But I'm just saying, like, there are times when you just don't need to do that.

So, yeah, yeah, that's good.

I want to queue Mark up. And again, for those of you that are listening that didn't listen to our first podcast, Mark is the most brilliant nootropic stack designer that I've met, and he's been doing extractions and chemistry since C7, and that's over 50 years now. Mark, talk about what you've done with the mushrooms, because I think that's. That's the breakthrough here.

So that was my first chemistry set in 1967. So the goal is how do you take the valuable, important key molecules from the mushrooms and get them into a density that's high enough that the effect is experiential? And when I. When I say that, what I'm saying is that you don't just want to have the benefit like a lot of these typical nutritional supplements. Well, I. I know that if I take this, I know if I take CoQ10, I'm eventually going to have a benefit. I might have a benefit. Right? Or if you do, pqq right from the wrong, you know, the wrong vendor, you are supposed to get an effect and you get nothing or worse.

Ah, you read that part of my book about pqq, right?

Darn right, man. So it was really important. So as we were going through this process of going from one to one, really, really high quality, we went through over 100 vendors of mushrooms. So because mushrooms are adulterated all over the world, a lot of mushrooms aren't mushrooms. They're the mycelium, and they're just basically sawdust with mycelium. And so we wanted to try to really get to a point where we were working with really, really clean source material. And then our extraction process was going to capitalize on that and just make it better, just increase the density of what you were getting, these molecules. So we really invested ourselves in that process. And, you know, we talked about how we found chocolate notes. But one of the most important things is we found that there is these interesting submolecules that make up the main components that are the parent molecules of the neurogenesis process. And we found that as we get closer and closer through the extraction process, two things happened. One is we got cleaner and cleaner mushrooms. So we started with really clean mushrooms, right? No discernible mold. COA is clean. And the coas that we do. Right, third party test and COA for.

People listening is a test basically that you're running to figure out what you're actually getting so you can order something. But then when you see the coa, like, oh, look at all the other things that rode in on it. So this is a measure of how clean it is. And some vendors are willing to show you their coa, some aren't, usually because there's a proprietary ingredient.

And that's exactly right. So what we did is we started doing extraction. The first one was to macerate the actual fruiting bodies of the mushroom, soak them in a warm water bath and apply 44 kilohertz. And what we found is that we could start releasing. There's a thing called chitin that wraps around the cells of the mushroom and it keeps the active ingredients from becoming available. That's why raw mushrooms are outside of the protein benefit and some other maybe side things. They're really not a medicinal product, raw mushrooms. So once you get it to 160 degrees or so, things start to change. The chitin breaks loose, and then you start throwing a sonic extraction process on top of that. And the chitin not only breaks loose, but the actual fruiting bodies start releasing these really powerful nutrients and chemicals. That are the molecules of change of radical expression. So that's what makes them available. And then you run that through a process, make sure you get all of those isolated nutrients out of there. Then you go on a second round and take that macerated body and you go run it through a 70% alcohol. And then you cover that alcohol with nitrogen so you don't get any oxidation. You're not losing alcohol into the, you're not losing key molecules as well. And then you run that through a microporous membrane. And now you've got extremely intense, extremely powerful isolated molecules that combine and do all of these cool neurological enhancements as well as physiological. So that's what we did.

So it's basically ultrasound is the secret to the way you're processing these.

All right, Ultrasound. The heated. Obviously everybody uses heated water. They have to, right? You can't break down the chitin without it. But the ultrasound brings another level of extraction process. And the ultrasound is used on both the water based, the heated water based extraction and on the alcohol extraction. And then the nitrogen of course, keeps the alcohol from both evaporating as well as keeps any oxygen from getting in because it would have a tendency to then oxidate.

You know, now that Mark's, you know, opening the bag, might as well open it a little wider. If you change the frequency, you get different molecules that come out. So that's a big part of it. It's finding which frequency will get the right molecules to come out. Essentially it's, it's really, that's the magic.

And we've been doing that for years. In with Solastras paniculatus, we run anywhere from a 20kHz to 120kHz. And you'll see these molecular release points as the cell vibrates at a certain frequency and suddenly says, ah, I got to give up this molecule. I got to give up this molecule. Yeah.

Just a note on bioptimizers and I think Dave, when we did me the last show before I brought this up, but we've evolved so much. So 3 years ago bioptimizer did a partnership with the International Birch University in Sarajevo in Bosnia. Now we have 15 people working full time, including two chemists, we have molecular docking experts, we've invested in a half million dollar HPLC machine. We've done over 400 enzyme experiments, 400 probiotic experiments. Now we're experimenting on fats. And Dave, I think you're going to love some of the things we're discovering which we'll release, hopefully by year end. But you were using science to get out of the realm of theories and opinions and really create the best in class products and to create the best in class products. And you know, I got some data on Tuesday, just to use an example, we were testing lipases and there was a 300% difference in the potency of the worst enzyme versus the best. Now these are all like you go online or you find manufacturers of these lipases and they'll send you the lipases. We tested about 4, 14 of them. And again, by using science we're able to really find the best raw ingredients and then we take them to the next level by maximizing the extraction. But wait, there's more. We then create and do experiments to maximize the synergies. We're applying for two patents, not for this product but for the enzymes because we're finding, and Dave, you're going to love this, this is huge. We're finding non dose dependent cofactors that multiply the results of things. And you're a huge fan of stacking and so am I. We've talked about that on previous shows and now we have hard evidence that we're about to patent on certain molecules that multiply the effectiveness of certain other molecules. And I'm opening the bag here because this is the strategies that we're using to formulate all of our products. And you know, I'm not worried because a, the ability to create the kind of lab we have in Cerebro is extremely difficult and we just have the right people there. And ammonia has been amazing. So anyways, all that to say that we ended up with a 50 to 1 extract of Lion's mane. And like I said before, I've gone to 10 grams a day and the dose that we're using in collagenius is essentially like 200 grams of, of lion's mane. That's the translation. So the results are. You're just powered up. And we'll talk about some of the other mushrooms because it's not just lion's mane. We did that for three other mushrooms and Mark took them to 100 to 1. So Mark, maybe talk about some of the other amazing mushrooms that are inside Collagenius.

Awesome. You ready? So in addition to lion's mane, we also did 100 to one chaga extract which is really great. It's an anti inflammatory and immune booster. It's, it really is an incredible. And actually chaga is interesting in that it is not your traditional mushroom. It actually is a canker that grows on the bark of a tree.

Wow, that's great marketing. You got a canker extract and call of genius, man.

Boom. More.

Where do I get more mask going? God damn it. Right? Keep on going, Mr. Newts. But it is interesting because it's the only fungus that does that, which is why around the world it's used medicinally because it has unique powers.

It really does. It really does. And then 100 to one reishi, red reishi, which is the ultimate anti stress herb. And then 100 to 1 cordyceps. And these are cordyceps that are actually grown versus cordyceps that are finding anthill and use that as their source. And they're really powerful, used to alleviate or basically to increase athletic performance and maximize brain health at the same time. So they're really good for oxygen transport within the cell in the red blood cell. So really healthy in there. And again, as we got into these hyper concentrations, the cocoa and chocolate notes started coming out more and more. And Chastity, my lab assistant, put that together and said, this would be so great as a co factor in collagen. So, so where I'm 60 years old now, she's 50, and she's going, I need more collagen in my system. We all love the benefits of collagen. We thought, wouldn't it be great if you could take the benefits? Especially some of the. You know, you talk about your danger coffee, Dave. Danger coffee is right. You talk about remineralization and some of the micronutrients in mushrooms. You only get through mushrooms or are very difficult to get outside of. Mushrooms that are not bioavailable in pill form, that are super bioavailable as the molecule inside the mushroom. Those are an incredible co factor in collagen.

Something else to just call out. There's a company that's well known for putting mushrooms in coffee and it doesn't taste good. Mushrooms generally ruin the taste of coffee. And as you guys talked about, there's a lot of different stuff in mushrooms and a lot of people are just kind of selling sawdust, mushrooms, hyphae, and in fact, I have a podcast seven, eight years ago, going back with a company talking about just the problem that a lot of mushrooms don't work because you're not getting that. So I've been opposed to putting mushrooms in my coffee because it tastes like crap. In fact, we used to put mushrooms in coffee the first year when it was still called the bulletproof coffee shop in Santa Monica. Now it's the upgrade Cafe. But collagenous in coffee. Tastes good. You guys know I like collagen in coffee. I invented that, as far as I can tell. But because it's extracts the way it is, it actually just makes it taste like a. Like a mocha or something. It's something you would want to do, not something you're doing and holding your nose. Right. And that's an important distinction. So I don't know if it's the addition of the cacao or just the way you're extracting, but it's something you want to drink and it's. It's a noticeable effect. It's pretty cool. And I think that's because you were telling me earlier it's like more than a pound of mushrooms have gone into making those extracts.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Well, there's.

There's quite a few. Quite a few pounds that go into the extracts. But actually the equivalent for every dose, which is about 17 and a third grams per dose, equals 1.2 to 1.5 pounds of mushrooms. Pounds of mushrooms.

Oh, that's. That's not per container. That's per drink, per. Okay.

Yeah.

So it would be relatively difficult to eat a pound and a half of mushrooms and then drink some coffee. And so this is a way of getting more in. And if this sounds a little bit radical, a while ago, you know, I talked about polyphenol supplements and same thing. If you ate enough vegetables to get polyphenols, that mattered. You would spend your entire day in the bathroom trying to cram food in and get it out the other end, and you wouldn't get enough polyphenols. You actually can't do it. So what you're doing is you're using a lot of lab chemistry. And that thing you talked about with lipase earlier, which is those are enzymes that digest fat. And as you would imagine, there's hundreds of different lipases that digest different types of fat. So there's like a bunch of locks and a bunch of different keys and unlock them. So we're saying as well, we got all of that stuff dialed in, so we got what we wanted out of it. And this is stuff your digestive system simply couldn't do. And this is one of those biohacking things. And this may be like, what are you talking about? Look, you go back a thousand years, and you were to go to a pharmacy in ancient China, and they had a bunch of jars or bowls or ceramic whatevers full of powders, because that was the best they could do. And what did they do? They would make tea which is a hot water extract. We're just taking those very old ideas and accelerating them with our knowledge of how the world works. So you can get something that tastes good and something that works better than just eating a bunch of mushrooms off a tree that would probably actually be bad for you. So this is just an evolution of history, but it's pretty high tech and the results are better than you could do if you just ate a bunch of stuff.

And just another note on collagen, we didn't add it just for flavor. Back to cofactors. Collagen are key for repairing the brain. There's a lot of studies that have come out just showing the skin's taken all the limelight on the power of collagen. And Dave, again, you've been instrumental at really putting collagen on the map. Not just in coffee, but in general. But there's incredible brain repairing benefits to collagen. And that's why we added, along with the other things as, as a cofactor. Again, the cofactor synergy component of supplementation cannot be underestimated. And we're going to prove that because the issue is, and you know this, Dave, in the supplement world, you have molecule creators and then you've got supplement companies. The supplement companies typically buy raw ingredients.

Right?

The right ingredients and put them together in formulas. There's nothing wrong with that. But there's a huge lack of research on combining things and what happens when you combine things. And that's what we're heavily focused on as a company. So we're really excited to bring again some of these research papers and patents to the world and share it, because I think it's going to open up some eyes. And Dave, you know this because you've been doing it for a long time. And that's why you take all the supplements you do and you combine things because it works. You know, when you start compounding different elements, you can produce exponentially better results. And Dave and I have done again neurofeedback and photobiomodulation, and you take nootropics like nootopia collagenius, and next thing you know, your brain's performing better than it ever has. And of course, if you're taking effort and you're pushing your brain through business or through learning or through neurofeedback, and you're feeding it all of these things, your brain just starts getting to a point that is beyond what it was at your. When you were 18 years old. And Dave, you're, you know, the poster Child, pun intended for that. So anyways, I mean, I'm excited.

I think it went from the short bus to the long bus, we'll put it that way. But I mean, it's hard to put words to it. What it's like when your brain doesn't work very well. And it's not like I wasn't smart when I was a kid. I think that I lost a bunch of it. But man, it's like being in a fog. And you really want your brain to work, but it just doesn't. And you're pushing as hard as you can and it just doesn't matter. It's like trying to run through mud. It just isn't there. And it's when you realize you can drop all the mud. And oh, now I actually get to learn how to run on a hard surface. And so part of it is like getting rid of the stuff that's built up and just getting to baseline. And I did that a long time ago. And you do that nutritionally. But then it's like, okay, now how do I, instead of just not running in mud, how do I run like an Olympic sprinter? And that's a different set of skills. And I think nootropics, they have the ability to get you out of the mud. Certainly they saved my bacon when I was my early 20s. My career's taken off and my brain is going in the wrong direction. And I still remember that $1200 package of pharmaceutical nootropics from Europe that took six weeks to get here. And they worked, right? And if I hadn't done that and learned about Provigil and all, I wouldn't have graduated from business school and all but a long time ago. I fixed my brain. And ever since then it's about how do I hack my brain? How do you actually actively tweak it and upgrade it? And that is something that is possible for everyone. And some people are really going to get into that. And other people are saying, you know, I actually wanted to trick out my, my sports car. It's the same kind of thinking, right? It's just like, where do you put your energy? And I gotta say, BDNF and mitochondrial activation are the two things you need after that you can tweak neurotransmitters. I think neurofeedback is very important. I do know that the first brain focused photobiomodulation device ever made, I had that. There were a hundred of them made and sold in a Yahoo group back when Yahoo groups still existed. And that thing Worked and I've been. That's why I have a photo by a modulation company. That's why true light exists. And it's not just brain focus, it's whole body. But that stuff matters. But I don't know where the cutover line comes from. You know I got my brain back to now it's an upgraded brain and I actually want to ask you that Mr. Newts what's your, what's your take on that? How do you know when you're just back to baseline versus you just went past baseline?

What if there was something you could.

Add to your water to make you perform better, have more energy and protect your cells from damage? Hydrogen is the smallest molecule in the universe and the only one that can get deep inside your cells, mitochondria and even your DNA. It fuels energy production, crushes oxidative stress and supports sharper brain function. Hydrogen's a gas so you can't take it as a pill.

So you either have to breathe it.

In or infuse it into your water. But your tap bottled or filtered water doesn't have it. That's why I use the Echo flask. Echo Flask is a hydrogen generator that uses advanced electrolysis and a proprietary proton exchange membrane to infuse your water water with pure hydrogen. No chemicals, no ph change, just therapeutic science backed hydrogen. I've noticed more energy, faster recovery, less inflammation and mental clarity that lasts all day. Go to ecowater.com dave and use code DAVE10 for 10% off your Echo flask. You'll feel the difference in days. You're listening to the human upgrade with Dave Asprey. What's your take on that? How do do you know when you're just back to baseline versus you just went past baseline?

I had an experience Dave this is great. I by the way I love this one. Is that it? You know it's a. It can sneak up on you if you're not self aware, if you're not testing dual and back or things like that can be really effective. At least get getting you. You know here's where I am and here's where I'm trying to go and these seem to be improving but the other, the other is when you talk about that recovering rejuvenating the brain and you mentioned it really well when, when I went from so I started smoking weed when I was in fifth grade and I quit when I was in seventh grade and I became a good.

Call Jesus early.

It was my. I've got older. Yeah. So my big brother who's One of my heroes convinced me to quit smoking weed and take up running. And Steve Prefontaine had dropped by our school a few years earlier, and so he was our, like, iconic guy. He was the guy behind Nike. And so I started running every day, started running every day and hardcore, like, run till you puke type running. After six months, I woke up one morning on a Saturday and my brain was finally clear. So I noticed the cognitive difference of smoking weed every day to six months of not smoking weed and running like a hardcore maniac and getting. Becoming a really good competitive runner. And suddenly my brain was clear. And that's kind of the. That's kind of the. That's the baseline 101. Right. But then there's the other one that you have. Where I was, I. I had just gone through a real collapse back in the early 90s. You and I talked about Dirk Pearson and Sandy Shaw. And I had, I had read the material, absorbed their material, started working with a bunch of interesting early stage nootropics.

And those are 1980s longevity, we'll say influencers, researchers, and also nootropic researchers. They call them smart drugs back then. So those are like the OG, the grandfathers of the OGs, basically.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Aren't they the founders of LEF?

Yeah, they created the Life Extension Foundation, I believe. But I don't think they're involved anymore.

No, no, I don't think so. It is. So I flew out to New York. I. So I spent six months and I got. I got really healthy. I went from being chronically sick, chronically sick mold, to being super healthy, thyroid performance. I flew out to New York to do a venture capital deal for a guy from my industry. And I remember walking into the room and I could. There was venture capitalists on one side, a couple of angel investors with him. There were movie theater owners on the other side of the table. And there were these two technologists that owned this laser technology company. And they wanted me to represent them because I had been through the business multiple times before and bought and sold and built an inc 501 out of that. And I'm looking at the room and you could kind of like read the room completely. And I just got up, I turned around, I grabbed a whiteboard marker, and I started writing. I had no idea what I was going to write. I had no idea what I was going to do. All I wanted to do was defuse the room and make a deal happen for these guys. And I had them LAUGHING in about 15 minutes and about A half an hour after that, we had them looking at what the term sheet might be. So I think that, you know, and by the way, I was. I went from being probably the saddest of my life to being the happiest of my life. Not because of that event before I got to that event, because my health was finally. And my neurological processes. We're finally back to a point where I could riff with really smart people and have fun and contribute to the conversation, not feel like I was being run over. And I think that's that kind of cognitive performance increase that we all look for. But we, and we may get sparks of it once in a while, but we don't know how we put it together. And one of the things we're dedicated to Utopia, right, is, is how do you program your state change? You can do that. You can go from sick to superhuman. You can, you can align yourself with the very specific neurochemicals that are going to give you the specific outcome for the specific time period you need to get the performance you need. And that's really, really when life gets really fun because you can do it for everything you do. Mind, body, energy, sex, sleep.

There's a feeling of effort, like you're trying, you're pushing. And, and then when you cross over that line, there's a sense of kind of effortlessness. There's a scene in probably the original Matrix, and I have to say that the final Matrix was a travesty of both filmmaking and storytelling. So we won't even talk about that one. But the first Matrix, there's a scene where he's fighting, like doing his whatever, full on, working really hard to beat the other guy. And then he just realizes something and he puts a hand behind his back and just completely fights with one arm. He's like, this is effortless. I'm not even trying. That's how it feels when you hit that next level and when you hit baseline, it's like when I push, I get there. And when you're like, I'm barely pushing and look at all this stuff move, that's when I feel like I crossed the line there. And for me, like writing books, thinking of things I don't have to try, it's just there. And so it's kind of like nootropics are a lubricant for thinking. They just remove friction and that's a powerful thing. There just aren't words for this, but it feels good. And you stack that with the 40 years of Zen and the other things that make Your metabolism stronger, so there's actually more raw power. And you have myelin, which is part of neurogenesis, that insulation on the nerves so that they have less electrical resistance. All of a sudden you're like, wow, I didn't know I could do this. And that's that flow state you want to see in professional athletes. They make it look effortless. They're doing these things that look impossible. And it's elegant. That's, to me, how it feels when I'm on the right type of nootropics for my brain and when I'm eating the right stuff and I'm not drinking alcohol, I'm not smoking pot, which I don't. Neither one of those is good for your brain. I don't like the way they make me feel. And I have yet to download the ability to fly a helicopter remotely in two seconds in the middle of a gunfight. But I'm going to get there. That's my plan.

Love it.

I love it.

Great metaphors. I want to share the scariest moment I had in that period after I got sober. I still remember to this day. It was in my previous place. And I had to write copy. I'm sitting at my computer screen and I'm literally. I cannot write copy. And keep in mind, like, I was a copywriter for years, and I would. I could write a sales letter in three hours, max, four or five. And for seven hours, I came up with one paragraph that. That was. That was kind of the bottom for me. Like, not. Not the bottom of drugs and alcohol, but the bottom of realizing, holy shit, my brain is damaged. Now, you asked a great question, Dave, which is, how do you know how your brain's improving? And one of the things you realize when you're doing neurofeedback is that your brain has no ability or not a very good ability to sense itself. It's almost like you would throw somebody in the gym that's pitch black, and you would tell them, hey, do this exercise. You can't see it. You don't have any feedback. A mirror is a feedback system. People are feedback systems. Neural feedback gives you the ability to show your brain how it's performing, what it's doing, what it's not doing. But there's other ways as well. And what I started doing was tracking how many words per minute I could write. And that does another thing to your brain, which I think every successful person does unconsciously, which is as soon as you make a decision that something's important and you create a ladder in Your mind that when you go to the next rung, you are winning and those are key points. You make a rung and you decide that climbing that ladder is winning and each rung is a win. You create the structure for dopamine loops. And dopamine loops is what drives us forward. Now, again, entrepreneurs typically genetically have higher dopamine naturally, but every human being, and this is even more important for people that aren't naturally motivated. And as a coach, and I used to coach people in weight loss, you take your goal, okay, you want to lose 100 pounds, okay, great. Let's create this ladder of five or ten pound targets. Let's make every pound a win. Let's make every successful meal a win. So you stack dopamine loops from big macro ones, okay, for two years, this is our objective. Then weekly, and then you have daily goals. And I think that's where gratitude habits and gratitude lists are so powerful because you're creating these heart, you're creating this ability to feel like you're winning on a daily basis. So when you start doing that with your brain, with any trackable activity, again, one, you're creating that dopamine loop, which is key. But two, if you start experimenting with nootropics and things like lion's mane, and you start tracking your brain speed, whether it's a P300 neurofeedback or any task that requires focus, it's really powerful because again, you're creating the right structure to improve because again, what gets measured will improve over time. And you're creating a split testing background with different neurochemicals and different compounds. Now I want to say too that to me, lion's mane is not a nootropic. It has incredible brain enhancing effect. But to me it's like brain food. It's like good fats and lion's mane. Like when people talk to me about nootropics, they say, well, you know, the basics are really good fats. You know, a lot of DHA for your brain. DHA is the key fat for the the brain. And then add lion's mane. To me, that's the base for a really good high performing brain. And then you can start playing and adding other things. Of course, you know, all the biohacks that Dave teaches that you teach Dave enhance mitochondria. And I think your book Headstrong is, you know, that's my favorite book that you wrote. It's a book that everybody should read because that's another element, but that's more on the energy Side, we're just talking about what makes up the brain, which is a lot of dha and what fuels the ability to create new neurons is bdnf. So feeding a DHA and BDNF to me is a beautiful combination that produces incredible results. So that's it.

Do you remember I probably mentioned it in one of my first books, the brain test that I used to first test Nootropics. No, it was a program called FreeCell. And this is a free game of solitaire that was on like early Windows things. You can still get it on an iPhone. And it's an interesting game because it's the only solitaire little card game where theoretically every game can be solved. But some of them are really hard to solve. And if you play one or two of them, you can sense, wow, today I'm really struggling. I just can't see it. But once you've played a dozen games, there's patterns. And this tests working memory and pattern recognition at the same time. So you're like, oh, that one just was effortless. And then this one, I had to work really hard on it. And so that was what first showed me that some days I was a zombie. It was an objective measure of how stupid I could be. And it turns out I was living in a moldy house. And then I'd eat the wrong thing and my inflammation go off the charts. And then I was just incapable of doing it with any speed at all. And then other days I'd try my first nootropics. I'm like, wow, look at that. Like I just sailed through it. So it was my sense of friction versus effortlessness. And I don't usually play freecell anymore, but there's lots of different ways you can do it. So you just pick something that requires some working memory and some concentration. And either you're good or you're not. Little arcade style video game. Same thing. If you play the same video game on your phone, some dumb little thing every day. If some days you die all the time and you fail, what's wrong with your brain? It's that straightforward. You should be able to do it the same way every day.

Another big one too is word recall, like tracking. How many times a day are you struggling to find a memory or find a word?

Should be zero. And it happens to me maybe twice a week. And each time like, whoa, that's so bizarre. What did I do that caused that? And it's usually sleep or toxin related. In fact, it almost always is another thing too.

That Dave's group does at Zen is brain scans. And they do a brain scan at the beginning of the week and another one at the end. And then when you go back, you do another brain scan. And the brain scans don't lie. Okay. These brain scans are using incredibly expensive high high tech EEG technology to measure exactly what's going on in your brain. It's essentially like an MRI level, but more on an electrical level. And which structures and regions of the brain are getting activated. And when you see the changes, the positive changes, where sometimes you want things to quiet down in certain parts of the brain, that's what meditation does. It helps shut down certain structures and regions that you don't want and then you see the activation of other ones. Or you can train the connection of different regions of the brain and that's where the cognitive functional capability boosting effects of 40 years of Zen are off the charts. You come out. And again, if you're feeding it things like call a genius, which by the way, we've sent some of our staff members at Zen recently and the whole Zen team was just devouring. Our team members call it genius. They loved it. But yeah, when you're feeding it things that call it genius. And again, the cordyceps are experiential. I just want to talk about cordyceps because we didn't talk about lion's mane non stop. I remember the first time I tried a 10 gram dose of cordyceps. I was in Vancouver. We were at a seminar with me and Wade and he says, hey, you want to try this? I did a 10 gram dose which is pretty high. I was energized in a big way, but not in an adrenaline noradrenaline cortisol type of way because it's more an ATP boosting effect fact through the oxygen transport, which is very different than just squeezing out more adrenaline out of our adrenal glands. So cordyceps is a really unique, powerful energy booster that again, you can just blend that with danger coffee and you get the combination of the positive adrenaline noradrenaline response from the coffee as well as with the ATP production. One more note too, on brain performance. I'll tell you, Dave, you know what blows my brain out more than anything else? And you know, there's plenty of research that shows this nitrous oxide, you know, I don't think I've tried nitrous oxide.

That was a really good automotive joke. I mean, come on.

No, no, you were on it, man, you were on it.

Anyways, so as far as what blows your brain out? It's stress. And why? Because it destroys your hippocampus. When you hit past a certain stress threshold, your hippocampus gets damaged and your short term memory gets, I mean mine gets obliterated. It's a night and day type of thing. And of course, when you build resilience in life, whether it's through doing 40 years of Zen work, meditation, or you feed it things like Magnesium Breakthrough, which is our best selling magnesium formula, which we done a podcast on. And that's a game changer on resilience because it helps counter a lot of the sympathetic fight, flight or freeze response that our nervous system can get trapped into at times. But reishi, Reishi is a phenomenal parasympathetic needle mover. Now, it's not as needle moving as magnesium in my opinion, but almost everyone reports a grounding calm feeling from Reishi when you start increasing the dose. And again we're using 100 to one extract on the reishi and it's powerful. So when you get the energy boosting the bdnf, the calm grounding effect, you get six to eight hours of focus and energy. That's very different than traditional nootropics to me. Again, this is more of a brain food than a traditional neurochemical enhancer, which is typically what most nootropics do. We have a special discount for everybody listening. If you go to nootopia.com davegenius we want to give a little shout out to Dave here.

Thanks man.

Yeah. Neutopia.com DaveGenius and the code is Dave10. I do believe the code is already pre programmed on the page and we have a special launch price discount and bulk discounts and all kinds of discounts on top of Dave 10, so, so go check it out. It's my personal favorite product for the last six months. And I'm not saying this because I'm here pitching it. It's my core thing that I wake up and do and been using to power my brain since Mr. Newts gave me the first mystery batch. You know, it's always a good day when Mr. Newts shows up with the mystery potion. I have to say it's one of my favorite things in the world. But yeah, at your event he gives me that. And then 30 minutes later I'm feeling this pleasant sparkling effect in my brain and I'm like, that's the bdnf. And you know when you really push bdnf and I've done major cycles of cerebral lysine which is a really powerful BDNF booster. But you have to inject that. Not everybody's willing to inject themselves with things. So I think lion's mane at this level of concentration and in combination with the other ones, there is no mushroom. If you calculate how much molecules you're getting for the price, there's no comparison. So again, utopia.com davegenius Dave 10 is the code. Special deals for everybody. And again, come Visit me and Mr. Newts at Dave's event. Really excited. Dave's been a game changer in my life and I think that he's building again the next generation of health leaders, which is everybody listening. I'm always mindful of you. Teach somebody one thing and then just, just by hanging out with their friends and family, they're talking about it, they're sharing it, then they get infected by the passion we have about health and then they talk to other people. And if we fast forward three, four generations, we've transformed the world from again, sick to superhuman, which is our mission at Bioptimizers.

So thank you, I love it. And just for listeners, there's all kinds of stuff you can do to make your brain work better, make your body work better. You don't have to do anything, it's your choice. And you should probably start with the stuff that's free, like learn how to sleep, maybe skip some breakfast already and then do the things that are most important for you. And it may be making your brain work better. I think it's really important. But honestly, if your thyroid's broken, maybe you ought to hit that first and then work on your brain. Right? But you don't need to have FOMO for it and you should do the things and try different things like I have for the last 25 years. I'm just doing my best here to curate a lot of really good stuff and to reject a lot of not really good stuff so that if I recommend something or I bring someone on the show after a lot of vetting like this, that you can at least know that it's worth your time to give it a try. And doesn't mean it's gonna work for you, it just means it has a much greater chance of working for you and you're much less likely to get screwed.

And Biotha budget has a one year, 365 day, no questions asked money back guarantee. We have. Our refund rate is sub 1.4% which Dave, as you're aware in E Comm, that's phenomenal, phenomenal in our space. So, yeah, 365 day guarantee, you can buy the products and hit us back and by our customer support answers every response in around 25 minutes. So we believe we have some of the best customer support in the entire industry and you're protected by our guarantee.

And it's freaking delicious.

It actually does taste good, which is great because like I said before, the mushroom coffee thing is I feel like it's kind of a gimmick. I would rather have minerals in my coffee. But hey, I do put minerals in the coffee I sell, so maybe I'm biased. I just like coffee that tastes good. And I do believe coffee tastes good with call of genius in it.

So there you go.

All right, guys, thank you for being on the show again. Thanks for continuing to innovate and do good stuff. And it's just really important that we have some quality supplements out there that are made with care and with scientific rigor because there's too many people who can just throw some stuff together in their garage and then try and sell it. And you've got a lot of supplement companies now that are owned by the largest pharmaceutical and big food companies in the world. Some of the brands that people think are like all hippie and natural are owned by companies you wouldn't believe. So you guys are a young company, you're lean, you're mean in a good way and in doing stuff there. And that's what I'm looking for. All the supplements I talk about on the show are efficacious, they work, and they're from companies that are worth paying attention to. So thanks again.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dave.

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey.

The Human Upgrade, formerly Bulletproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider carefully, read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.