How To Dominate Cognitive Tasks, Think Faster And Get More Done.

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Hey folks, if you've been listening to the podcast for a couple of months, then you know that I recently spoke at the Bulletproof Biohacking Conference and I have to admit that I had just flown in from racing the Vermont Spartan Beast when I spoke at that conference and I was a little bit jet lagged, I was a little bit tired, I was slightly below my desired cognitive capacity prior to hopping on stage. So as I was wandering through the expo prior to getting on stage to speak, I thought, well, why not just try some newfangled smart drug that I've never tried before as one does. So as you'd probably suspect, I don't necessarily advise getting on stage in front of hundreds of people with some new nutraceutical in your body you've never tried before. But I occasionally live life on the wild side. So I grabbed a handful of this stuff called Siltep, which is basically a mix of artichoke extract and forskolin and a few other things we'll probably talk about in today's podcast. I wash it down with a glass of water and then I gave my presentation and lo and behold, I did not get sick, I did not vomit, I did not die. Things went pretty well during the presentation, but ultimately I got an email a few weeks later from the folks at Natural Stacks who are the developers of siltap. And they asked me if I was interested in interviewing their co founder, this guy named Roy Krebs. And Roy is a former college football player, he is an ex sushi chef and now he's in charge of helping to develop the smart drugs that Natural Stacks makes and design strategies for hard charging individuals individuals to mentally dominate their cognitive tasks. So he sounded like a pretty interesting guy to interview and I figured I would get him on the show for you guys to listen into. So Roy is right here with me today. Roy, what's up man?

Yeah, hey Ben, thanks for having me on.

Yeah, no problem. So I know you've kind of got a varied background, but I'm interested how you got from being a college football player to being a developer and designer of smart drugs.

Yeah, I've done a lot and it's been an interesting background on How I came to starting natural stacks and working with nootropics and dietary supplements First, I don't like the word drugs.

We make dietary supplements. Well, actually we had a podcast a couple weeks ago where we talked about the difference between neurotropics and smart drugs. And I know they're different. I haven't really gotten out of the habit of just using the two words in the same vein. But yeah, I guess technically celtap, for example, is a neurotropic, not a smart drug. Right, sure.

A nootropic are just a dietary supplement. Drugs are designed to treat a disease and we're not doing that.

Gotcha.

Drugs are regulated by the fda. We are not. So yeah, natural dietary supplements. And actually our flagship product, Siltep, was designed by Abelard Lindsey in really an interesting way that's quite different than how other dietary supplements are developed. So Abelard is a senior programmer in Silicon Valley and has been extremely dedicated to brain hacking and medical research for probably about 10 years. And so the way that Ciltep was developed is he found some medical studies, some kind of thrown away past medical studies that showed a synergy between these two natural ingredients, artichoke extract and forskolin. And he posted the concept onto an online forum, longestity.org yeah, I've heard it's.

Like an anti aging forum. Right, right.

A bunch of people that are trying to live forever.

I've been there a few times. It's incredibly nerdy and at the same time extremely fascinating. It's just like a ton of rabbit holes.

You can go down a ton. Yes. And there's just a lot of, a lot of it is research based, which is what I like, and a lot of antidotes of people experiencing things for themselves and explaining how that works. So he posted the concept, he posted some medical studies and the concept of Siltep onto the forum. And this was about three years ago. And since then it's become a very popular thread. It went viral. Tim Ferriss picked it up, Dave Asprey knew about it. And over about two or three years, thousands of people in that community, in the hardcore nootropics community tried different ratios in different formulas of Siltep until it got to what it is today. So really there was thousands of people who had tried it for themselves before we even brought it to market, which is really cool. We have this community developed product that was proven before we even released it.

Just because all these different people on Longest Hitty and all these biohackers were out using it and Talking about it.

Yeah. And they were experimenting for themselves. So we were able to discover, okay, this amount of. Of artichoke is maybe a little too much. And they refined the formula over a few years. So it's not like we just chose some random ingredients and threw it together and said, this is going to work for you. It went through three years of testing by all these hardcore biohackers before we released it. Yeah.

And do you consider yourself kind of well versed in enhancing cognitive performance specifically? I mean, how did you come to find smart drugs as something that you're interested in? I mean, is this something that you've taken. Taken on as a passion? Is thinking faster and enhancing mental performance?

Yeah, definitely a passion. I started getting into dietary supplements and nootropics because I was an entrepreneur and I was working from home and just was having trouble getting through the to do list and being focused and getting a lot of stuff done without much structure. And so I started looking at entropics and was trying some things for myself and actually discovered Siltep. And that's when I got a hold of Abelard and we met for lunch in Silicon Valley and I talked about my vision for a company that would be very simple, transparent, all natural ingredients, premium stuff, all based on science, no fluff. And he liked the vision and we decided to work together and started natural Stacks.

I want to hear about some of the other strategies that you have for enhancing cognitive performance because I know you've dug into this stuff quite a bit. But before we delve into the things that go beyond neurotropics or smart drugs or whatever we're going to call them, you talked about the ingredients in this siltep stuff like artichoke extract and forskolin. And on previous podcasts we've talked about aniracetam and pyraxid and fish oil and Chinese adaptogenic herbs and all these ways that one can increase cognitive performance. But we haven't actually talked about those two ingredients before that artichoke extract and forsgolin. Just for the nerds who are listening in, can you tell exactly how those work on a cognitive level?

Yeah, yeah. And that's what makes Siltep unique from what's out there already, is that it's, it's non stimulatory, so it doesn't have any sort of jitters or anxiousness that come along with a lot of other nootropics or smart drugs. Artichoke extract, we can get a little nerdy, but artichoke extract is a PDE4 inhibitor. And PDE4 naturally breaks down C amp, which are the secondary messenger systems inside of your neurons. And Forskolin increases camp. So you're increasing.

You're keeping CAMP elevated by inhibiting the enzyme that would normally break it down. Correct.

And you're also increasing CAMP with the Forskolon.

And what is camp?

Camp are the secondary messenger systems inside of your brain cells. So this enables your neurons to communicate more quickly and retain more information. And so what I like to say is it helps you be more engaged and efficient at whatever mental task you're doing at the time.

I've never actually talked about C amp before in that context. I've talked about camp actually in my book Beyond Training, about how it's involved in mitochondrial signaling and specifically in aerobic performance. And one of the ways to upregulate mitochondrial density is to increase CMP via high intensity interval training. I really wasn't aware that it can also be used as a way to enhance mental function, however. So does it increase mitochondrial activity in the brain in the same way that it does in the muscle? Is it working on a different respect in the brain?

Yes, yes, absolutely. It's definitely a performance enhancer.

Okay, gotcha. But in the respective neural tissue, you're talking about mitochondrial density, your mitochondrial activity.

This is happening inside of your neurons and it strengthens the connection between the brain cells.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. And then, so that is what the. You said, that's what the force. Go on. Or that's what the artichoke does.

So the 4 squalin increases cm and the artichoke slows down the degration of cm.

Okay, gotcha. Have you ever looked into what effect this supplement has on exercise performance? I'm just curious because CAMP is so integral to exercise performance specifically for aerobic activity, that I'd be curious if it has an effect.

Absolutely. Our main customer base so far has been main cognitive performers. And these are lawyers, professionals, students. But we are starting to get quite a few antidotes back from athletes. Specifically. I've been talking with some professional baseball players who are using Siltep before training. I've heard other just quote unquote, normal people who are using Siltep as a pre workout and are able to get personal best and also football players who are taking it before games. And I think it's a mix of focus and concentration and mental. But also. Yeah, on the physical side as well, they're seeing some benefits there.

Interesting. Yeah. And in the past I've talked a little bit about forskolin before as being something to take prior to workouts for enhancing the basically the activation of muscle contractions through some of that C amp upregulation. But I'd never really heard of using something like this prior to a workout. So that's how Siltep works. And you guys develop Siltep and you launch Siltep as part of some of these supplements that you do through natural stacks. But I'm interested about some of the other things that you found along the way that go above and beyond just like supplementation when it comes to enhancing your performance via the use of anything from like lifestyle strategies to thinking strategies, et cetera. So do you have top strategies that you yourself use or you recommend to the people that you work with for cognitive tasks?

Sure. For actually both developing supplements and in business in lifestyle, I've found that first identify the rate limiter. So what's slowing down your performance. And when it comes to supplements, it's typically absorption. So all of our supplements are designed to optimize absorption. And so our creatine product has fenugreek extract and salt which help with absorption. And our magnesium has the forms of magnesium that have shown to have the highest absorption and that has made the supplements more effective. The same concept is used with business or cognitive performance in general is kind of the 8020 rule where you find out what's causing the most results and what's slowing you down, what's the rate limiter and just avoiding that at all costs and increasing the things that you're actually good at.

Okay, can you give an example or a few examples of how that would actually work in terms of finding your or identifying your rate limiting step?

Sure. So personally, I guess starting a business, we're just all over the place. And once I've been able to identify, okay, what's taking me the most time and what's actually producing the most results. And I've discovered several tasks that I'm doing every day that, that are really slowing me down on my rate limiter. And I've been able to outsource those to employees and really focus on the core stuff that I need to be working on.

Like what?

Like making larger deals with distribution, figuring out the next product, finding the rate limiter on the next dietary supplement we're going to create so we can put the best thing out there.

So when someone's identifying the rate limiting step, let's say they're like whatever, working on their computer at their job throughout the day, are you talking about just like organically Thinking, hey, this is taking me more time than it really should, or I'm not enjoying this and it's taking extra cognitive horsepower. Or are you talking about using some kind of a software or program to quantify and track what it is that you're wasting time on or wasting cognitive effort on?

Yeah, you almost need to step back. If you're trying to do it organically, you may not notice it. So it's great to track what you're doing during the day. If it's just a quick, on a notepad, writing, okay, I took 30 minutes to do this, this took me two hours. And then at the end of the day, going back and then looking at it from a different perspective. When you're in the, in the battlefield trying to work, you may not notice the stuff that you're wasting time on. So yes, it's best to use some sort of software or just take quick note on what you've done and then seeing how long things are taking you.

Got it. So you're not using like a phone app or a piece of software or anything like that?

I'm not.

I've heard of one that it's. I forget the name of it. It's like Manage time or Rescue time? Yes, Rescue time. Yeah. You ever used that before?

I have, but I found that it might be good to use it to kind of get to figure out what you need to be doing. But then once you figure that out, you may not need to be using it.

Okay, got it. What's another strategy that you use in addition to just identifying what your rate limiting step is?

Well, just the first thing before you want to do anything is making sure that you're getting some quality sleep. You're going to be really slowed down the next day if you don't get a good night's sleep. So I found that to be just. Most important is making sure that you have some deep, deep sleep. And I'm sure you've shared some strategies for that. Blackout curtains, no stimulants, four, five, six hours before you're trying to sleep, making sure that you can fully relax, focus on your breathing and just let go when you're going to sleep.

Do you use any apps for sleep, like phone apps, Binaural, beats any of that kind of stuff. Like, do you use technology to help you sleep or do you use earthing, grounding, magnets? Any of these newfangled technologies that were all around us down at that bulletproof conference?

A little bit. I'm pretty light on technology. I use a sleep induction mat sometimes, but I use that more if I'm just trying to relax during the middle of the day, maybe take a quick rest? I have used the app sleep cycle to just track total amount of sleep and my cycle when I'm waking up, when I might be sleeping lightly. And that was really helpful to just get an understanding of how my natural sleep cycle works. Personally, I. I tend to go to sleep around, I'd say between 11 and 1, and I typically wake up around 9. I'm in a pretty nice position where I haven't had to use an alarm clock for years, which has let me just kind of figure out my natural time to wake up. And I found that really to be effective.

Interesting. So when you go to bed between 11pm and 1am, are you concerned at all about that being too late, like disrupting your ability to get into more deep sleep stages by shifting that night clock too far forward versus like a 9:30 or a 10pm bedtime? Yeah.

I've noticed that if I'm pushing a little too late, then I almost get into a new zone where I'm getting very focused again at maybe 1am and I want to keep working. So I found it a little bit better to go to sleep between 11 and midnight if I can. I haven't really been able to go to sleep earlier. 9 or 10 ish. I guess my cycle is all right. When I wake up at around 9, I'll have a bulletproof coffee in the morning and I don't eat lunch until 2 or 3 in the afternoon and then I won't eat dinner until eight or nine.

Yeah, yeah.

So my cycle's kind of late.

One of the best ways to shift that cycle back is blue light. If you can wake up earlier and then blue light box, like use a blue light box or blue light light bulbs or get out in the sunlight early and then just shift to complete red light in the evening. We covered this on a podcast a few weeks ago. You can actually shift your circadian rhythm, really into whatever time zone that you want it to be in. So it's a good idea.

I've actually recently upgraded my office. I have all different colors going from all directions. I have one in my ceiling with the remote and so I do have it on blue right now. And then I have a light strip which has the same different color options. So I have been playing around with that and trying to get really red and orange later in the day. And I'm up here in Seattle. I know you're pretty close as well. Spokane Is that right? Mm, yep. And it's starting to get dark early on.

Yeah, well, you have the combination of the dark at night and then the gray all day long. You know, sunshine is not a very, very hot commodity over there in Seattle. So you've got identification of things that might actually be rate limiting steps in your day to day activity. You've got increased amounts of sleep. What's another way that we can get things done faster or another way that we can dominate cognitive tasks?

Sure. So you got to be in the zone and you got to be in the right mindset when you sit down to really do your work. And for me, that's. Ciltep has helped me dramatically along with a little bit of caffeine and also creatine for the mental benefits. And then just I like to minimize stimulants and just a little bit of caffeine and avoid all other stimulants throughout the rest of the day. I found that it doesn't help with focus at all. It helps with energy, but not focus. So getting in the zone, and I think we'll talk about this in a bit, is the routine to get into that zone. But another way to get into the zone is just making sure you have a comfortable workplace and that means somewhere with limited distractions. So then again, you can use, you can use apps to limit social media usage. You can use apps like Rescue Time. You can use apps to limit your email to come in at certain times during the day.

What do you think about a light amount of attractions or distractions rather, you know, such as working at a coffee shop to get a little bit of kind of like a buzz in the air as you're working, a little bit of sound, like background noise.

I'm not the biggest fan of coffee work I can find that if I go into a co working space or a coffee shop, I can be really productive for maybe an hour, hour and a half, but then it really kind of tails off and it gets distracting for me. So I can quickly get into the zone there when I see there's a lot of other people around working and things are. There's a light buzz around, but for me, I can't really sustain that. I work better for longer periods of time if I'm in a quiet space with less distraction.

What about these sounds or music? Like there's like a focused. I forget the name of it. It's like a Focus app or it's not the upgraded Focus. That's the brain trainer that Dave Asprey sells. It's a website that allows you to select music that's important to.

I use that as well. Focus at Will is what it's called.

Yes, Focus at Will. What do you think about using background sounds, noise like that to get you into the zone?

I like Focus at Will. I think it's great. And I also sometimes play some light music, but for me it depends on the task. So certain things like writing and researching, when I'm really reading intensively, music doesn't help me. It's a little bit distracting. But when I'm doing other tasks, maybe it's a little more big picture stuff or thinking or trying to come up with new ideas. Then sometimes music does help me. So I think that depends on the task.

Do you have like on a day to day basis, the practice of following a routine, or are you one of those people who's more into randomness when it comes to getting into the zone?

You know, for me it's really a mix of both and maybe I lean more towards randomness. I always start the day with a routine and I find that that routine really helps me get into the zone. And then once I finish my routine and I get into my zone, then I work really complete random different things that whatever kind of hits my flow. So. So my routine in the morning is I'll wake up with no alarm. I immediately go take some ciltep. I make my bulletproof as I'm heating water for my coffee, I'll go on to my. I do a light stretch and movement of my body, loosen up what's tight and then I'll jump on an inversion table and hang upside down.

I was actually. That's so random. We didn't talk before this, but I was just hanging from an inversion table for like 10 minutes before we recorded.

So was I.

For me, it was because I was on an airplane yesterday and I find I get a lot of spinal compression. And so when I hang from that inversion table, it applies traction to all my joints, re. Lengthens my joints after long periods of time spent sitting. But it also of course, increases blood pressure to the head, increases the building of capillaries in brain tissue, and makes you feel a little bit smarter when you start your day. That's really cool that you use that as a. As a routine.

Yeah, I've been doing it almost every day for probably three or four months now, and I found it highly effective. So.

Right.

Yeah, right after I wake up, I jump on it, I do some light stretching just to loosen up a little bit and then hang upside down for 10 or 15 minutes. And like you said, it just opens up all your joints in your back. And then you get this just rust of energy into your head. And when I stand back up again, I just feel amazing. And I'm kind of ready to do anything. And I'm standing up very straight. I'm sitting straight. I'm very open to what's next.

Plus, you can do inverted sit ups, just like James Bond or Sylvester Stallone.

I haven't tried that yet.

Yeah, you should. Actually. I'll hang for about two minutes and then I'll do like five, 10 setups and hang for another couple minutes. It's. It kind of can turn it into a little bit of a workout. So you've got your inversion table, your celtap, your bulletproof coffee, anything else that you do before you start into your day's routine.

I might listen to one or two songs just to get the mood feeling good. And then after that, I'm just ready to attack. And I can sit down and work for five, six hours uninterrupted. I do like to take 10 or 15 minute breaks every hour. You know, stand up, do some stretching, walk around a little bit, whatever it is, play with my dogs. But just breaking up the tasks, I'd say every 50 minutes, if you can take 10 minutes off, really helps you get back in the zone again. Yeah.

Are you familiar with that new research on the technique that you just described? This? Well, they call it the pomodoro technique. Of course, you know, 25 minutes on, five minutes off. Are you familiar with the new research they did on the ideal minute versus break time?

No. What's the ideal minute break?

It's 52 minutes on, 17 minutes off. So that's like the ideal work scenario if you were gonna, if you're gonna do that, that on off type of strategy. I think 17 minutes. I think personally, 17 minutes seems a little bit long, but 52 minutes on, 17 minutes off is the ideal productivity schedule. Lifehacker website did a big story on this based off of the most recent research. So it's interesting. And you can of course use a stopwatch or a timer. There's one called the marinara timer, which works really well. To set the ideal ratio of pomodoro techniques lets you set any number. 25, 5, 30, 10, whatever. But you can also set it for, for 52 on 17 off. So that's supposed to be the ideal time?

Yeah, it's pretty close. I've been doing about 50 minutes, but again, I don't like to be so strict with it. You know, if I'm really in the zone, I'm working on something, I don't want to break it up. And other times if I'm having trouble staying in that zone, then I need to take a break, maybe after 20 minutes. So I like to keep that a little bit random and not put it on a drill sergeant schedule.

Yeah, I hear you. So what about to do lists? Do you use to do lists or do you just kind of flow with whatever comes across your plate for that day?

Yeah, it's the same. It's a mix of both. So I do use to do lists definitely every day at the beginning of the day or even the night before, I'll write a list of a to do list for the day. And it's typically about three to five items. Of course, I'm doing more than three to five things during the day, but these are the three to five items that definitely need to get done that day. But the interesting that I found thing that works the best is that I won't create an order for the to do list. I don't have a priority for the to do list. So these are the three to five things that need to get done. But I don't say this one needs to be done first, this one needs to be done second. And then I work on those items based on my mood and based on my flow and based on what my mind is geared to do at the time. So I try to take advantage of my natural mindset and do what it wants to do and I find that to be highly effective. I might be in the mindset where it just feels best to do this certain task at the time. And the other task, I really don't really want to do that now, and I'm not going to force myself to do it first thing.

Do you use a strategy of putting specific task categories onto specific days? For example, like I Tuesdays are the day that I shoot videos. And so whenever I have anything associated with video, video editing, video shooting, video setup, anything like that, that all goes on to Tuesday's task list. And nothing to do with videos is allowed to distract me on any day other than Tuesday or reviewing my clients nutrition logs, that's only on Saturdays that I do that. So if someone sends me their diet for the week on Monday, this sounds cruel, but they have to wait until Saturday to get feedback because Saturday is the day that I'm able to devote my cognitive energy because I've identified that as my time to review nutrition Logs. So do you do anything like that? Like have specific categories for each task on specific days?

No, not exactly. I found that if I look back through my to do list, they're all kind of random and I haven't been able to categorize it like that. I can see how that could be efficient. Get yourself in one zone and stick with that zone.

I use Monday as the free day. Monday is the catch all day for all the things that don't fall into the categories of the other days. So you can have a catch all day too with that strategy.

Right, right. And Monday's probably good for that. There's kind of always a few headaches going on on Monday.

Well, that's the question I get a lot. And I'm curious how you deal with this. Like emergencies. Right. So you set up your to do list and you allocate all your time and then there's the emergency that comes across the website crashes or all of a sudden you find out you have to do something, you know, like whatever, fix an app or go to a meeting or you know, whatever even go, you know, clean up a flooded basement or whatever. Like do you have, do you have days or tasks or do you allot time to allow for emergencies?

No, I don't. I just fit them in as they happen. And I think allowing the to do list to be simple and no more than three to five things will let you fit in just some normal day to day stuff in emergencies and then take that on and attack the emergency. And I like to just make sure that whatever the emergency is, that it's fixed immediately and put all my attention on it. And then once that's done, I'll kind of go back to my routine, back.

To my to do list. Get it out of your head. Yeah, I think that that's a really good point is when you're putting together your to do list for each day, put together slightly less than what you know you could do.

Right.

It's a very good strategy because stuff will inevitably come up and if it doesn't, then great. You've got an extra, you know, whatever, 45 minutes to watch Shark Tank on Hulu or whatever it is.

I like Shark Tank.

I do too. I bring that up because that's like the one TV show I'll watch.

I like to keep it for the most part. I keep it pretty random and I like to, if I'm just kind of randomly pull the trigger and say let's go out and get some dinner or I'm going to go On a walk right now and keep it as random as I can. I think having the mindset that I can do that helps me stay in my routine for longer and helps me get back into my routine.

Yeah. Now I've heard through the grapevine that you're into float tanks and sensory deprivation and I'm curious how it is that you use that. I just want to hear the routine. Do you use supplements beforehand? I know some people will get high and go do sensory deprivation so they get better visions. Some people stay in there for a long time, some people for a short time. What's your routine when it comes to float tanks and sensory deprivation?

Yeah, totally. I love floating and actually just scheduled a float for tomorrow morning. Shout out to Float Seattle. They're my go to place and they have a great, very comfortable start to finish experience. And their staff is always great. But I like to float at least I'd say twice a month. And I typically do it in the morning. I find that it really sets up my whole day to be very productive and opens my mind to some new things. So I use it to just unplug and recharge the battery. Kind of clear your mind and just let new thoughts and new ideas come into your mind.

So it's kind of similar to going to the gym. You just like get up in the morning before you go to work. You just go lay inside a dark chamber floating that mineral enhanced water for X number of minutes.

Yeah, exactly. And the typical float is maybe 60 minutes. And now I've gotten to the point where I'm really enjoying a little bit longer, maybe 90 minutes.

That seems like a lot of time, like to be able to. You're doing that every day or just.

No, no, no. I'd say twice a month.

Okay, I gotcha. I was like, that's a. That's a long routine for every morning.

Wow. So it's. I definitely like to do it if I could, maybe once a week. But it. It seems that I'm doing it maybe twice a month. And I like to do it kind of earlier in the week if possible and first thing in the morning. So for me, I've had the best results on a completely empty stomach. No food, no coffee, just water.

Do you use your siltet before you go in there into a flow tank?

Sometimes. Sometimes I do. And there's quite a few float centers now that are actually selling siltet because people enjoy it. I find with ciltep it helps me organize and flow thoughts quickly and efficiently while I'm in The tank. But other times I enjoy just floating with no supplements, no food, no outside influences. And I think that's a really pure experience where you can just. Whenever a thought comes into your head, you can just release it very quickly and then just wait for epiphanies and new ideas to come out.

Yeah. And for people who aren't familiar with floating, you said this place you go to in Seattle is Float Zone.

Float Seattle.

Is that floatzone.com? is that the one in Seattle that you go to?

No, I think it's floatseattle.com.

Okay, floatseattle. I'll put a link in the show notes for folks. But if you don't know what floating is, basically you visit any of these floating centers and you go inside this dark chamber that's filled with water that's literally like the mineral content of, you know, something similar to the Dead Sea, so it's impossible to sink. And you just lay there, suspended in this watery medium, floating in darkness and isolation and silence, left to your own thoughts and introversions and introspections. And you typically can come up with some good ideas or some personal insights that you would normally not have been able to if you were just say, like maybe on a walk in the forest or something like that. It's a very interesting form of sensory deprivation.

I found it highly effective. And if someone hasn't tried it, I recommend that they do. And a lot of these float places have a first timer deal where you can get in there for your first time for a cheap rate and just try it out. And most people just have a profound experience. It's just you and yourself, you know, you can kind of hear your heartbeat, but nothing else. So there's a thousand pounds of magnesium salts in one float tank. So like you said, it's highly buoyant. And the water is supposed to be the same temperature as your skin. So it's completely dark. There's no sound. You can't really feel anything because the water is the same as your skin. There's no tension because you're so buoyant that all your muscles are completely relaxed. And so it's just you and your brain for 60 or 90 minutes. And some pretty interesting things could come out of there.

Yeah, I think it's really cool. All this stuff is. And I mean, if you step back and look at some of the things that we've talked about just in the past half hour, Roy. Some of the things that folks who have listened and have learned have been about how to use things like artichoke extract and Forskolin the the focusing music that we talked about that you could use in the background like Focus at Will or this Rescue Time app to make sure that you're not doing tasks that are distracting you and that are dominating your time. Use an inversion table. Hang from that. Even if it's just for me, I just do it twice a week for about five to 10 minutes. Roy does it every day. But if you don't have an inversion table, get one. They're cool.

Yeah, it's about 100 bucks on Amazon.

Oh yeah, Some people, like pay you to come home away for free. You can use a timer like the marinara timer for pomodoro techniques. Once a month or twice a month, try a float like Roy does. That's a really good idea too. If you're listening in. This just seems like a list of stuff. I put a list together as we were talking. And if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com ThinkFaster@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Thinkfaster you can see some of the show notes too, some of the things that Roy and I have discussed. But is there anything else that you want to share with folks? Roy, about productivity, thinking faster or enhancing cognitive performance?

I think we covered a lot of it. I would just say do your best to stay in that zone is just to remove negativity and be positive and try to get something done every day. And every day should have a purpose. And, and if you have any sort of negativity holding you back, then it's going to really hurt you. So just stay positive and know that you're doing something productive and help yourself do that by trying to get to the zone with these tips.

Cool. Well, thanks, Roy. It's fascinating stuff. And again, if you're listening and you can visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com ThinkFaster to check out all the shownotes and the resources for today's episode. You can also go to. If you want to try the siltep stuff, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com SILTEP C I L T E P to try some siltep. And Roy, thanks so much for coming on the call, man.

Yeah, awesome. Had a great time.

All right, folks, this is Ben Greenfield and Roy signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com visit.

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